it infrastructure and knowledge management in cas office

1 | Ideal IT Infrastructure and Knowledge Management in a Practicing CA‟s Office

CA. B.C.Chechani

Indian Chartered Accountant | Entrepreneur | Domain Expert for CRM,

Knowledge Mgmt. & Professional Services Automation Email : [email protected] Cell : + 9769476214

Ideal IT Infrastructure and Knowledge Management in a Practicing CA’s Office

mailto:[email protected]

http://in.linkedin.com/in/chechani/


CA firms are functioning in a world where they must necessarily process more and

more information in every part of the practice , not only to be competitive enough to

maintain their standards of reputation but also be equipped enough to offer single

stop solutions to clients to ensure profitable, fool proof intellectual consulting .

Management of intellectual capital is gaining importance in today‟s knowledge

society in every segment. Currently, knowledgebase of CA firms is mostly

“People Based.” If you don't know something, you do research or you request to a

knowledgeable firm member. This increases the individual knowledge but it is not

readily available to other firm members. Because firm members have different skills,

it is an on-going challenge to have the right knowledge, at the right place and at

the right time.

It becomes quite important for you to introspect, as you are the most trustworthy

people in business, your understanding of Information Technology, Knowledge

Management and your current standing on the same.

The rate of technological change is increasing at an ever quickening pace making

technology standards a moving target. Advances in hardware must be integrated into

the existing infrastructure as well as a constant stream of application updates and

system patches. Amidst all of these firms are facing the transition to a complete

digital (often referred to as paperless environment , where all personnel must evolve

their working process and adapt their systems for handling information in an

electronic format only). With all of these happening at once, it is important that firms

have a place to ensure that the strategic benefits of technology are properly

managed.

The most effective firms have achieved success by creating a technology

management team that systematically analyses the firm‟s infrastructure, the tools

and technologies that are evolving and build a well integrated technology plan and

budget to optimize their implementation.

IT Infrastructure Management

The first step in effective technology management is to ensure that either right

players are involved or the work of effective IT management is sourced to

trustworthy IT Facilities Management Company with the knowledge of cost effective

IT implementations. It is imperative that an owner or partner should look into it so

that approval of any initiatives can be taken faster. The views and need of IT

requirement from partners/members from tax and audit practice should be sought

equally and addressed adequately.


Components of IT Infrastructure Management

Hardware Management:

Hardware constitutes major area of IT infrastructure management. Hardware

infrastructure can be broken down in to below mentioned components.

Network Servers: Network Server should be of reputed brands or be at least of

standard server configurations that are procured from a reliable vendor/s with a good

after sales service reputation.

Network & Remote Access:

Switches should be used rather than HUB to connect individual‟s users . Switches

are faster and less affected by network traffic and is definitely a little cheaper.

Cable is the medium through which information usually moves from one network

device to another. There are several types of cable which are commonly used with

LANs. In some cases, a network will utilize only one type of cable, other networks

will use a variety of cable types. Every dead or unusable connection slows down the

entire network and also becomes the reason for data loss. Structured cabling is

advisable which would facilitate proper management and networking of PCs and

would help in easy future expansions without interruption in the working of the firm.

Network Operating System (NOS): MS Windows Server 2003 is the most recent

and widely accepted, stable operating system available in the market. This is very

easy to use, uncomplicated and easily configurable hence it is advisable to procure

the same. All products should be acquired through proper authorized vendors which

allow the end user to reap great benefits.

Desktops & Workstations: PCs should be procured with optimal configuration with

maximum RAM for multi tasking and wide screen monitors to view multiple screens

at a time.

Laptop workstations: It is very beneficial for members working out of office / mobile

and needs ever time connectivity. Laptops with configuration of six months/ one year

behind are available at affordable prices. Laptop computers are small, battery-

powered, lightweight and ideal for those who require portability.

Desktop Operating System: Operating system should support to all applications

used in office and be supported by sufficient RAM. Your Operating system should

facilitate usage of any software with smooth transition. OS should also be able to

work on cross platform applications.


Backup Computers: One or two dedicated back up computer/s is advisable for

replacement in case of problem and minimize the down time and to ensure no

productivity is loss and continuity.

Printers: Use of laser printers instead of inkjet with standardized brands is

advisable. Laser printer is a common type of computer printer that produces high

quality printing, and is able to produce both text and graphics. LaserJet printers

have higher RAM capabilities for executing complex printing jobs. DeskJet do not

have high RAM capabilities, i.e., one LaserJet can handle the load of 2 inkjet

printers.

Scanners: Scanners make the whole task of documentation management very cost

effective now. Every CA‟s office should adapt to digital imaging of any document.

Due to scanning every document can be delivered through email and also can be

viewed from multiple locations (no copy and send hurdles).

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA): PDA‟s can be used by all members and staff

who remain out of office.

As a part of Hardware Management I recommend that firms pull together a

comprehensive inventory of all existing hardware components along with service and

warranty details.

Software Requirement Analysis, Procurement & Implementation:

Firm wide Applications:

It is important for any CA firm to analyze the type of applications that are used

across the firm as well the applications that are limited to a few desktops. The firm

wide applications should strike a balance between the ones that are used by all the

members like Microsoft Office as well as the applications needed to establish an

undisputed specialization that the firm wants. It is recommended that multiple

versions of any software should be stopped running. A system towards saving of all

documents that are generated through Microsoft Office or any specialized application

should be put in place immediately and Firm wide applications should have the

facility to import and store the documents generated through the usage of

applications and a smart record management system that ensures the quick retrieval

of records as and when required.

Web Site Development & Promotion:

Our web site is the best communicator to its visitors. While developing web site, try

to talk what the visitors want to hear and in their language. Enumerate what value


your firm brings to them, very clearly and consistently. Your clients should be clearly

show dynamism and image of the firm.

Irrespective of the size of your firm, go ahead with an investment in website. This not

only offers out of the box business opportunities but also help in creating a brand.

However the guidelines suggested by the Institute of Chartered Accountant of India

will have to be followed for usage of the web.

eNews Letters

CA Firms realize that the development of a successful niche practice can be very

profitable. Accordingly, they invest in CPE, seminars, and their niche time to develop

niche expertise.

Using digital newsletters, or “eLetters (delivered via email)”. This allows firms to

contact clients as often as you would like, for a fractional costs. Additionally,

eLetters have the added benefit of not only making the firms appear more

technologically advanced but also appear more knowledgeable than competitors. To

successfully develop an eLetter, firms must obtain and maintain an email list,

develop and archive content, and deliver content consistently.

Information Security

CAs control a significant amount of financial information / documents on their

networks and this information could be extremely valuable if not protected, so it is

their responsibility to do so. Protection begins with proper procedures to lock down

data on the network such that unauthorized people do not have access. Changing

passwords on a frequent basis (six months or less) and utilizing screensaver

passwords on workstations are a minimum requirement.

Contact Management

A CA firm is a wealth of information existing in countless forms/documents. As a

professional services provider, CAs enjoys the trust of client's like no other industry.

Successful maintenance of these bonds requires concise communication of

information on all client-related activities - including the performance of actual work.

On the service side, relationship management systems allow the firm to track client

calls, emails, etc., record and monitor service issues and convey critical information

on assignments. The contact management allows you to immediately discuss client

billing issues, convey the status of the assignment you are about to execute, review

prior discussions with staff on the problems with data received and access

supporting work papers and other documentation while the client is on the phone.

This immediacy provides a greater professional image and a more informed client.

Tax Return Automation Software


Tax calculation tools and workflow tools are readily available now-a-days. Statutory

dates and return tracking tools have always been a feature of the firm‟s practice

management program, but they have evolved to a stage where firms are now

successfully using them. As clients deliver their tax materials, leading firms are

recording this information in their due date programs and tracking progress by

updating milestones for preparation, review, signing and extension, which provides

real time status on every return. Having the current and prior year‟s return available

concurrently onscreen significantly increases the productivity and greatly reduces

work in the Tax fi ling season.

Digital Tax Library

Today in India we have the availability of Tax Laws and Cases on conventional

electronic media formats like CD‟s and also the availability of the same online on

web. Due to this referencing of the acts, rules, procedures, notification, circulars,

case laws, new updated forms etc. can be easily made available through out the

firm. Updated libraries of these CD‟s should be maintained by every CA Firm. Firms

can also subscribe to web service providers who run online libraries and update

related information continually.

Digital Audit & Audit Tools

Audit is one of the most integral activity of a CA Firm. In India digital audit programs

have been gathering more and more acceptance and many digital audit tools are

available very easily. It helps CA Firms to benefit from developed audit programs as

a support for the auditors. Besides providing support to the auditors, these programs

are also an instrument to assure the quality of the audit.

One way that digital audit maximize the audit efficiency is by refining the work in

organizational terms as well as on the individual level. The tools should address

auditing, audit selection and tax matters, underreporting in the tax, tax evasion etc.

Electronic Document & Smart File Management Applications

An unbelievable amount of time can be wasted looking for files you don't remember

the names of. If you look around your office network, you are likely to find an

amazing number of files that no one owns because they were never named

intelligently to begin with.

One senior professional was telling me that he nearly missed a flight after a

meeting in which one-third of the time was spent hunting for files and folders for the

documents. The problem is file naming and saving conventions always differ from

person to person.


Documents are the lifeblood of every CA firm. In today's work place, every body

uses software applications like MS Word and Excel to create documents. Any

manually prepared work papers should be questioned to determine if their

preparation was the most efficient way of creating them.

One essential element of an electronic document culture is an electronic file

storage structure that is easy to use and adequate for maintaining this electronic

information. This electronic document emphasis should start by the elimination of

manual work papers and less generation of O/C (Office copies) and best efforts to

organize documents in soft form itself.

The hard copy documents which we may receive from clients/ tax departments and

other sources etc. can be scanned and organized is a systematic manner for faster

retrieval in future.

You need a system to effectively organizes Microsoft Office documents so that an

authorized user can retrieve any document at any point of time, independent of the

creator, time and the computer it was saved.

Being a prerequisite of Knowledge Management this topic is covered in a greater

detail in discussion of Knowledge Management.

Knowledge Management

At the completion of every assignment, firm personnel should devote sufficient time

to analyze what they learned from the completed assignment, discuss how they

could have improved upon the quality and how this information could be applied and

beneficial to future assignments. The results of these meetings should be

documented, including supporting schedules and processes, and other potential

benefits of the information should be identified.

What is Knowledge Management, how it is beneficial and how it can be implemented

in a practicing CA Office has been discussed in detail separately.

Document Automation Tools

Automated document assembly tools can restructure the methods CAs use for

repetitive drafting tasks, like routine complaints in Tax appeal cases or documents

prepared in uncomplicated real estate matters. Document assembly can also support

more complicated transactions if the documents needed to complete the transactions

do not require large amounts of customized drafting. Many types of software provide

document automation solutions that give end users the power to create text-based

templates and assemble text documents. The result is an automatically compiled

and flawless document. Few of the software that are available in market are

Activedocs, Hotdoc etc.


Practice Management System

Practice Management Application will cover complete assignment cycle from

Acceptance to the completion of the assignment. In an accounting practice, the

software application can be used for Acceptance, Allocation, Workflow, Progress

Reporting, Monitoring, Completion, Approval & Delivery of assignments.

Collaboration & Messaging Applications

These applications include tools that allow individuals to communicate and share

information effectively in an electronic format. E-mail has become almost universal

amongst business people to converse and transfer information, and its close relative

Instant Message (IM) allows collaboration in real time with minimal system

overhead. Messaging applications have evolved to voice mail and messaging being

incorporated into these email systems providing the capability to move them like any

other electronic document and either play them in their native format or convert them

to text, depending on the recipient‟s requirements.

Financials

Every firm should select the best tool like an accounting package which can help you

to maintain your accounts on receipt basis.

Also, apart from implementing an IT tool to handle your financials, this tool has to be

managed which includes Pipeline Reporting, Simplify Expense Reporting etc. in a

very pro-active manner.

Learning & Training Management

With technology being introduced at an increasingly faster rate, it is imperative that

CAs make a conscious effort to understand and utilize those technologies within their

organizations. The best firms have a structure in place to identify the most effective

client service processes and standardize them as part of a “Standard Procedures”

concept. Many firms nowadays also have a person dedicated to training firm

personnel and developing an ongoing learning curriculum to optimize the

effectiveness of each individual. Its very obvious that best technologies can be

implemented within organizations. It is important to have at least one member of

your organization responsible for keeping on top of technologies as they evolve and

making the determination of how you can benefit.

Asset Management

Most accounting firms have difficulty keeping an accurate inventory of their

technologies. Keeping inventory of workstation models/types, operating system


versions, hard drive sizes, amount of RAM, access level rights, software applications

in use etc. is very hard to track manually. All of this information must be considered

when preparing IT budgets or when allocating equipment to new staff. Inventory can

be collected at regular user-defined intervals to ensure that the firm always has

access to up-to-date asset inventory information.

Disaster Recovery

CAs today are extremely reliant on their IT infrastructure to service clients. Any loss

in the ability to access network resources translates directly into lost profitability so

firms must do all they can to protect their information network. This begins by first

ensuring that all data is backed up, verified, and stored offsite in a format that is

easily accessible in the event of any disaster. The firm should also develop a

business continuation plan that outlines the network infrastructure and includes

processes to rebuild this if necessary.

Anti Virus/ Anti Spam Solutions & Firewalls

In this modern era of Information Technology, many unwanted hindrances like

viruses and spam mails too have to be faced by firms accepting IT as a leveraging

tool to enhance their efficiency. Though no fool proof tools exist firms need to rely on

prevention and damage control tactics like acquiring regular updates of anti viruses

across office network, locking down mischievous mails and pornographic sites,

verifying the locks are working and implement Firewalls to stop remote unauthorized

connectivity through internet/IP access

Authentication & Password Management

User authentication and password protection are the most basic and a very easy

technology that can be implemented by firm owners. Not limiting to this, most of the

application and system software are equipped with an facility to authenticate users

with a password. Though provided the firm management must take care that these

passwords and users are managed appropriately and changed at regular intervals to

maintain the consistency of then security level in the firms.

Storage & Back up Management

As days pass by firms who have already implemented IT will have to seriously

evaluate the amount of information they generate and the volume of information that

they may churn out in a stipulated time period. Firms must make provision to occupy

all the information that is generated and see to it that the information that they might

want to store has necessarily an excellent business value.

Not only this, firm management must be alert enough to implement appropriate

backup policies and find out an effective way to backup all information daily and


periodically. Firm authorities should ensure that all the data /documents should be

backed up and stored away safely in case of an emergency situation.

Strategies for successful IT Management

Evaluate Current IT infrastructure

You need to analyze your software and hardware equipments and decide whether to

acquire more and/or update existing hardware and software.

Analyze Departmental Process & Procedures

Conduct interview of selected personnel via group discussions (tax, audit,

accounting, administration etc.) to determine bottlenecks and redundancy and make

recommendations to improve these situations.

Stabilize Existing IT Infrastructure Environment

All your efforts to establish an appropriate IT set up will go waste unless you

dedicate time to stabilize the usage of the existing IT setup and put efforts to see that

the end user accepts the change and the investment in IT is exploited through

massive usage by the firm employees and other partners. A few to do this can be

derived through maximizing usage of existing applications, budget allocation for

training on existing platforms, standardize firm wise best practices for usage of IT

applications and stress on planning towards paperless (less papers) office

environment.

Advantages of an Ideal IT Set UP

A Firm with ideal IT infrastructure will have distinct advantages over competitors.

Profits will be derived in long term directly as tangible gain or intangible assets.

Operating costs will be minimal (without the overhead), and most important, there

will be complete access to the world market without geographic, legal, or political

barriers. These features in conjunction with innovative marketing strategies, should

allow the CA Office, to quickly overcome its competition and become a leader in its

field of consulting.


Knowledge Management in Practicing CA’s Office

Most firms‟ knowledge is also “Paper-Based” and when you want information about

a client, you check with the paper file. The firm‟s policies and procedures are

restricted in employee‟s handbook, appointment programs, and other written

materials. Paper-based information is typically time consuming to access and

relatively unstructured.

A lot of the communications with clients (client knowledge) goes unrecorded. Letters

documents, memos, and tax returns are maintained in client files. This knowledge

about the clients exists only in the memories of the firm members concerned.

Sharing this type of knowledge with other firm members occurs only occasionally. If

the firm member concerned leaves the firm, this knowledge is lost.

The way knowledge is maintained in CA firms today is in the same way it was

managed 5 years ago. Using Groupware, Document Management and Knowledge

Management solutions, firms can enhance and organize their knowledge base and

also reduce the efforts put into acquiring it.

What is Knowledge?

Knowledge is

What your ideas are?

What you have read?

What you have heard?

What you imagine?

Knowledge often is being considered the property of individuals while a great deal of

knowledge is produced and held collectively. Such knowledge is generated when

people work together. Most of you can not articulate what you know. Knowledge is

largely invisible and often comes to mind only when you need it to answer a question

or solve a problem.

Difference between Data, information, Knowledge &

Wisdom

To understand the meaning of knowledge you need to understand what knowledge

actually is, and how it is different from data, information, and wisdom.

Data: Data can be defined as unstructured information. It simply exists and has no

significance beyond its existence.


Information: Data becomes information when its creator adds meaning, which

makes it relevant and fulfills a purpose.

Knowledge: knowledge is the right collection of information, such that its intent is to

be useful. It originates and applied in the minds of knowledge owner.

Wisdom: Wisdom is the process by which you judge between right and wrong, good

and bad. Computers do not have, and will never have the ability to posses wisdom.

Classification of Knowledge

Explicit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge is the kind of knowledge that is relatively easily put down on

paper or into another media and directly accessible to the persons one wishes to

transfer knowledge to. An example could be a CA Firm‟s repository of template

documents or it could be repositories of various procedures, case laws or judgments

etc. with comments attached for better understanding.

Tacit Knowledge

You know more than what you can tell and hence tacit knowledge is not easily

transferred. Generally, transfer of tacit knowledge requires extensive personal

contact and meetings etc.

There is no argument that tacit knowledge plays an important role in the way you

make decisions and perform your work. To illustrate, look at the Audit Manager. Over

the course of an audit, the audit manager has to make many decisions, such as how

to allocate resources, when to escalate a problem, who to rely on etc. Each of these

actions and decisions requires explicit and tacit knowledge in varying proportions.

The tacit knowledge might consist of things like "gut feelings," experience or some

other knowledge that you can't find in books or in audit documentation.

In most of these situations, there is a strong emphasis placed on good

documentation. The problem is that current documentation methods have provided

us with little help in capturing, retaining, and sharing all that important tacit

knowledge.

What is Knowledge Management (KM)?

Knowledge Management is a concept in which an organization leverages its

collective wisdom to increase responsiveness, efficiency and productivity. KM


enables an enterprise to gather, organize and share its knowledge in terms of

resources, documents and people‟s skills. It is a cost saving process that

enhances performance.

KM Components

“While technology and processes are important to Knowledge Management , it

is people who determines its success”

Knowledge Management in CA firms

Studies reveal that more than 80% knowledge of a CA firm is stored in documents.

These documents which can be stored as standard formats, templates, model

documents, letter formats, procedures and other information are referred to as

knowledge documents. The ultimate value of documentation in a CA Firms lies in

the ability to capture, retain, and share knowledge to those who need to use it. Each

and every action and decision taken within the CA Firms is dependent on

knowledge.

If document management is going to play a role in meeting the needs of today's CA

Firms, then it means your documents will need to become better vehicles to capture,

retain, transfer, and use of knowledge, both explicit as well as tacit. However, at the

same time you upgrade your documentation methods, you must also expand the

way you think about the content. There is more to the knowledge life cycle than just

the creation process. You also need to enhance your understanding of how

knowledge contained in documents is retained, maintained, shared, and made

workable.

First change that the CA firms need to make in the knowledge collection process is

by means of increasing the emphasis on electronic documents. This electronic


document importance should start by the removal of manual work papers.

Efficiencies will be gained through easier editing and reuse of documents. You do

the work once, document it, and store it electronically for future use. Then, when the

right occasion arises, you use this electronic document, with appropriate editing, to

meet the needs of some other client or another assignment.

The software for creating electronic documents is readily available. Office

applications such as Microsoft® Word and Excel are being used in almost every CA

firm. One essential element of an electronic document culture is an electronic file

storage structure that is easy to use and adequate for maintaining these electronic

documents. You need a uniform file naming system and well defined folder

hierarchy to store/save documents so that will help you to create office documents

faster & smarter.

Microsoft® Word and Excel should be used for each and every documentation need

and any manually prepared document should be questioned to determine if their

preparation was the most efficient way of creating them?

KM Process

Problem Areas of Knowledge Loss and Retention

Members and employees of the CA firms often spend their precious time for a futile

search of knowledge, which they require to fulfill their job requirements. The required

knowledge is somewhere available in the firm‟s document repository but is not

accessible when needed.


Studies show that by implementation of Knowledge Management Solution, the

productivity can be increased at least by 30 %.

Examples of missing Knowledge Retention

A number of qualified or semi qualified professionals or employees in a CA

Firm work on similar problems. They may not know about the activities and

expertise of the others.

Result: Duplication of work.

One professional or a team of professional has developed an extremely

efficient system to work upon a particular assignment. Other members in the

firm should profit from their methods. However, there is no policy or system to

share this knowledge.

Result: Knowledge cannot be reused and is forgotten in a short period.

A partner tries to secure a new client or a new assignment from an existing

client. But the deal does not go through. The reasons for this failure or

success are not always documented and communicated.

Result: Other partners or employees do not learn from this experience

and repeats the same mistake.

A client complains about the delivery of service but also gives suggestions for

its improvement. This information is usually appreciated, but it is seldom

communicated to the other others.

Result: Useful user related knowledge cannot be utilized for service

quality enhancement.

An assignment has come to a conclusion. The assignment management has

all the finding and results. But the whole process with all the "trials & errors",

the faults, the negative results and "lessons learned" are usually not

documented.

Result: Expertise and knowledge cannot be communicated and shared.

A professional or an employee is leaving the firm. His knowledge has not yet

been transferred to the others.

Result: Knowledge loss. For example, personal notes and

documentation is also useless unless the others know about it.


A partner or an employee suddenly gets ill. He is the only one, who through

his experience knows what to do when a certain document or set of

documents not traceable.

Result: An expensive search for that expertise and knowledge.

KM: A Roadmap to Excellence

Smart File Management

Organizing office documents effectively so that an authorized user can retrieve any

document at any point of time, independent of the creator, time and the computer it

was saved on.

Record Management

What documents generated and when?

Who generated?

Where they were saved?

Who have access?

List of all documents

Knowledge Management

A system to identify knowledge documents from working documents.

A central repository of knowledge documents to make them available to authorized

users instantly

Continuity Management


Easier transfer of operation knowledge from departing/already departed employees

to their successors and easier handover of work in progress.

Implementation of KM in CA Firms

- Step 1: Identification of the "real" Problem.

You need to assess the risk of losing critical and valuable knowledge and ski lls. The

following questions and other weaknesses in your firm need to be identified. It should

be clear that Knowledge Management Solutions are implemented to avoid

knowledge loss. A roadmap has to be formulated as to what is to be achieved with

KM solution.

Do the partners/employees have access to a common knowledgebase?

Do the expertise in the core areas and processes collected and

documented?

Does these expertise shared between the partners/employees?

Can the experience gained from the assignments be reused again and

thoroughly?

Does the knowledge of partners/employees available during their

absence?

Is there any transfer procedures defined, if the partner/employee changes

their work profi le?

Is there an imminent retirement of important partners/employees planned?

Can the new professionals / employees be trained quickly?

Do you lose knowledge of temporary workforce?

Step 2: Identify what knowledge is to be retained, and specify how and in

which form.

You need to define and decide the critical areas of knowledge which are to be

retained by your firm. These could be expertise, ideas, competencies, processes,

client‟s information and / or assignments. You need to plan the structure as how to

build your knowledge repository, which are stored as central repository and well

categorized.

Individual knowledge retention is also important; you should create your specific

knowledge documents and be careful to take your time while categorizing.

Step 3: Definition of the Knowledge and the role of employees to capture and

organize it.


After the successful completion of the first two steps, you should have the following

documents:

Identification of critical and problem areas associated with knowledge loss

The goal you want to achieve through a KM solution

One hierarchical structure of important knowledge areas and structure to

store knowledge documents.

It should be decided that who will be responsible to assess, capture, manage and

store valuable knowledge in a KM solution.

First, it is to be determined who is going to be the knowledge manager. He

determines the access rights of the users. Then it is to be decided whether the user

is responsible to store his knowledge or is it the knowledge manager.

Step 4: Integration and Setup of KM Solution

One should take care that KM Solution must be so defined that it functions

permanently and adds value continuously. The values generated over a period of

time, have to be integrated again in the process. In the beginning, it generates and

selects new critical knowledge in important service processes or knowledge areas.

Step 5: Supervision and Assistance in Feedback and transfer of Knowledge

back into the Firm.

You should define the specific points where the knowledge, as an added value,

should be transferred back into your firm. This should happen irrespective of what

knowledge a user is looking for in the knowledge base using your KM solution.

Check list, for example, can be added to an existing service process. The users

involved should be advised to search the knowledge base for a particular theme and

note down whether knowledge was found or not. If it was found, can it be used by all

the members of the firm? It also opens the opportunity for new employees. After a

period of 6-12 months, a review should be conducted among those employees, who

were either knowledge experts or users in this Knowledge Management Solution and

the results should be adapted.

Benefits of Knowledge Management Solution:

In today‟s competitive professional environment, knowledge management is a need

like word processing or e-mail. It is difficult to measure advantages of knowledge

management in rupee terms. It is apparent that the intangible benefits of knowledge

management are more significant indicators of its importance.

Saves Precious Time and effectively Money: You can save time. It means, you

can generate more money.


Quick services to clients: You can more efficiently produce documents and deliver

them to your clients faster and thus offer a better quality of service. This makes you

more effective and has clear benefits for client relationship management.

Improved Service Quality: You capture your specialist knowledge in a document or

system. The quality of your advice will be better because you know more or have the

critical high value information readily available to you, and the quality of your

documents will be better because it incorporates the accumulated wisdom of a range

of experts.

Increase Efficiency and enhance productivity: Good KM Solution makes life

easier. It makes possible to find what you want when you want it. This increases

productivity and reduces stress.

No adverse effect on transfer/leave of staff: Capturing knowledge in a system

means that it doesn‟t walk out of the door if an individual leaves the firm. Some

would argue that it is impossible to capture the „tacit‟ knowledge that resides in the

minds of individuals. This is without doubt true. However, if you can describe the

behavior of an individual in a particular circumstance and put that description into a

system accessible by others, you enable other members of the firm / employees to

learn from that behavior and facilitate the transfer of the relevant knowledge and

skills.

Improved Learning Environment: Good knowledge management helps

professionals and employees of the firm to learn more from other members in the

firm, ensuring that firm expertise is captured, retained and made available.

Faster Learning to new Entrants: Effective knowledge management assists in the

introduction of new members/employees into the firm. It makes easier for new

entrants to identify firm‟s working style and to match firm‟s quality requirements.

Effective Collaboration: Effective knowledge management facilitates collaboration.

It does this by maintaining a shared database of resources credited to authors, and

by having an expertise location system.

Best Utilization of IT resources: Good knowledge management can improve

utilization of existing resources, including technology. At many firms computers are

being used as electronic type writers in the absence of document management and

KM solution.

Be More Competitive: If a firm‟s competitors are using KM Solution and as a result

are more effective, and if your firm wants to survive and expand, you must do it too.

it infrastructure and knowledge management in cas office

Technology

knowledge management

proper management

firms infrastructure

technology management

right knowledge

hardware infrastructure

facilities management

individual knowledge