LEVERAGING KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE UNIT 5

INTRODUCTION How can companies effectively tap into knowledge sources from outsourcing vendors? Organizations must have strategies for creation and exploitation of intellectual capital Three elements that contribute to development of intellectual capital: Structural capital Human capital Customer capital

A FOURTH KIND OF CAPITAL Social capital Examples: Trust, loyalty, reciprocity Three dimensions to social capital Structural Cognitive Relational Table 5.1

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BETWEEN “ONSITE” AND “OFFSHORE” TEAMS Knowledge not shared is lost Esp important between onsite and offshore teams Factors contributing to the difficulty of transferring knowledge Diversity of local contexts Different local routines for working, training, and learning Differences in skill, expertise, technical infrastructure, dev tools, and methodologies Changes in membership Lack of prior exp working w distributed teams

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING PROCESSES IN OFFSHORE SOURCING Org learning is how knowledge transfer takes place Four processes in org learning Knowledge acquisition Congenial learning Experiential learning Vicarious learning Grafting Searching and noticing Info dist Info interpretation Org memory

TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEM Combination of individual memory systems and communications between individuals Three processes involved in transactions between individuals Encoding Storing Retrieving Directories that point to knowledge are important Two types Codified Personalized

GLOBAL DELIVERY MODEL Combine onsite, remote site, etc Complete the work where it is best suited and with the smallest risk Takes significant coordination

PRACTICES FOR MANAGING DISPERSED EXPERTISE Orgs that offshore O/S face relationship and organizational challenges Practices to address these challenges 1.Implement an org structure that mirrors clients 2.Implement knowledge transfer methodology 3.Implement knowledge retention strategy 4.Monitor expertise dev and retention at project and org levels 5.Make expertise dev a key org value 6.Provide mechanisms to search for expertise at project and org levels 7.Implement a reuse methodology at the global level 8.Continually measure the contribution of reusable assets