Tata Steel has been named a 2003 Asian Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) winner. Tata Steel is the only manufacturing company to have received this award in India and the only steel company in the world. Ravi Arora of Tata Steel received this special recognition on behalf of the company at the 2003 Asian MAKE awards ceremony, which took place during the World Knowledge Forum, Seoul, Korea, on October 15, 2003.

This award recognises the company's journey of excellence and acknowledges the importance given to knowledge management (KM), the visible driver of competitive advantage. Tata Steel pioneered KM to shift the basis of growth from natural resources and physical assets to intellectual capital, which has become the source of innovation, growth and value in modern competitive scenario. Tata Steel has developed an index called the "KM Index", to measure the performance of the system.

The MAKE programme is administered by Teleos, an independent knowledge management research company. According to Rory Chase, managing director of Teleos, "These organisations have been recognised as global leaders in effectively transforming enterprise knowledge into wealth-creating ideas, products and solutions. They are building portfolios of intellectual capital and intangible assets which will enable them to out-perform their competitors in the future."

Responding to the news of the award, B. Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel said, "I am proud that Tata Steel is recognised for its knowledge creating and sharing character and I congratulate all the employees of Tata Steel. This award, however, is only a milestone and must not be mistaken for our destination. We need to make knowledge the primary source of our distinction in an industry where technology is increasingly becoming a commodity.

Dr T. Mukherjee, deputy managing director (steel) also responded with pride, "The excitement that we have been able to build and sustain with the help of champions of knowledge communities, domain practitioners and subject matter specialists is the soul of this programme. I am delighted that our efforts are recognised and we are the winners of the prestigious MAKE Award."

A panel of Asian Fortune 500 senior executives and internationally recognised knowledge management experts chose the 2003 Asian MAKE Winners. The panel rated organisations against a framework of key knowledge performance dimensions such as developing knowledge workers through senior management leadership and creating an environment for collaborative knowledge sharing.