How Hitachi Energy is connecting global teams to knowledge

Summary

Hitachi Energy needed to unite the knowledge of its global team in support of the company’s position as an innovative industry leader.

Starmind helped Hitachi develop a real-time knowledge network that connects team members with relevant knowledge and subject matter experts who can offer support. The knowledge management system supports a culture of continuous learning, collaboration and innovation.

Background

Hitachi Energy is a global technology leader with a track record of more than 250 years. The company champions the clean energy transition by co-creating innovative solutions with customers and partners across the entire value chain. Hitachi Energy employs 40,000 people across more than 90 countries.

With Hitachi playing a crucial role in the global energy transition, the company realized it needed to refine its knowledge management strategy so it could provide real-time answers from leading experts to solve global problems.

Challenge

The company needed to make expert knowledge accessible and transparent, bust silos and empower employees to participate in solving critical problems — all while meeting heightened market demands with limited resources. 

Hitachi had to educate its existing workforce while also increasing hiring. Therefore, learning plans and organizational goals had to be easily accessible to new employees while reinforcing a culture of continuous learning across the workforce.

The company’s rich history meant it had vast stores of organizational knowledge, but much of that knowledge was undocumented or inside silos. Hitachi’s traditional knowledge systems required manual actions by employees to access, search and update databases, hindering productivity and innovation, particularly for engineering. Meanwhile, the company’s goal of addressing the global energy transition and related issues required teams that could quickly adapt to change. 

Ilija Mrvelj, head of strategy PMO business unit grid integration, explained the opportunity to leverage the company’s resources and elevate its leadership position. “If Hitachi Energy knew what Hitachi Energy knows, it would be unbeatable,” Mrvelj said.

The company had tried various knowledge-sharing methods but often found these top-down approaches didn’t provide the intrinsic motivation teams needed to become engaged. 

The company’s goal was to identify different areas of intelligence and subject matter experts across locations and departments, make this knowledge accessible and transparent, and break down knowledge silos. 

Hitachi knew its teams needed real-time access to enterprise knowledge that was undocumented, inaccessible or otherwise difficult to find. The company wanted a platform that could serve as a “go-to” search engine for all employees with questions or problems while improving new-hire onboarding.

Solution

Hitachi partnered with Starmind to build a real-time knowledge network that gives employees quicker, easier access to the answers they need when they need them. With Hitachi’s teams sharing knowledge and collaborating more effectively, they could self-resolve problems, crowdsource answers to critical questions and find experts to help.

The platform supports teams across the enterprise, regardless of their function or location. Customer service teams, for example, can quickly solve tickets, while executives can ask about product launches or R&D updates. Hitachi can also use the platform to develop employee and organizational skill profiles, identify knowledge gaps and create training based on the identified opportunities.

Results

Hitachi’s new approach to knowledge management easily connects employees with skilled problem-solvers and improves access to resources, giving employees more time to focus on their core tasks. Starmind’s solution helps Hitachi bridge hierarchical gaps and creates excitement among employees who await access to the platform.  

“With Starmind, I just post the question, and you are now able to receive answers from senior management, or principal researchers, answers to questions you before wouldn’t have asked,” Mrvelj says. “In this sense, it democratizes know-how. It bridges cultural, hierarchical, and geographic gaps. And we can actually see this happening in our company.”

Hitachi Energy’s pilot phase began with around 1,700 active users. By the time the project reached about 1,700 questions asked, the total responses had been viewed over 20,000 times. The company estimates that over 10,000 working hours were saved during the first year.

Hitachi Energy noted that the pilot created new pathways of collaboration among departments. Knowledge was being shared across 20 countries. 

Quality and timeliness were evident in the early results. Participants rated over 85% of the answers as five-star responses, while nearly 50% of questions raised were answered in 30 minutes or less. 

In one case, a field service engineer was dealing with a specific technical problem. Because the engineer couldn’t initially self-resolve the issue, they accessed Starmind via their smartphone. Starmind’s app helped solve the customer’s problem in less than 30 minutes.

Mrvelj said team members are “proud to share their know-how, and quite often the answers come from totally unexpected personnel from different organizational parts, from different countries.” 

The company anticipates $36 million in projected efficiency gains upon full rollout. Already, colleagues are spending 20 minutes less per day searching for information and 15 minutes per day less seeking out knowledgeable colleagues. Hitachi also predicts a reduction in the costs incurred by poor-quality work. 

Over a three-year period, Hitachi expects to expand Starmind’s solution and realize efficiency gains of more than $85 million.

“It increases customer satisfaction if you can answer a complex problem in 30 minutes instead of 2 days.”