In the business world today it is vital to employ a knowledge management system in order to increase productivity and to improve revenue. Creating a system that works specifically for your business can help you grow and keep up with the ever changing market trends.
A knowledge management system, often called corporate knowledge, is found in company databases, management documents, history files, and employee management tools. All of this data is often unconnected and the act of bringing it together and utilizing the data for maximum productivity is what a knowledge management system does.
Although businesses have been doing this for years, the innovation of technology has allowed companies to analyze and utilize bigger amounts of data faster than ever before. Another benefit of KMS is that everyone in an organization can access this type of data for maximum efficiency.
Gone are the days of a corporate structure that provides data to analyze using a top down approach. By implementing knowledge management systems a company can analyse big data instantly and collaborate more effectively.. It can also be used for consultancies, for example a KMS can capture processes, techniques, and presentation templates all of which can be reapplied for future consultants.
Before a business employs a KMS the data going to be analyzed has to be organized. The three types of corporate knowledge can be broken down into explicit, tacit, and strategic knowledge. Explicit is the procedural and company documents such as manuals.
Tacit is the unstructured personal data such as employee experience and strategic is executive marketing strategies or regulations with limited access. Any company can compile this data but in order to succeed there are a few ways to boost your KMS. First, a company has to embrace socializing, that is encouraging employees to collaborate and work together more effectively with the given data.
Next is to promote feedback and questions from the employees to see how the system is working for them and more importantly to share their knowledge and ideas with the rest of the company. All of this has to be influenced by a change in mindset for the entire company. A business has to change from a competitive environment to a collaborative environment in order to share and utilize data. This allows a company to grow and flourish.
An effective KMS can vastly improve coordination in a company. By connecting databases between departments and structures efficiency will vastly improve. If an idea put into the system by the sales department is shared with the IT department and can help them with an issue, it reduces the time it would take for them to come up with the idea on their own.
The leaders of the business do have to guide what knowledge is entered into the system and train the workforce to use it effectively. Ultimately, the system can only help a business because it is built for sharing ideas, solving problems, predicting trends, and increasing revenue.
Photo credit: Idaho National Laboratory / Diagram has been provided by the author.
