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Professional Service firms are facing a number of major competitive challenges including price-down pressures from clients, accelerated by the 2008 financial crash, deregulation in some markets (such as the UK and Australian legal sectors), increasing competition from lower cost economies (such as IT services from India) and new internet-enabled business models (such as Freelancer.com in IT and design services, Crunch.co.uk in accountancy and RocketLawyer.com in legal services).

During a time of budget cuts you might be called upon to explain why Knowledge Management shouldn’t be axed.  What do you say?

Across the spectrum of the Knowledge and Information Management services offered by Enterprise Knowledge, one of the common themes of late has been the design and development of knowledge bases for helps desks and call centers.  We’ve all heard the phrase that content is king, recognizing that knowledge and information management systems are only as good as the information within them.  This is especially true for knowledge bases, where getting quick access to a complete set of meaningful “answers” is directly related to customer satisfaction and end user service.

       If you ask 100 Knowledge Management experts how to effectively implement and practice KM, you really do get close to 100 different answers.  I believe this is because there isn’t one right answer.   I believe that we should consider that before we go into looking at maturity models and k-strategies that we must attend to and address how people in our organization feel and how we engage with each other.

Following is an excerpt from Dr. Rhem's latest book, Knowledge Management in Practice due out at the end of the year:

Social media brings the power of sharing and collaboration to the masses. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube… knowledge sharing and collaboration has become a way of life. At the core of knowledge management is knowledge sharing and collaboration and social media tools have business and government taking notice.

Whether I am designing a creative protection structure as a lawyer or designing a creative business model in my Innovation Management practice, I have found that getting the environment right really matters.  While Knowledge Management (“KM”) traditionally focuses on the framework of people, culture, process, and technology, in this brief article I hope to show that KM programs would benefit by also considering “environment.”
 

by Anne Marie McEwan, CEO of The Smart Work Company, Ltd.

Katrina (Kate) Pugh is the president of AlignConsulting, the author of Sharing Hidden Know-How, and is on the faculty of Columbia University’s Information and Knowledge Strategy Masters' program.