June 15, 2006
Tata Group
recognized as one of the 2006 Global Most Admired Knowledge
Enterprises (MAKE)
The Winners of the 9th
annual Global Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study have been announced by
Teleos and TATA Group (primarily due to Tata Steel & TCS) has been named as one of the
winners of this coveted award. Toyota is the overall Global MAKE Winner".
This is the first time that
the Tata Group has been named a Global MAKE Winner. As per the summary report available
Tata Group was rated high in two of the following knowledge dimensions
Developing knowledge
workers through senior management leadership (8th place)
Creating an environment
for collaborative knowledge sharing (13th place)
According to Mr. Rory
Chase, MD, Teleos, Tata Steel and Tata Consultancy Services received a similar number of
nominations from the 2006 Global MAKE expert panel. Most of Tata Steel's nominations
(approx. 90%) were from 2006 Global MAKE expert panel members located in Asia.
Tata Steel received
particularly high scores in the following knowledge performance dimensions:
Creating a learning
organization
Delivering value based on
customer knowledge
Areas where Tata Steel can improve are:
Maximizing enterprise
intellectual capital
Transforming enterprise
knowledge into shareholder value
According to the 2006
Global MAKE Report, European knowledge-driven organizations are failing to keep pace with
their Asian and North American counterparts, and more organizations are relying on
innovation for the competitive advantage.
The winners of the 2006
Global MAKE study, conducted by Teleos in association with The KNOW Network, are (in
alphabetical order):
• Accenture
• Apple Computer
• BHP Billiton
• Buckman Laboratories
• Dell
• Ernst & Young
• Fluor
• Google
• Hewlett-Packard
• Honda Motor
• McKinsey
• Microsoft
• Novo Nordisk
• PricewaterhouseCoopers
• Samsung Group
• Sony
• Tata Group
• 3M
• Toyota Motor Corporation
• Unilever
Rory Chase, managing
director of Teleos, said: "These organizations have been recognized as global leaders
in effectively transforming enterprise knowledge into wealth-creating ideas, products and
solutions. They are building portfolios of intellectual capital and intangible assets
which will enable them to out-perform their competitors now and in the future."
A panel of Global Fortune
500 senior executives and internationally-recognized knowledge management/intellectual
capital experts chose the 2006 Global MAKE Winners. The panel rated organizations against
the MAKE framework of eight key knowledge performance dimensions which are the visible
drivers of competitive advantage and intellectual capital growth.
The 2006 Global MAKE
Winners have been recognized as leaders in:
• creating a corporate knowledge-driven culture
• developing knowledge workers through senior management leadership
• delivering knowledge-based products/solutions
• maximizing enterprise intellectual capital
• creating an environment for collaborative knowledge sharing
• creating a learning organization
• delivering value based on customer knowledge
• transforming enterprise knowledge into shareholder value
January 24, 2006
Tata Steel is selected as a Best Practice Partner by APQC –
Second Time for KM
THE American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC)
selected Tata Steel as one of the Best Practice Partners in the area of "Leveraging
Knowledge Across the Value Chain". The other organizations selected as best-practice
partners are Buckman Labs, Raytheon, Caterpillar, and the US Air Force Material Command.
All the Best Practice Organizations has been recognized on January 24-25, 2006 at Houston
at the Knowledge Transfer Session.
The message received from
APQC is as follows:-
"Congratulations on
being selected as a best-practice partner in APQC's Leveraging Knowledge across the Value
Chain consortium benchmarking study! The study sponsors are impressed with the work Tata
Steel is doing and are eager to learn from your organization as we continue through this
study. The other organizations selected best-practice partners are Buckman Labs, Raytheon,
Caterpillar, and the US Air Force Material Command."
APQC is involved in conducting consortium benchmarking study on various business
processes. They have a structured methodology for identifying and selecting "Best
Practice Partner" for a particular consortium benchmarking study. In the process they
have identified Tata Steel as one of the potential best practice partners and after one
and a half hour of teleconferencing APQC prepared a case study for Tata Steel which was
then discussed with the sponsors of the benchmarking study. After going through the case
study of each potential partner, sponsors select the best practice partner.
All selected Best Practice Partners share their practices with sponsors and with each
other through a virtual site visit and the cycle finishes with one and a half day
Knowledge Transfer Session (KTS) in which Best Practice Partners present their case study
to all the participating organizations and APQC recognizes them at the end of KTS.
December 6-7, 2005
An International Symposium on Knowledge Management was organised
at Jamshedpur on December 6-7, 2005
 The Indian Institute
of Metals, Jamshedpur and Tata Steel have jointly organized a 2-day symposium on KM at
Jamshedpur on Dec 6-7.”Knowledge Management – The key differentiator for
Leaders” was the main theme of the symposium.
While inaugurating, MD, Mr.B Muthuraman, remarked that in today’s business, knowledge
is useful only if it is manifested. He stressed that creating a culture of innovation and
allowing the freedom to fail are the basic  ingredients to create a successful KM
system in any organization. DMD(S), Dr.T Mukherjee, in his thematic speech addressed the
gathering saying “systematic application of knowledge and agile decision-making
ultimately helps the company and the country to develop.”
There were 150 delegates from 45 organizations who gathered for the symposium. 4- Key note
addresses by eminent KM experts of India and 13 speakers from organizations spanning
almost all sectors of industry, e.g. manufacturing, IT, academia, chemical, power,
service, government, etc. – shared their best practice in KM. The 2-day symposium
culminated with a panel discussion (fig.2) attended by all seven MAKE India winning
organizations. The delegates joined hands in giving a standing ovation to the organizers
and expressed satisfaction over the 2 days of deliberation on the following four themes:
- Innovative ways of managing knowledge across
value chain
- Pragmatic understanding of KM –
converting concept into reality
- Transforming enterprise knowledge into
shareholder value
- Aligning KM with business needs
2nd August, 2005
Thrust on usage of knowledge assets through MASS
(Manthan ab shopfloor se)
 In order to promote
horizontal deployment of available knowledge assets existing in the KM site, a new
initiative was launched on 2nd August, 2005. This was inaugurated by Vice President (IR),
Mr Avinash Prasad. ‘MASS’ is an acronym derived from the hindi name
“Manthan Ab Shop-floor Se”. It is a time bound process where one employee
(supervisors from shopfloor) is chosen from selected departments for eight weeks. The
entire 8-week programme is facilitated by the core KM group and carried out in following
phases:
- Training and defining scope of work
- Searching of knowledge assets, harvesting with shopfloor employees and experts
- Identifying good practices
- Syndication with department and documentation
After completion of three
waves the initiative so far has clearly demonstrated the following benefits:
There is huge scope for horizontal deployment of available knowledge
within the company.
Some of the excellent ideas remain confined to their shell due to
inadequate thrust on proper knowledge transfer.
Structured guidance for a desired goal and interaction with different
departments & experts during the wave has helped a lot in changing the way our MASS
leaders think and has actually turned them into a real ‘Change Agent’ at
Shop-floor.
August, 2005
Tata Steel – winner of the first
Indian MAKE Award, 2005
For the first time in 2005,
The Teleos’ MAKE research program instituted Indian Most Admired Knowledge
Enterprises (MAKE) award in order to recognize organizations (founded and headquartered in
India) for their ability to create shareholder wealth (or in the case of public and
non-profit organizations to increase societal capital) by transforming new as well as
existing enterprise knowledge into superior products/services/solutions.
Tata Steel featured amongst the seven winners declared for this very first year of the
award. The 2005 Indian MAKE panel recognized Tata Steel for creating an environment for
collaborative knowledge sharing (1st place), and organizational learning (1st place).
The companies other than Tata Steel, who were declared winner (in alphabetical order) are:
Eureka Forbes, i-flex solutions, Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer Services, Tata
Consultancy Services and Wipro Technologies.
Dr. T. Mukherjee, Deputy Managing Director – Steel, on this achievement had the
following message to offer:
“Tata Steel has embarked aggressively on the journey of becoming Global Leader
with customer driven excellence, integrity and ethical behavior in all our transactions.
The rate of success in achieving and exceeding the global standards will be directly
proportional to how fast we acquire new knowledge and deploy the knowledge acquired over
last 100 years in the minerals and metals business, to all the existing and up-coming
units of Tata Steel. In this endeavor knowledge management initiatives and the modest
success that we have had over last few years instills us with confidence of achieving our
aspirations.”
July 2, 2005
Launch of Knowledge Debate; a mode of knowledge transfer
The concept of Knowledge
Debate was launched in Tata Steel in June 2005. The first debate was organized on
“Very soon there will be demand for Anti Bacterial Coated Steel Products in the
Global Steel Market.” For the first time ever, family members of the employees,
including children, were encouraged to take part in this debate.
The Knowledge Management Group of Tata Steel organized the final leg of the
above-mentioned debate on July 2, 2005. Eight teams out of fifteen participating teams
were selected for the final round.
The Chief Guest, Dr T Mukherjee, Deputy Managing Director, Steel, appreciated the spirit
of the debate.
2nd March, 2004
TATA STEEL Launches ‘Knowledge Manthan’
 The KM programme,
which so far was primarily focused on officers and a few supervisors who were computer
savvy, was brought within the reach of other employees working at the shop floor through a
new initiative named Aspire Knowledge Manthan.(Churning of
Knowledge). This new initiative was launched by Dy. Managing Director (Steel), Dr T
Mukherjee on 2nd March, 2004. This is an initiative to capture and share the tacit  knowledge directly from the grass-root level. Knowledge Manthan is conducted
every month on certain selected topics (e.g. Motor, Leveling and alignment, Lubrication,
Water Treatment, etc.) in which supervisors from all corners of the plant including the
sister concerns of Tata Steel participate. They discuss and share their knowledge on a
common topic through various methods like Story-telling’ method or through case
studies to generate initial interest in the group. In order to facilitate the discussion,
all these Manthan sessions are chaired by one 'Champion' and an
‘Expert ’.
TATA STEEL Wins
MAKE ASIA 2004 AWARD
Tata Steel wins the prestigious Asian Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE),
2004 Award for the second consecutive year. This award was handed over to Tata Steel on
13th October,2004 at Seoul.
The official publication from
the Asian MAKE Award organizers states:-
“The 2004 Asian Most
Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) Winners were recognized before 1,000 business
executives during a special Awards Ceremony at the 5th World Knowledge Forum in Seoul,
Korea. The winners for 2004 Asian MAKE Award, other than Tata Steel are
(alphabetically):Canon (Japan), Honda Motor (Japan), Infosys Technologies (India), Kao
(Japan), Nissan Motor (Japan), Samsung Electronics (S. Korea), Samsung SDS (S. Korea),
Singapore Airlines (Singapore), Sony (Japan), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
(Taiwan), Tata Consultancy Services (India), Toyota Motor (Japan), Wipro Technologies
(India)
A panel of Asian Fortune Global 500 senior executives and leading knowledge management
experts selects the Asian MAKE Winners. In the Asian MAKE study there are three rounds of
consensus building. In the first round, members of the expert panel nominate enterprises
founded and headquartered in Asia. In the second round, each member of the expert panel
selects a maximum of three organizations from the list of nominations. Those organizations
selected by at least 10% of the expert panel are recognized as Asian MAKE Finalists. In
the third and final round, the Asian MAKE Finalists are ranked against each of the eight
knowledge performance dimensions which form the MAKE framework and are the visible drivers
of wealth creation:
- Creating an enterprise knowledge-driven culture.
- Developing knowledge workers through senior management leadership.
- Developing and delivering knowledge-based products/services/solutions.
- Maximizing enterprise intellectual capital.
- Creating an environment for collaborative knowledge sharing.
- Creating a learning organization.
- Delivering value based on customer knowledge.
- Transforming enterprise knowledge into shareholder value.
March, 2004
Tata Steel is the Best Practice Partner in Knowledge Management
Currently when knowledge
management is being increasingly recognized as a distinguishing feature among companies in
all sectors, Tata Steel has again proved that its KM Practices are one of the best in the
world.
The American Productivity quality Council (APQC) selected Tata Steel (the only Indian
Company) as the "Best Practice Partner in Knowledge Management" for its 14th
Consortium study. Out of several participants from all over the world only four companies
from India, USA and Mexico were selected to be a part of this study.
Most interestingly Tata Steel is the only steel company from world to get selected in this
competition. To qualify for this prestigious study, the Knowledge Management group of Tata
Steel underwent three rounds of screening survey including answering the questionnaires
and teleconferencing. After the selection, a two and half hours presentation on internet
and teleconferencing together was done by Tata Steel, where APQC had invited forty
participants from twenty-four organizations spread over five countries from USA and Europe
to listen to the presentation.
While commenting on the presentation APQC expressed that they are thrilled to have Tata
Steel in their study. They further said that participants listening to the presentation
shared opined that they enjoyed the presentation and are impressed with the work of Tata
Steel on KM practices.
August, 2003
Tata Steel wins
the MAKE ASIA 2003 Award
Tata Steel was the winner
of 2003 Asian Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE). Tata Steel is recognized in the
2nd annual Asian MAKE study for:
- Developing knowledge workers through senior management leadership
- Creating an environment for collaborative knowledge sharing
According to Rory Chase,
managing director of Teleos, "These organizations have been recognized as global
leaders in effectively transforming enterprise knowledge into wealth-creating ideas,
products and solutions. They are building portfolios of intellectual capital and
intangible assets which will enable them to out-perform their Competitors in the
future."
Managing Director, Mr. B
Muthuraman's comments on winning the award:
After a decade of
transformation by way of modernisation at Tata Steel, we embarked on our journey of making
ourselves a knowledge based and learning organisation. Our Knowledge Management program
has so far focused on people and process with appropriate blend of Information Technology.
Our future growth and prosperity will increasingly depend upon our agility to network and
learn from our customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. I am proud that Tata Steel is
recognised for its Knowledge creating and Sharing character and I congratulate all the
employees of Tata Steel. This award, however, is only a milestone and must not be mistaken
for our destination. We need to make knowledge the primary source of our distinction in an
industry where technology is increasingly becoming a commodity.
 Archive
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Tata Steel
has been recognized as the overall (1st place) 2006 Indian Most Admired Knowledge
Enterprises (MAKE) Winner compared to its 6th position far the last year (2005). Other
2006 Indian MAKE Winners are (in alphabetical order): 
