Dear Komal,
I was associated with a restaurant chain. These restaurants were standalone and equivalent to the restaurants of a 3-star hotel. During my association with them, they were opening their eleventh restaurant.
Despite their experience in opening ten restaurants, one might assume that their work went smoothly. However, this was not the case. The project team was under a lot of stress, often working well past midnight. There were occasional conflicts with the finance and operations departments. They also had disagreements with the marketing department regarding pre-opening publicity. Overall, even the senior officials at the headquarters were facing challenges. Eventually, the restaurant opened, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
I once conducted a training program on "Contract Management" for a company in Noida. The company, which was 35 years old and listed on the BSE, had never developed a contract management plan. They did not track statistics on cost or time overruns in contracts. There was a lack of focus on managing contracts effectively, leading to stress among the personnel in the contract department.
Your query pertains to "collective learning in the technical area with the objective of avoiding duplication of efforts, leveraging collective learnings, sharing best practices, and technical expertise across businesses." Achieving this requires the top leadership to believe in an organized or structured approach to work. Those lacking faith often end up in situations similar to the ones mentioned above.
However, many well-organized companies maintain detailed records of customer dissatisfaction, project issues, etc. These records aid in developing organizational memory, resulting in improved customer satisfaction, reduced errors, and lower operational costs.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar