Bharati Vidyapeeth’s

Institute of Management & Information Technology

Sector No. 8, CBD, Belapur, Navi Mumbai - 400 614.

Topic: Knowledge Management in Siemans

Submitted by:

Gunjan Arora (01)

Under The Guidance Of

Dr.Manisha D Shukla

For the academic year 2010-2011,

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KnowledgeManagement at Siemens

Heading for Knowledge-Guided Networks

More and more companies are realizing that the way they manage knowledge is a major

factor affecting their competitiveness. Eventually, say the experts, knowledge

management is expected to transform companies into knowledge-guided networks.

Siemens ICN manager Joachim Döring is one of the fathers of the ShareNet KM system.

The system is used by 16,500 employees in more than 70 countries

When knowledge management became a hot topic a few years ago, many managers regarded

it as a bitter pill that had to be swallowed—just once—in order to conjure up a happy

ending." Peter Heinold of Siemens Corporate Information and Operations (CIO) is familiar

with the hype surrounding Knowledge Management (KM), as well as the disappointment that

may follow it. "In many cases, KM was simply decreed, without being rooted in a company’s

processes or its corporate culture," he says. "Or it was practiced as a kind of fashionable

accessory." When such measures failed to lead to commercial success, spark innovation or

boost ongoing business, disappointment set in. Some observers concluded that the bursting of

the New Economy bubble also meant goodbye to Knowledge Management.

But the prophets of doom were wrong. Companies whose first experiments with KM had run

aground drew lessons from those experiences and launched new and successful KM projects.

And at companies like Siemens, where KM had been comprehensively introduced from the

very beginning, there’s no doubt at all that it’s the ideal tool for mining business-related

knowledge. The advantages offered by knowledge management are obvious. Companies

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avoid performing the same tasks twice by making more effective use of the knowledge

available to them in databases, archives and documents. That helps them cut costs and save

time. One example of this tool is the cooperation of virtual teams such as those operating at

Siemens Business Services (SBS). There, various Web-based functions are available to

project managers from various locations who work together in the team. All documents that

are relevant to a project—from initial bid and correspondence to the status of the

implementation—are centrally stored and available at any time, no matter where the user

might be. Discussions and coordination processes can thus be handled in an interactive

manner.

If it is optimally implemented, KM can measurably increase a company’s operational

success. To reach this goal, employees must be able to use the knowledge gained from

outstanding projects and local innovations in a global manner. For example, a solution

devised by the AGiLiENCE Group—a start-up company—helped an international

pharmaceutical company to compile the experiences and results of its laboratories all over the

world so that it could bring new medications to market more quickly. AGiLiENCE, which

was co-founded by former Siemens employee Dr. Christian Kurtzke and is supported by

Siemens Venture Capital, developed the Mona expert system, which enables developers to

post urgent inquiries as Word documents via a simple user interface. Unlike e-mails, which

must be directed to a specific recipient, Mona guides the inquiry to the experts best suited to

answer it. The system also matches questions with existing answers and makes them

immediately available to the user. The system is so easy to use that even newcomers quickly

have expert information at their fingertips.

Active Employees. Knowledge Management as a whole is a complex process, which requires

more than an optimal information and communication infrastructure. "Ultimately, these tools

are only secondary in importance, because they merely support the process," says Dr.

Gerhard Zorn, head of Knowledge Management & Business Transformation at Siemens

Corporate Technology (CT). The crucial link in the process is the people involved. All of

them, from top management to individual employees, have to be willing to actively

implement KM.

One key to successful KM is a close connection with ongoing business activities. Joachim

Siemens ICN manager Döring puts this even more straightforwardly "The main thing is the

pressure to act quickly. If it’s there, nobody even has to ask if it’s necessary to share

knowledge." Döring knows what he’s talking about, because he’s one of the inventors of

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ShareNet, an outstanding Intranet-based KM system. ShareNet was developed in the late

1990s for Siemens nformation and Communication Networks (ICN) in response to wide-

ranging market transformations. The worldwide deregulation of the telecommunications

market had created a new business environment. "Suddenly, our salespeople were facing the

challenge of having to offer solutions rather than precisely defined products. That

significantly increased our influence on the value-added chain as far as customers were

concerned," Döring recalls.

ICN needed a well-oiled instrument with which it could respond to these new challenges. The

result was ShareNet, which is easy to learn and user-friendly. In addition to providing a

database containing all project results, it focuses on enabling employees at ICN to

communicate and exchange their know-how, project experiences and comments. ShareNet

focuses mainly on the interactive components of knowledge exchange. Because knowledge is

always related to solutions, there’s plenty of room for chat rooms, community news, and

discussion groups. What’s more, ShareNet is independent of time zones and organizational

structures. Someone is always working in the system, somewhere in the world—so urgent

questions are generally answered within a few hours.

What Chile Can Do for China. One shining example of ShareNet’s top performance is a

business coup Siemens accomplished in China. "Our sales staff received a commission for a

pilot project from a telecommunications company because they were able to draw from the

experiences of their colleagues on an international bases when they were developing the bid,"

reports Janina Kugel, head of Knowledge Management at ICN. Sales staff using ShareNet

found out that similar systems had already been successfully implemented in Thailand and

Chile, which meant that their colleagues in those countries could give them valuable

information about the hardware and software features that would be needed.

The key to ShareNet’s success is the willingness of its users to share their knowledge.

Currently, the system is being used in several Siemens Groups, including SBS, Medical

Solutions and Siemens Financial Services (SFS). "Just 18 months after its introduction, 6,000

ShareNet users were registered in 48 countries, and today there are around 16,500 users in

more than 70 countries," says Kugel proudly. At the beginning, ICN offered users incentives

such as cell phones. But now, ICN is boosting users’ motivation another way—through its

"Expert and Master Program." Each user’s contributions are evaluated by other users in terms

of their utility. The individuals who receive the best evaluations are publicly praised in the

ShareNet community. "That way, we make ensure that users’ motivation comes from within.

That’s often worth more than financial incentives," says Kugel.

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Motivation is Everything. The core of a functioning KM system is the way it approaches the

question of what conditions will encourage people to share their knowledge with colleagues

—in many cases, with colleagues they don’t know, who don’t work in their department or

Group, or even in their regional company. This situation is not a problem if the initiative

comes from workers themselves and if they organize themselves into Communities of

Practice (CoP) (see Communities). "These employees are especially interested in learning

processes and are committed to the continuing success of their Groups," explains Karsten

Ehms from Knowledge Management & Business Transformation at CT. The willingness to

work across organizational boundaries in a certain area of knowledge creates a special

identity, according to Dr. Josef Hofer-Alfeis, a KM pioneer who is a Senior Manager for

Siemens’ CIO. What’s more, he adds, CoPs are excellent repositories of knowledge that in

many cases even survive a restructuring of the organization. "The important thing is that

these grassroots initiatives should be sustained by management and embedded in a

comprehensive KM system. If that doesn’t happen, they’ll become isolated solutions with

limited effect," says Hofer-Alfeis.

                   Siemens – Europe’s Knowledge Management Leader

"If Siemens only knew what Siemens knows"—this statement has long become redundant.

The year 2003 marked the first time that Siemens was honored as the "Most Admired

Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE)." Every year, Teleos, an independent KM research company,

grants this title to a European company that has initiated outstanding KM programs Previous

winners include BP and Nokia. At Siemens, the major KM activities are carried out in the

ICN, ICM, SBS, MED, SFS Groups and Siemens VDO. There are more than 1,500

Communities of Practice (CoP) with 90,000 members, and about 250 of these operate across

Group and regional boundaries. Some 20 percent of all Siemens employees worldwide are in

a CoP. These marketplaces offer more than 250,000 "knowledge objects"—structured

documents or discussion forums on methods, solutions and experiences. In some

marketplaces, around one-third of the objects are downloaded per month. That’s a key sign

that the community is active. Two-thirds of CoP members who post urgent questions receive

at least one answer within two days. Today about 50 full-time or part-time employees are

responsible for KM at Siemens. That’s in addition to some 1,000 employees who support KM

processes and 30 KM consultants.

Support from the Top. If KM is introduced as a comprehensive process, it operates across

organizations and transforms existing structures—provided that management agrees with and

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supports these steps. This "acceptance of responsibility by management" is crucial to KM’s

success, according to Prof. Franz Lehner, who holds the Chair of Business IT and Business

Engineering at the University of Regensburg. Employees need to be sure that their work will

be appreciated. Support from the top also ensures that the process will receive the resources it

needs.

That’s particularly important if employees believe that KM is a threat to their jobs. "Actually,

KM has the very opposite effect," says Lehner. With the help of co-workers’ know-how, new

business areas that safeguard jobs can be developed. That’s exactly what has to be made clear

to workers. "Especially in economically difficult times, when fewer financial investments are

being made, the intelligence that is available within the company itself is a priceless asset."

That’s especially true of a company like Siemens, where between 60 and 80 % of the added

value is knowledge-related. Today, KM is absolutely indispensable for the company.

"Siemens has gained millions of euros through knowledge management—through both new

customer contracts and savings in time and money," says Hofer-Alfeis. One example is

ProjectManagement@Siemens, where knowledge sharing is one of the methods used to

develop common standards and new tools for the company’s approximately 10,000 project

managers all over the world.

Why Customers Like KM. At Siemens, KM is used not only internally, but also as part of

Siemens Business Services’ consulting activities—and with increasing success, according to

Ulrike van Briel, who is responsible for business development at SBS. "The time is right for

KM, and customers are ready for it too," she says. More and more, customers are realizing

that individual applications generate specific changes, but a comprehensive KM process

brings them much more added value. She also sees considerable potential for KM in public

administration: "In view of growing cost pressure, KM offers solutions that can speed up

bureaucratic processes," she says.

For example, electronic files can cut downtimes and processing times associated with legal

procedures. That’s important when deadlines have to be met in order to avoid costs for

individual citizens or state institutions.

Knowledge Management is an ongoing and comprehensive process—rather than a bitter pill

that needs to be swallowed. Once introduced, KM functions as an interactive process

involving people, technology, organizational structures, and the occasional support of an

ever-present knowledge manager. He or she helps to ensure that the knowledge contained

within a company is systematically increased and enhanced. However, according to Karsten

Ehms at CT, the long-term success of KM will lie in the fact that "it will one day make itself

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superfluous. In ten to 20 years you won’t see a door marked Knowledge Manager anywhere,"

he predicts.

According to Ehms, this will also be reflected in the corporate structures of the future.

"Companies will operate like knowledge-guided networks, and there will no longer be any

hierarchies in the traditional sense of the word."

The key to ShareNet’s success is the willingness of its users to share their knowledge.

Currently, the system is being used in several Siemens Groups, including SBS,

Medical Solutions and Siemens Financial Services (SFS).

"Just 18 months after its introduction, 6,000 ShareNet users were registered in 48

countries, and today there are around 16,500 users in more than 70 countries," says

Kugel proudly.

At the beginning, ICN offered users incentives such as cell phones. But now, ICN is

boosting users’ motivation another way—through its "Expert and Master Program.“

Each user’s contributions are evaluated by other users in terms of their utility. The

individuals who receive the best evaluations are publicly praised in the ShareNet

community. “

That way, we make ensure that users’ motivation comes from within. That’s often

worth more than financial incentives," says Kugel.

                      

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