EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Indian banking system has seen a metamorphic transition over the course of time and has left
the legacy system behind long ago and leaped into the league of one of the most advanced
banking systems in the world. The threshold of paradigm shift has long been crossed with the
applications of technology and product innovations have brought about structural changes in
the Indian banking system. Information technology and the communications networking
systems have revolutionized the working of the commercial banks. To serve customers well and
remain in business the banks must: reduce their cycle times, operate with minimum fixed assets
and overhead (people and facilities), shorten product and service development time, improve
customer service, empower employees, innovate and deliver high quality financial products and
services, enhance flexibility and adoption, capture information, create knowledge, share and
learn. None of this is possible without a continual focus on the creation, updating, availability,
quality and use of knowledge by all employees and teams, at work and in the marketplace.
With the distinction of being the second largest bank in India and largest private sector bank in
the country ICICI always emphasized on the necessity of embracing technology and leveraging
technology to counter the challenges imposed by globalization and liberalization of the financial
sector by amassing the knowledge regarding all aspects of operations and trends. Along with
several other distinctions ICICI bank has earned the distinction of being the first bank in India to
implement Knowledge management and reap its benefits.
The objectives of this study have been to present to share the experience of ICICI Bank on KM
application and to provide a conceptual understanding of benefits derived and challenges faced
during the implementation of KM at ICICI Bank.
ICICI Bank Profile
ICICI was formed in 1955 at the initiative of the World Bank, the Government of India and
representatives of Indian industry. The objective was to create a development financial
institution for providing medium-term and long-term project financing to Indian businesses.
In the 1990s, ICICI transformed its business from a development financial institution offering
only project finance to a diversified financial services group offering a wide variety of products
and services, both directly and through a number of subsidiaries and affiliates like ICICI Bank.
The idea was to create a diversified financial-services supplier offering a range of products,
instead of concentrating purely on project finance. ICICI Bank was, therefore, established in
1994 to provide retail banking facilities across India.
The idea was well timed and proved wildly successful. Today, it is the second largest bank in
India with assets of almost $40bn and can boast a network of more than 570 branches, over
2000 ATMs and a steadily growing international business, with branches in the UK, Russia and
Canada.
In 1999, ICICI become the first Indian company and the first bank or financial institution from
non-Japan Asia to be listed on the NYSE. In 2001, ICICI bank acquired Bank of Madura Limited.
ICICI Bank set up its international banking group in fiscal 2002 to cater to the cross border
needs of clients and leverage on its domestic banking strengths to offer products
internationally. ICICI Bank currently has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Canada and Russia,
branches in Singapore and Bahrain and representative offices in the United States, China,
United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh and South Africa.
Today, ICICI Bank offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate
and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and through its specialized
subsidiaries and affiliates in the areas of investment banking, life and non-life insurance,
venture capital and asset management.

Design and method of research

We decided to carry out the study at ICICI bank which has been at the forefront of bringing out
developments and innovations in the Indian banking sector. With the distinction of being the

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second largest bank in India and largest private sector bank in the country ICICI always
emphasized on the necessity of embracing technology and leveraging technology to counter
the challenges imposed by globalization and liberalization of the financial sector by amassing
the knowledge regarding all aspects of operations and trends. The basic method of assessing
the knowledge management practices at ICICI bank was through a detailed systematic study
which involved personal interviews with the officials there and a survey conducted through the
questionnaires.

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Filled Up Questionnaires
Questionnaire 1

K.J. SOMAIYA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES & RESEARCH ,

MUMBAI –400 077

Dear Sir / Madam ,

As part of our study of the subject of Knowledge Management , a survey is being carried out on
the topic of Knowledge Management . A questionnaire has been designed to find out the
possibility of implementing Knowledge Management in organizations .
We request you to please kindly co-operate and furnish us with the relevant information as listed
out in the questionnaire .
We assure you that this information is for purely academic purposes , and shall be kept
confidential by us.
Thanking You .
Yours sincerely ,

QUESTIONNAIRE
PART A : COMPANY INFORMATION
.
1 Name of Company : ICICI Bank Ltd.

2. Year of Incorporation : 1955

3. Address : ICICI Bank, Corporate Office, Bandra-Kurla Complex , Mumbai

4. Type of Organization : Indian / Multinational - Indian

5. Phone : 02228307777

6. Name of Respondent : Mr. Niraj Jain

7. Designation : Regional Head, Secured Business Loans

8. Phone : 9930065590

9. E-mail Address : niraj.jain@icicibank.com

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10. Mainline of Business : Banking Services

11. Are human assets valued and included as part of your balance sheet ?
 yes / no - NO
 If yes – since when , and indicate value.
 Method for valuing human assets :

PART B : KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

1. Have you heard of the concept of knowledge management ? Yes / No - YES

2. If yes , are you in the process of implementing it in your organization ? - YES

Part C : BUILDING A LEARNING CULTURE

1. Please rank the importance of the following factors to the development of a corporate
culture that embraces continuous learning as a core value and vital element of business
success : ( 1=most important)

 ---2--- Top management leadership by example

 ---1--- Learning as a part of formal corporate vision / value statement

 ---4-- Learning skills in individual and group performance measurement

 ---5--- Incentives / rewards to encourage productive learning behaviors

 ----3--- Knowledge management as an integral element of job designs and career

development

2. Which of the following individual(s) bears the greatest responsibility for creating a
learning culture in your company ? ( 1= important)

 ---1--- CEO
 ---2--- a senior management team
 ---4--- human resource professionals
 ---3--- strategic planners
 ---5--- quality professionals

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  ---Business Heads----- others (please specify)
3 . Which of the following barriers to knowledge creation and information sharing do
you encounter most frequently in your own job or in the wider organization ? ( 1= most
important)

 ------- politics
 ----2---- protecting information perceived to be privileged
 ------- lack of information-technology support
 ---1--- lack of time ( fire fighting)
 ------- negative cultural factors
 ------- structural / organizational impediments
 ------- others ( please specify)

4. Which of the following statements hold true / false for your organization ?

 Clear operational guidelines for learning are in place to help individuals work in ways

that turn learning aspirations into concrete business results . True / False - TRUE

 Corporate values encourage good listening skills , collaborative management ,

risk taking , experimentation and learning . True / False - TRUE

 Errors and problems are shared openly, recognized as resources for learning . True / False - TRUE

 Errors and problems are treated as signs of individual incompetence . True / False -FALSE

 Individuals are encouraged to network freely to tap all viable sources of knowledge inside and
outside the company to achieve business goals . True / False - TRUE

 Formal Management Systems are in place to acquire , store and disseminate information . - TRUE

 The organization values are backed by formal policy statements , management role models at
many levels , goals , measures of progress and incentives . True / False - TRUE

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PART D : ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING APPLICATIONS
1. Please rank the importance of the following kinds of knowledge to the
company’s business success ( 1= most important) :

 ---6----- Competitor knowledge

 ----2---- Technological trends
 ----1--- Social / political trends
 ----5---- Customer requirements
 ----4---- Knowledge of employee needs
 ----3---- Corporate values , ideals , behaviors
 -------- Others (please specify)

2. Does your organization have an individual whose primary responsibilities are

to manage and facilitate the flow of knowledge throughout the company ?

 yes
 no
NO, everyone contributes to the process, but there exists a formal team.

3. If you have answered yes to Q.2. , what is his / her title and whom does
he / she report to ?

 Report to : Business Heads

 Title : Knowledge Management Team

4. If yes , which of the following activities best describes his / her roles and
responsibilities ? (Tick)
 Benchmarking best management practices
 Creating computer based knowledge networks -T

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  Keeping managers informed of business achievements / activities from other parts of
the organization -T
 Redesigning business processes or organizational structures -T
 Acquiring , archiving , and transferring knowledge of successes and failures -T
 Leading individual or group training activities -T
 Assembly of multidisciplinary teams to solve specific business problems -T
 Facilitating team based , collaborative management -T

5. In which of the following areas can Knowledge Management be applied

to in your organization ?

Area Improving Lowering Developing Building Flexibility of

productivity costs innovations speed of operations
operations
Manufacturing
Marketing
Customer T T T T T
service
Purchasing T T
Distribution T T T T T
Logistics
Strategic T T T T T
planning
R&D
Training T T T T T
Information T T T T T
management
systems
Finance T T
Any other
( indicate )

6. Have you experienced any of the following problems in your organization : ? (Tick)

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  Duplication of work ______Y_________
 Poor customer relationships ______Y__________
 Good ideas don’t transfer between departments , units or countries
______Y/N______________
 Repetition of mistakes ________Y____________
 Cannot compete with market leaders ___________N________________
 The company is heavily dependant on key individuals ________N____________
 The company is slow to launch new products or services or enter new markets
_____N________
 The company competes on price _____N________
 Long hierarchy in the company ______N________
 Slow decision making process _______N_______
 Innovations and ideas are not encouraged as they would hinder achievement of
short term goals ______N______

7 . Indicate which of the following closely relates to your concept of knowledge

management within an organization : ( 1= highest)

 -----3----- Generating competitive advantage

 -----1----- Creating business value though KM
 -----2----- Achievement of business goals
 -----4----- Getting greater value from core business competencies
 -----6----- Avoid unnecessary work duplication , expensive re-invention , repeated
istakes
 -----5----- Promotion of intelligent team collaboration from different functional areas
 -----7----- KM is about human and computers networking
 -----8----- In a KM implementation , human networking is of greater importance than
computers networking

8. Which type of KM projects could be introduced in your organization ?

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  Formation of Knowledge Communities (within departments or cross functional)
 Identifying sources and networks of expertise in the organization
 Synthesizing and sharing knowledge from external sources
 Structuring knowledge to enhance performance
 Capturing and sharing lessons learned from practice

All, but structure is less organized

PART E : INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT :

1. What is the percentage of company turnover allocated to R&D ? – 5-7%

2. Is R&D in your organization : - In-house

 In-house
 Out-sourced

3. Has your company applied for any Patents ? - YES

4. If yes , how many, when, where ? -

6. What according to you is the importance of developing new products and services in
the emerging knowledge economy ? - Very important as it enables to cater to emerging
customer needs and to attain a competitive edge by getting first mover’s advantage.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION

Questionnaire 2
Does your organization have a Knowledge Management Culture ?

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 A : Inventory of Information
Useable information is lost Usable information is
or unavailable. It is 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 systematically inventoried,
chaotically organized. catalogued and stored.

B : Access to Information
Knowledge and Knowledge is available to
information is very difficult everyone in the organization.
to access. Processes are 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 It is easily accessed and
duplicated and the wheel disseminated.
is regularly re-invented.

C : Transfer of Information
People tend to hoard Usable information is
information and systematically transferred to
knowledge. Very little 1 2 3 4 5X 6 7 different parts of the
usable information is organization.
transferred across teams,
departments, and
divisions.

D : Benchmarking of Information
The organization is Knowledge is systematically
internally focused. acquired from outside so that
Information and we continuously benchmark
knowledge from outside is 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 ourselves against best
not systematically practices.
collected, shared discussed
or acted upon.

E : Creation of New Knowledge

There is no “ thinking There is an active R & D
outside the box ”. People philosophy at all levels.
have little opportunity to Everyone is encouraged to
create new ways of doing 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 develop new ideas and put

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things and share and them into practice.
apply their good ideas.

F : Leveraging of Knowledge
Knowledge that is created When new ideas are
stays where it is. There is developed or new knowledge
no attempt to market our 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 is created, we actively market
good ideas. our know-how to provide new
sources of revenue.

G : Measurement of Intellectual Capital

People talent is viewed as We have processes that audit
a cost. There is no attempt and measure our intellectual
to measure the “ 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 capital. People are seen as
intangibles ” that add assets.
value.

H : Usage of IT
People are inadequately People are well trained and
trained in IT. IT is used equipped to use IT sensibly to
badly – either it is under 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 help us to acquire, codify,
used or over used ahead of disseminate and transfer
the desire or ability of knowledge.
people to use it.

I : Rewards for Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge is seen as Sharing of knowledge is
power. People aren’t in rewarded. People recognize
the habit of sharing the importance of investing
knowledge. They either 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 time now in knowledge sharing
don’t know how to share and transfer, in order to create
it and / or claim they are a sustainable future.
too busy. Reward,
recognition and promotion

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go to those who have
knowledge, not to those
who share it.
J : Attitude of Senior Management towards
Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management Senior Managers are good role
is viewed as a fad. There is 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 models for Knowledge
only token involvement by Management. They view
senior management. knowledge as an asset to be
invested in and to give
competitive edge.

K : Openness towards Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge is locked into There are few hierarchical
the hierarchical structure. 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 differentiations. Open office
The climate is one of settings facilitate sharing of
secrecy and exclusion. knowledge.

L : Stories
People don’t talk about The creation, sharing and use
the sharing and use of 1 2 3 4 5X 6 7 of knowledge is celebrated
knowledge. and broadcast.

M : Attitude towards Learning

People don’t take time out There is ongoing review of
to review what they have learning from mistakes, risks
learned and how they can 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 and successes.
apply that learning.

N : Vision
There is no commitment to There is a clear vision of how
the idea that Knowledge the effective creation, transfer
Management is essential 1 2 3 4 5 6X 7 and use of knowledge leads to
to our future success. business-enhancing outcomes.

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 SCORING KEY

 Go through each of the scales on the following pages and indicate, with
a circle ( O ) on each scale, where you feel your organization needs to
be to be successful over the next five years.

 Go back through the scales and indicate, with a cross ( X ) on each scale,
where you believe your organization is now.

 Insert your scores in the table below and calculate the GAP*.

 * The GAP score is the value of O minus X. The items with the biggest
GAPS are those which the organization will need to give some priority.

SCORING SHEET

Item Title O X GAP*

No.
A Inventory of Information 7 6 1
B Access to Information 7 6 1
C Transfer of Information 7 5 1
D Benchmarking of Information 7 6 1
E Creation of New Knowledge 7 6 1
F Leveraging of Knowledge 7 6 1
G Measurement of Intellectual Capital 7 6 1
H Usage of IT 7 6 1
I Rewards for Knowledge Sharing 7 6 1
J Attitude of Senior Management 7 6 1
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 towards Knowledge Management
K Openness towards Knowledge Sharing 7 6 1

L Stories 6 5 2
M Attitude towards Learning 7 6 1
N Vision 7 6 1
TOTALS  97 82 15

SCORE INTERPRETATIONS

X
Total Score Knowledge Management Interpretation
Culture
80 - 98 Transforming Potential Knowledge is created and utilized to give
the organization an edge in the
marketplace.

67 – 79 Developing Potential Knowledge is managed in an ad - hoc

way. There is a gap between espoused
theory and practice. The vision lacks
clarity.

46 – 66 Locked – in Potential Valuable knowledge generated every day

remains locked up in the minds of
individuals. Systems tend to be bound by
hierarchy and bureaucracy.

14 - 45 Rock-bottom Potential There is a dearth of knowledge in the

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 organization that can be leveraged to
give competitive advantage. Business is
based on old formulaic processes that are
resistant to change.

Findings and Analysis

Analysis of Questionnaire 1
Part A – Apart from the basic information provided about the company, we see that though
human assets are valued in the organization but they are not valued and included as part of the
balance sheet. The reason for this is because no standard accounting standards supports this, it
is not included though such record is maintained for internal use purpose by ICICI and is not
disclosed in public domain.

Part B – The concept of KM is very much in vogue in ICICI and first steps towards
implementation of KM were taken in the year 2000. The details about that are given in the later
part of the report.

Part C – “KM is the way ICICI works” – this statement itself depicts that in ICICI the concept of
KM is ingrained in the vision and mission of the organization in a formalized manner. Top
management also supports KM initiatives, and employees as well understand the importance of
knowledge in performance.
The CEO and top management holds the responsibility of garnering KM culture supported by
KM team, HR professionals, strategic planners and business heads of various units.

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The main barrier to knowledge creation and sharing has been identified as lack of time due to
extremely busy scheduled of the employees. Apart from this, information which is perceived as
privileged is not shared.

Part D – While, mainly knowledge about social and political trends are considered important in
success of ICICI as they assess what will be the requirements of customers some years hence
because of changing PESTEL trends and plan accordingly. At ICICI, knowledge of latest
technological trends is used to improve efficiency and productivity.
At ICICI, a formal KM team, which reports to business heads is responsible for KM practices,
contribution from every employee at every level in organization is valued.
The roles and responsibilities of the KM team (apart from those marked in Questionnaire) are
further given in detail in report subsequently.
KM has immensely contributed in aspects like customer service, purchasing, distribution and
logistics, strategic planning and training. It has helped reduce overheads, save money and
improve productivity, efficiency and effectiveness of operations.
Though KM has been implemented, there are few incidences of duplication of work, repetition
of errors, lack of information flow. As the customer base of ICICI is vast, its not possible to
maintain a good relation with all customers. But overall, ICICI has a huge satisfied customer
base and the decision making, new product development is fast, which lays the foundation of
progressive organization. KM is understood as the base for value creation.
Most of the types of projects (as given in Questionnaire are already implemented or in state of
implementation) at ICICI, but for some projects the structure is less organized.

Part E – While the budget allocation towards KM initiatives is a considerable percentage of

turnover, ICICI is also very much active in In-house R&D and has filed for many patents.
Importance of developing new products and services in the emerging knowledge economy is
very significant for ICICI as it enables to cater to emerging customer needs and to attain a
competitive edge by getting first mover’s advantage.

KM in ICICI

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First steps
ICICI Bank’s knowledge management (KM) strategy was established in 2000. Back then, the
company was very much smaller than it is now – just 1,200 staff compared to the 30,000 that
work for ICICI Bank today.
However, the program was started at a time when the company’s growth was starting to go
into overdrive. Initially, the organization developed a broad technology-linked infrastructure,
including a corporate intranet, ICICI Universe, intended to provide a platform where, for
instance, employees could check the human resources (HR) system for vacation entitlements,
book days off or view their personal pension details.
By putting these simple, but necessary activities on the intranet, it encouraged employees to
get familiar with using web-based applications, to overcome any fear of technology as well as
providing them with a good reason for using the portal on a regular basis.
Initially, the organization was motivated towards KM due to the upheaval caused by the tail-
end of the dot-com boom, which was depriving the bank of many good staff as they left in
significant numbers to join dot-com start-ups – taking their knowledge and know-how with
them. Whenever an employee moves, he does not leave behind him documented information
about the job or client that he was associated with. This causes a lot of botheration for the new
incumbent. The new person has to spend most of his time trying to build a foundation and
begin his work – in other words it is the reinvention of the wheel.
ICICI therefore developed WiseGuy, ICICI’s KM intranet portal – easily accessible from the main
staff portal – to provide a way of capturing and disseminating the knowledge of departing staff.
To develop WiseGuy, a team was put together encompassing KM, HR, technology and research
with a brief to ‘just do it’. A basic version was ready within just three months.
Before the year was out, faced with the prospect of a reverse merger of ICICI Bank with its
parent ICICI, which went through in 2002, the KM team had to restructure to meet the needs of
the new corporate entity. Some issues articulated at the time included:
1. How to connect this vast new pool of employees with each other;
2. How to share business-related information about clients, deals and ideas;

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 3. How to manage staff through the change process via communication, messages,
channels and so on;
4. How to overcome the problems caused by staff turnover;
5. How to ensure that every person in the company is adequately equipped with the skills
and training required for their jobs and for lifelong learning and development.
The deeper question was, quite simply, how to encourage interest among staff to acquire and
share knowledge and build a knowledge culture. The aim was to ensure that employees stayed
permanently aware of the external competitive challenges of the business, and to persuade
them to remain constantly open to new thoughts, ideas and ways of working.
The KM team at ICICI thought that the “Wise Guy” portal could act as a common thread binding
two different cultures enabling a smooth transition into a universal bank.
ICICI Bank has branches spread all over the country. There are employees who have interacted
only via emails and have never seen each other. They function as a virtual team. There was a
need to bring about a common platform for uniting the people across the country and foster a
sense of belonging. This need was not being fulfilled by the existing Intranet.

Initiating KM at ICICI
Having being convinced about the need for practicing Knowledge Management, the next
important step for management is to go about putting it into practice. In ICICI it started by
having a Coordination Group who sold the concept to the employees. The ‘Wiseguy’ banner
was floated in the company’s Intranet; it eventually became a part of the Intranet. Emails were
sent out to all employees about ‘Wiseguy’ and its features. Interested persons could get in
touch with the system administrator for login password. The Coordination Group members
comprised employees from the research group, HRD, ICICI infotech and the library staff. The
concept initiated in April 2000. A dedicated team of 7 software developers worked on it using
existing IT infrastructure. The first version went live on 15th June 2000 and the second was
version made live on 15th October 2000. Between April and November it had 40,000 hits.

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The tacit knowledge in the mind of the employees has to be captured, codified and put in a
common place from where all in the organization can have access and utilize it to their benefit.
The challenges which come in the way of this are:
i) The first problem that is likely to crop up is the unwillingness of the owner of the
knowledge to part with it.
ii) The second problem would be when the owner is willing to articulate it but the
recipient is unwilling to absorb it.
The “Wise Guy” portal began with articulation of that information which was explicit to only a
few persons in the organization and tacit in general. No person was asked to share his/her tacit
knowledge at this point.
Sharing of such explicit information did not threaten anybody’s knowledge quotient and nor did
anybody lose any personal power which comes from being knowledgeable in a particular area.
Thus the contents of the portal were discussions, queries, edited contributions, books, training
calendar, vendors, external and internal reports, events, and captured offline lectures and
presentations.
When the site was introduced, awareness was generated by sending mails to all employees and
by putting banners on the Intranet site, i.e. the ‘universe’. In order to sustain interest in the site,
efforts are being made to acknowledge the contributions made by the users. Every month the
top three contributors are selected on the basis of the contributions made in the last three
consecutive months.
Cash prizes (K-cash points) are given and photographs of the winners get a place for a week on
the site. Emails about the portal (both congratulatory and critical) are uploaded so that it
generates discussion about the pros and cons of the system.
Each section in the Wiseguy can be accessed only if one has a login-id (which is usually the
employee code) and a password. Confidential sections, which are not for public view, are
restricted by the administrator. This helps in building privacy, which is essential for sections
containing client information.
The ‘Learning Matrix’ allows upgrading ones knowledge at the desired pace. Out of the
currently available 83 plans, an employee can select a few modules which he/she would like to

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do in the given year. Some modules are compulsory for some departments/groups, while
others are optional. The employee can keep track of what he/she has registered for, how many
have been completed and how many are pending. The ‘Scorecard’ keeps a score of programs
completed and certificates obtained. The electronic version of the certificate can also be
printed.
The Corporate Information Bank provides Company Research and Industry Analysis. The site
also provides links to other useful databases as the MIT knowledge base, ICRA database,
Banking Rules etc. all aimed at empowering the employee to make a rational strategic decision.
Client tracker and Business tracker, which have restricted access, are helpful for new incumbent
to the job to brief himself about the background of the client or the business in hand. However
KM cannot be subservient to information technology. Thus the “Wiseguy” has a human face
also. Knowledge events are arranged by the KM Group from time to time where people can get
to interact with CEOs or CFOs or Experts in a formal meeting which is announced beforehand. If
the branches desire, a webcast is also be arranged. The presentation is recorded and later
transferred to the KM site.

Satisfied users (the employees)

The KM program is now deeply embedded in the bank, but not as a result of any directive from
top management. Employees work with the KM program because they see its benefits and
realize the value it brings to them on a day-to-day basis. This is what makes it vibrant and
engaging.
On average today, about 6,000 users visit the site daily, of which 95 per cent come from ICICI
Bank’s retail branches. And more than 40 business divisions actively participate in the KM effort
to contribute and publish content. Today, there are more than 14,000 individual items, about
1,000 daily searches for information and more than 16,000 interactive postings.
The WiseGuy KM portal also encompasses a variety of sections including: document
management; news inside and outside the organization; digital resources such as trade and
news journals, research reports, maps, directories, currency and time calculators; information
on the various business groups and group companies, complete employee information; and,

21
interactive sections such as discussion forums, query boards, book reviews, online quizzes, the
rewards and recognition scheme, and so on.

Corporate learning
The ability to learn across the group and from team mates is a very powerful tool. ICICI aimed
to build a learning environment by encouraging collaboration and push mechanisms, including
a webzine e-mail to every employee before 9.30am. The Daily Dose, as it is called, is a summary
of what is new in the outside world and on the portal. It features headlines, opinions, polls,
happenings, customer appreciations, newsletters and other regular updates.
Again, one of the main benefits of The Daily Dose is the high profile it lends to the various KM
initiatives. For most of the staff, The Daily Dose represents an important part of their working
day. By delivering it direct to their mailbox, it helps the KM team to capture the ‘mind space’ of
employees as soon as they sit down to work in the morning.
Other tools used include Newsroom, a space on the intranet where daily news headlines are
published. Here, staff can look up all the newsletters published by internal business groups,
media releases, as well as tracking what our competitors are up to. Then there are ‘K-mailers’,
which are short, one-page reviews on any one of 33 topics in six categories; internal newsletters
from various domain specialists; online quizzes; ‘word power’ articles or glossaries; training
modules; and, a whole library of online research tools.
Query Board, a central, interactive frequently asked questions repository by and for staff, is
where they can post any work-related queries, such as the number of cheques that can be
deposited at any one time, customer credit questions, cheque returns and so on.
It serves as the fastest and most reliable source for feedback on queries or doubts related to
workplace rules, policies and procedures, technical know-how and much more. Remarkably, the
average response time to a query ranges from five to 15 minutes, but never more than one day
from the time the query was posted.
In addition to Query Board, a general discussion forum on the intranet where staff can talk
about finance, business and economy-related topics is provided. Discussions on the forum
revolve around topics highly relevant to the work in the bank.

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Managing documents on WiseGuy
The digital assets on WiseGuy represent a vital element of ICICI’s KM program. WiseGuy’s
document-management system offers a managed view into otherwise overwhelming enterprise
content and provides users access to personalized content with team-specific interfaces to
improve collaboration.
Centralized and distributed publishing capabilities mean that users are empowered and can
contribute their own documents, define them, schedule updates and so on. Furthermore, the
portal manager enables business groups to generate their own template-based, database-
driven mini-websites using an extremely flexible front end, point-and-click tool.
The content is classified and organized by use of a simple tree view for easy navigation,
supplemented by a search tool for easy retrieval. Information can be located within two or
three clicks, or less than a minute of searching. Other key features include easy identification of
documents by author, date, posted comments and even queries.
The system helps to preserve the organization’s intellectual capital, as it is able to capture
information so that it is not lost even when a person leaves the organization.

Technology platforms
Much of what is deployed to support various KM initiatives of ICICI is custom-developed, but
the tools are supported on a variety of standard hardware and software platforms, particularly
Microsoft Windows, Linux, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice (the open-source alternative to
Microsoft Office), and a host of other off-the-shelf and custom applications.

KM Portal

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KM tools and techniques are also deployed so that customer-service teams and those staff who
deal directly with the public can share almost everything related to customer complaints and

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service quality issues, from branch and customer satisfaction with cash machines, to standard
templates, letters, tools, to recognizing and celebrating customer satisfaction benchmarks and
people who have achieved it. The various activities, contributions and postings help spread the
good practices throughout the bank.

Analysis of Questionnaire 2
Beyond the surface to the soul: The KM Culture in ICICI
ICICI has been the industry leader in implementing KM practices and as evident from the history
of KM in ICICI and the Score of 82, the Knowledge Management culture at ICICI can be said to
be as Transforming Potential, which implies that in ICICI, knowledge is created and utilized to
give the organization an edge in the marketplace.

From responses to Questions A, B, C and D (pertaining to information management), we find

that in ICICI with aid of latest technology and communication systems, the information is
properly inventoried and information sharing is very much prevalent. Being the leader, though
benchmarking is not done with other banks, but internal benchmarking is sought after as ICICI
believes in continuous improvement.
As per creation and leveraging of knowledge (Questions E, F), the well ingrained knowledge
management culture encourages and empowers employees to participate in creation of
knowledge and sharing it. But, due to extremely busy schedule and paucity of time, people are
not able to contribute towards KM practices on a day-to-day basis.

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Regarding Questions G, I; people are seen as assets and valued very highly in ICICI. The
contribution to KM is measured by K-points and employees are rewarded for their contribution.
Adequate support of state of art technological infrastructure helps in KM implementation.

For ICICI, KM is not just a set of techniques or practices. The difference is in its philosophy and
perspective about such things as people, processes, quality, continuous improvement and other
factors that represents the culture, values and vision of the organization.
The KM team used their insights as a guiding philosophy for ICICI. Rather than waiting for
culture to change, they banked on change impacting the culture. They tried to make it fun and
prestigious and persuaded leaders to champion our KM efforts. In experimenting with so many
new things and new ways of doing old things, risk taking was encouraged and mistakes were
not considered fatal.
At ICICI Bank, employees are encouraged to participate and contribute by way of rewards and
recognition. First, the very fact that contributions are published on the portal along with
ownership details gives employees a sense of recognition for everything they do.
Every contributor earns ‘K-Points’ for contributing anything from an article to documents,
queries, responses to queries, initiating a discussion and even just rating discussions. A separate
section on the intranet is dedicated to the ‘knowledge champions’, displaying the top
contributors based on their ‘knowledge quotient’. This KQ is also prominently displayed on their
home page next to a personalized welcome message. ‘K-Cash’, an earlier version of the rewards
scheme, enabled employees to redeem gift vouchers online for the points they earned. And
knowledge leaders, who spoke in the Knowledge Leader Series, as well as knowledge
champions, were given certificates signed by the managing director and CEO of the bank.

KM has achieved its desired objective of contributing positively to strategy formulation as there
was a whole hearted participation from the employees. The perception of the employees of
ICICI bank about KM is as follows:
Linkage of strategy with KM:

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Majority of them feel that a good business strategy depends on the internal knowledge base of
the company. Most of them feel there is indeed a link between strategy and the external
environment. They believe that the firm’s own resources maybe a more stable basis to
formulate a strategy.
KM and Profitability:
Employees at ICICI believe that utilization of the knowledge base of the company will result in
reaping rich dividends. Most of the employees disagree with the statement that profits are not
linked to employees’ knowledge. From the above statements, it can be observed that although
majority believe that use of the company knowledge base would definitely yield dividends.
Knowledge Dissemination and Transferability:
The employees slightly disagree that knowledge residing within an employee is difficult to
replicate. Everybody seems to agree and believe in sharing and application of knowledge. Some
feel that one can replicate (copy) another employee’s knowledge (methodology of working).
The ambience within the organization is that of willingness to share one’s own experience and
learn from other’s experience.

Challenges & Attitude of Senior Management

The short history of KM in ICICI Bank has not been smooth. The commitment shown by
managers towards the project certainly provided an initial thrust. It sent a positive signal across
the organization that the top management was serious about KM, but it also ran the risk of
being perceived as a pet project or flavor of the month.
While many employees actively use the portal, there are gaps in pockets among mid-level
managers. Resistance to change and over-confidence, lack of sharing of knowledge because of
squeezed time schedule remains a barrier. Knowledge sharing is not tightly linked to staff
appraisal and neither are knowledge management activities mentioned in ICICI Bank’s balanced
score card index.
From a technical perspective, the KM initiatives have done a better job of capturing internal and
external unstructured information, such as documents and ideas and in harnessing external
structured data such as content and databases versus internal structured data, such as data

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warehouses, enterprise resource-planning applications and databases. Disparate systems can
create fatigue and/or confusion among users about which one to use.
First-generation KM revolved around creating processes to capture, codify and organisze
knowledge for retrieval. In second-generation KM, knowledge flows becomes more important
than the knowledge itself. The third generation of KM involves easing the creation of new
knowledge, innovation and improving organizational performance. Maturity levels vary
according to the applications within each team.

At ICICI Bank, the business leadership team, by sponsorship and example, has outlined
principles of action that stipulate that employees must actively share knowledge and seek out
colleagues’ expertise to solve problems and/or improve processes. KM at ICICI Bank was started
in a non-dictatorial manner and its use is voluntary, but a program of this nature cannot be
expected to continue on momentum. Even for the average employee in the bank, KM now is no
longer strange or a novelty, but has become the ‘way ICICI works’.

Conclusion
Knowledge Management is an organizational approach that is not easily implemented. On one
hand, knowledge-sharing activities depend on the voluntary participation of employees.
Therefore, management should be sensitive to the knowledge activities that are already going
on within the company and seek mean to support them. On the other hand, management
needs to implement some organizational change in order to change the corporate culture.
A knowledge sharing culture can only found fruitful if top management supports it, showing
benefits, incentives and rewards to those who do. Therefore KM cannot be just another project
on the side; it requires structural change in the policy of the company. KM requires a holistic
and multidisciplinary approach to management processes and an understanding of the
dimensions of knowledge work. KM should be the evolution of good management practices
sensibly and purposively applied. KM presents a major shift in focus regarding the development
and use of knowledge and information in increasing the effectiveness of any organization. It is
true that knowledge capture of all tasks is possible, but one has to see the return of investment

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(ROI) point of view. It is very important to set the objectives for the system that one need to
create. Based on the business goals, one can prioritize and identify critical information that can
change organizational performance.

Leveraging knowledge for corporate growth is very critical as knowledge allows any
organization to traverse the paradigm shift and is the key to success in today's world. The
knowledge capital has become a strategic asset and traditional competencies are no longer
sustainable advantages. The new ICICI business model is shifting to flexible, decentralized
organization structure, strong technology focus and transformation along several parameters
like efficient use of knowledge capital, competitive advantage through ability to attract human
capital, speed capital, adopting a new economy mindset, embracing technology in the most
effective manner, adopting global standards. It is imperative to create an effective knowledge
management system to unlock `tacit knowledge'. The old and new economies are vanishing;
they are morphing into a networked economy with knowledge capital at its core point. By
leveraging technology, ICICI has geared itself ready for knowledge economy.

References
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