Knowledge Management as the System That Helps People in an Organization to Share, Access, and Update Business Knowledge or Information    

Knowledge management is a system that enables people to access, share, and update information and any business knowledge in an organization. It includes subjects in information systems, management, business administration, information science, and library. KM promotes the integrated approach to capturing, evaluating, and sharing information. 

Many organizations, including non-profit organizations, have set aside resources for supporting internal knowledge management efforts. This post describes knowledge management in terms of its principles, benefits, key examples, and key types.

Principles of knowledge management

One of the best ways through which a message travels is through language. An organization must choose the best knowledge management strategy to ensure that information is gathered and communicated well. The message needs to be disseminated in a language that all the parties understand and appreciate. 

Without language, people cannot communicate what they know. For people to expand organizational knowledge, they must develop languages to describe their work experience. 

Just like life happens, knowledge must happen too. Knowledge seeks community and this explains why the internet is relevant as a rich source of information. It is difficult to isolate the aspect of knowledge neatly. In the world of knowledge, people can hardly pay attention to one factor when seeking and sharing knowledge.

Knowledge is dynamic and constantly changing and as such, it does not present a single solution. People in an organization may design the best knowledge management approach today, but that approach may be rendered irrelevant or obsolete in the future. 

Knowledge fades away with time and therefore, people should let go of old ways and embrace new ways of doing things. They must contribute to the evolution and vitality of knowledge. The knowledge definition determines its management.

Benefits of knowledge management

Knowledge is an important asset in any organization. Therefore, it should be well documented, accurate, and easily accessible to all. Effective knowledge management enables organizations to save time in recreating the existing knowledge. 

When information is easily accessible, reliable and free from errors, it minimizes the need for employees to interrupt each other with chats and emails. The support employees spend less time addressing common and repetitive questions. Thus, they can get more time to deal with other important work-related matters.

Through knowledge management, people can quickly and efficiently get the information they need. Additionally, when employees gather and share information, they can avoid making mistakes from time to time. Common mistakes can be avoided when people learn from previous mistakes and failures.

Information is used in making decisions in organizations. Quality decisions require access to reliable, timely, and accurate information. Effective knowledge management enables people to make informed decisions. When employees share lessons learned, experiences, and their research outcomes, the details can be critically evaluated and information used to facilitate proper decision-making.

Knowledge management overcomes the limitations associated with passing information through word of mouth. Information can be shared between various parties without distortion. 

Shared and documented processes ensure that everyone agrees with the information being shared and they follow approved procedures. Knowledge management improves communication within an organization because everyone is required to participate in information gathering and sharing. 

Examples of knowledge management systems

Knowledge sharing in an organization is easier with a reliable platform that can meet various needs at the organizational and departmental levels. Examples of knowledge management include:

• Social networking. Social networking enables people to join groups, connect and discuss common issues of interest. It influences organizational knowledge and the way it is generated and shared. Social networking can support knowledge management systems to identify and transfer knowledge.
• Content management. Content management systems store video, audio, and other types of media in addition to documents. The content management process entails organization, creation, storage, workflow, editing, publishing, and archiving of the content.
• Intranets. Intranets are private computer networks aimed at providing access to information and enhancing social networking and collaborations within an organization. Intranets provide a user interface including standard look, navigation, web pages, and search. They can help to standardize the KM environment by allowing for consistent navigation and search.
• Databases. A database enables people to gather, analyze, store and interact with data. Databases enhance the ease of access to information and maintain data security. However, they are costly to design and can sometimes be volatile and prone to security threats.
• Data warehouses. Data warehouses pull data from various parts of an organization and are useful for data reporting and analysis. They store current and historic data and transform it into valuable information. Data warehouses require a high level of maintenance and are complex to manage. 

Types of knowledge management 

One of the common types of knowledge management is explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is reduced and presented physically in writing. It is documented and codified in a physical format and therefore rigid in presentation. Explicit knowledge is easier to share and is regarded as contemporary to tacit knowledge. Examples include reports, graphs, charts, tables, slides, worksheets, and more.

Another knowledge management is implicit knowledge. This is the knowledge that is applicable in real-life situations. Implicit knowledge is gathered and used to solve problems. For example, when the information presented in a graphical format is used for planning and forecasting, it can be classified as implicit knowledge. 

Tacit knowledge is mutually understood and does not require disclosure before it is understood. It is not applicable in a specific situation, neither is it structured. Tacit knowledge has cultural affiliations and is informal. 

Features of tacit knowledge relate to the things employees learn but cannot be easily incorporated in an orientation or training program. When a customer service staff learns how to deal with stubborn customers through experience, this can be termed as tacit knowledge. 

Conclusion

Knowledge management is the basis of information access and sharing. The information gathered must be timely, reliable, and accurate to facilitate effective decision-making. Knowledge management should be a responsibility of all people in an organization and it must influence the organization positively. It should support an organization to realize goals and enable it to be competitive in the industry. 

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Company knowledge is extremely valuable. It is crucial to manage knowledge to support organizational learning. In fact, knowledge management (KM) is essential because it informs business strategy.

This is where KM tools come into place. We live in a time where we are exposed to a ton of information. The secret to success is to learn how to effectively streamline that information.

If your business does not use a KM tool, you are missing out on many advantages such as improved business processes, better communication, quicker problem-solving, better decision making, and improved organizational agility.  

According to a survey, it was found that Fortune 500 companies are losing about $31.5 billion every year due to a failure of KM. Therefore, you must use a KM tool to ensure that you have a central repository for all the data. 

This post takes a close look at the top 9 knowledge tools that will make your work life a whole lot easier. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s dive in. 

1. Bit.ai

One of the best KM tools that you need to know about is Bit.ai. It is an amazing KM and document collaboration tool that will help you manage, track, and share all company knowledge from one place.  

The best thing about the tool is that it allows multiple people to collaborate simultaneously. You can use it to share knowledge, create proposals, share meeting agendas, brainstorm, create client material, and manage projects. Its smart editor makes everything possible. 

Create a smart workspace by using Bit.ai. It is the ultimate tool for collaborating and ensuring that your team has access to the required information. Bit.ai holds a content library, allows each user to manage permissions, and supports document tracking. 

2. Tetra

Another excellent KM tool that you need to consider using is Tetra. It is perfect for the Slack generation. Since most organizations tend to be disorganized, it is important to store all knowledge in one place. 

Tetra was developed to provide Slack teams with the ultimate tool. Anyone can use it for internal updates, storing operating procedures, and accessing information from one place. Once you use Tetra, you will never have trouble with decision making, onboarding new employees, and collaborating.

Some of the top features offered by Tetra include smart suggestions, viewing user activity, and allowing members to edit and suggest existing information.

3. Tally Fox Tallium 

If you are looking for the best KM tool, you need to learn more about Tally Fox Tallium. It is a tool that helps connect users with experts, work with people who are interested in similar topics and create knowledge libraries. 

When you use the platform, you will be able to find experts and get content validated. Look for high-quality answers, find useful suggestions, eliminate silos, and brainstorm ideas with team members. It offers a simple and intuitive user experience. 

Tally Fox Tallium is famous for its strong multimedia library, expertise and is a ready-made platform that anyone can use to access and share information. 

4. Pro Profs 

Pro Profs was initially a free quiz website that was used for certification exams. It has grown to become the perfect training solution. Pro Profs is a great educational resource that boasts more than a million users, including some of the most well-known fortune 500 companies like Cisco, Dell, and Sony.

In addition to the above, it is even used by top universities such as Yale and Harvard. What makes Pro Profs interesting is the fact that its products include training tools, a learning management system, online course creation tools, surveys, and quizzes. 

5. Confluence

Atlassian is the mastermind behind Confluence. It has become the leading KM tool for teams to collaborate and communicate. If your team already uses other products by Atlassian, they will have an easier time using Confluence.

The reason why Confluence is loved by companies is that it helps foster a culture of innovation and idea-sharing. Teams can use it to manage, create, and share content from one place. They can connect it to other products to take its capabilities to the next level. 

Confluence allows automatic versioning, lets you create feedback, and has a structured hierarchy for helping teams quickly find the desired information.

6. Zendesk

Zendesk is a platform that requires no introduction. It is famous for its flexible knowledge base. Companies of all sizes can use it. It is available in over 30 languages. Besides, Zendesk can even be used as a content management system. 

The best thing about the tool is that it supports an AI-powered bot for finding answers instantly. Its top features include precise in-built knowledge base searching, community forum, and the ability to interact with customers using multiple channels. 

7. Help Juice

Help Juice is a great customization tool that you can use to create and manage your knowledge base. It offers styling options for the layout and has a user-friendly interface. The tool records every revision made. 

Track the performance of employees, expand the knowledge base, manage permissions, customize branding, and enable visitors to open every question.  

8. Guru

As the name suggests, Guru truly is a guru. It is the cloud-based KM tool that you need to try. You can use it to connect all the company data together. It even suggests information in real-time using the power of AI. 

The best thing about Guru is that it gets better the more you use it. It is powered by machine learning which means that you will notice an improvement in performance with time. Instead of using multiple KM tools, you should use this tool.  

9. My Hub

Finally, the last KM tool in our past is My Hub. It is a cloud-based intranet solution that you can use for just about every type of business, including Carpet Cleaning Eastbourne. It provides intranet setup, user management, file storage, and users with the option to upload a variety of files, 

With this solid site search tool, you get to collaborate, utilize unlimited elements and embed favourite applications into the software. It does not get better than this. 

10. Knowmax

Knowmax is an AI-powered knowledge management solution for enterprises and has received recognition from Hubspot as one of the best KM software. We believe it is one of the best KM software on the market and would love the opportunity to be included in your article.

Now that you know about the top KM tools, it is about time that you used one for work. You will be impressed by its capabilities. As competition intensifies, every single thing counts. Hence, you have to give a knowledge management tool a try.

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IS ESSENTIALLY ABOUT GETTING THE RIGHT KNOWLEDGE TO THE RIGHT PERSON AT THE RIGHT TIME

It really doesn’t matter what industry you operate in – knowledge management is something you have to think seriously about. If you think about it, everything in your business is based on knowledge, that is data and information. Whether it is your product or service, which is built from knowledge held by your people, or your ability to engage with customers and provide value, which is based on knowing about their needs, or even your internal policies, which is based on knowing about best practices in the industry.

If your organization didn’t have knowledge, then none of these things would have been able to happen. That said, it’s not enough to just have the knowledge. The knowledge should be able to flow through the organization and reach the right people. That’s what knowledge management is all about.

What is knowledge management?

At its heart, knowledge management is essentially about getting the right knowledge to the right person at the right time. It is all about how you document, store, communicate and apply knowledge in an organization in order to improve the processes of the organization and, ultimately, its bottom line. Knowledge management is about finding the best ways to do the things above, so that it can be available on demand for anyone that needs it. In order to understand knowledge management better, we need to know about the different types of knowledge, namely explicit and implicit, or tacit, knowledge

Explicit knowledge

This is any knowledge that is codified and stored and ready to be shared with others. Thing about the rule book, memos, databases, tutorial videos at your company and so on. All of these are examples of explicit knowledge.

Implicit knowledge

This is the knowledge inside the heads of people on your team. But that’s not enough. For it to count as implicit knowledge it also has to be especially difficult to explain. Think about their intuition, natural talent and experience gathered over the years. Implicit knowledge is not only hard to explain, it is as natural for the holder as breathing. We all breathe easily, but not only do we rarely consciously do our breathing, many of us don’t even understand how breathing works!

The importance of knowledge management

Knowledge management is all about utilizing the knowledge in an organization to help it thrive. By having proper knowledge management, an organization can store explicit knowledge and organize it, codify implicit knowledge, turning it into explicit knowledge, and make all that knowledge accessible to your team or audience, so they can work better.

Knowledge management systems help with workflow, onboarding activities, and even HR processes, among others. For customers, knowledge management helps the organization to keep its customers informed and engaged, as well as build their trust in the brand. This can be in the form of bog posts, videos, FAQs, wikis, case studies, and social media content, among others.

What are the benefits of knowledge management?

There are many useful benefits to having a knowledge management system. Below are some of the most important ones:

It aligns the whole team

Knowledge management makes communication more systematic, which enhances collaboration. It also makes it easier for employees to see how their knowledge contributes to the betterment of the organization, getting them more engaged in the process.

It makes the team more productive

Organizations agree that improving their knowledge management systems makes them more productive. With a good knowledge management system, your employees have access to instructions to help them carry out their tasks and follow best practices. They can also communicate and collaborate with each other better and are more efficient as a result.

Persists knowledge in the organization

Good knowledge management helps your organization retain knowledge, even after the knowledgeable employee has left the organization.

Improves the customer experience

Good knowledge management is just as good for your customer as it is for you. Customer-facing knowledge allows the customer to better serve themselves, which improves engagement while reducing your workload. It also helps your customer support team by providing them with a large knowledge base that empowers them to deal with customer issues.

Steps to building an effective knowledge management framework

So now that we understand the benefits of knowledge management, how do you build a good knowledge management framework? Below are the steps:

Have a clear focus

The first step is to know who, exactly, you’re creating the knowledge for. Whether its for your internal team or your customers, it’s important to know who, so as to build the right knowledge management framework.

Define everyone involved and what role they will be playing

Everyone on the team should contribute to your knowledge building efforts. You need project managers, who oversee the initiative, knowledge finders, who gather the knowledge, good communicators to package it, and creators to make it accessible to the most people. These and other roles need to be defined well from the start, so as to make the process more efficient.

Define the tools you will use

Modern technology is a boon on the knowledge building process. There are many tools out there that you can take full advantage of when building a knowledge management framework. A searchable knowledge base is a good place to start. Not only should they be easy to search and navigate, but also allow for optimization and analytics, as well as communication and collaboration. You may also need separate communication, project management, and content creation tools.

Collect data

Next, collect internal data, reports from third parties, and consumer generated content for your knowledge management system. The main focus at this point is to collect data. It can be analyzed later.

Organize the data

Once you’re done collecting data, you can now organize it. For example, separate customer reviews into positive and negative, and then rank them. For most of your data, you will have to create some kind of hierarchy to help make sense of it.

Summarize the most important information

Next step is to give the data some context. Summarize findings in the most objective way you can, while giving it proper context. You can then store, analyze, and apply all that knowledge in the future.

Conclusion

As you can see, knowledge management is an extensive subject, and a single article can’t possibly hope to cover the full scope of it. We have tried, however, to cover the most important aspects. The main takeaway is that, with proper knowledge management, your organization can do much better.

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The Healthcare industry is a knowledge driven industry and depends heavily on availability of updated trainings, health services, innovative and clinical knowledge to solve problems and provide best possible healthcare, innovate, and achieve excellence in the field.

A well-defined Knowledge Management (KM) framework is critical in healthcare organizations to achieve this goal. Knowledge Management is all about connecting people to people and knowledge enabling them to achieve strategic objectives such as innovation, competitive edge, continuous learning, and improvement.

Let’s see below why a KM framework is vital for healthcare organizations.

Empower decision making capabilities: In the digital age, everyone is constantly bombarded with new information. Healthcare professionals need to make informed choices all the time to make critical decisions that might be lifesaving, however, they might feel handicapped if the information is not streamlined and accessible on the go and round the clock. A healthcare Knowledge management system can help with the flow and accessibility of information that can enable doctors to research valuable information regarding symptoms and medical issues that can make life for patients better.

Prevent medical errors by protecting knowledge: Like any other field, healthcare is also highly competitive. As employees leave or are laid off, their knowledge of medical procedures of best practices in their specific field of specialization is lost with the employee, which creates a knowledge gap and room for errors which can be disastrous in the healthcare industry. The healthcare KM solutions can standardize all medical procures, best practices and provide easy access to the required trainings. This ensures that all required knowledge stays and is accessible on the go to everyone even if a person leaves thus reducing the risk of mistakes due to lack of necessary knowledge.

Encourage upskilling: Medical is one field that is continuously evolving with new medical procedures, drugs research and trials. To provide optimal healthcare and medical advice, the medical students cannot rely on the knowledge they learnt during medical studies. They need to constantly evolve and upskill themselves.  The healthcare organizations by establishing a KM framework can encourage sharing knowledge, best practices, learnings, industry research and developments that can be accessed by all to upskill and learn from others.

Collaboration with other experts:  The health care system is one of the most complex systems that we encounter in society (Anderson & McDaniel, 2000; Orr & Sankaran, 2007; Re-inhardt, Hussey, & Anderson, 2004); it requires collaboration with people in different healthcare domains to provide best healthcare to every individual. With medical records, going digital, it is much easier for doctors to share, search and discuss records which is a concern for many because of the threat to patient /doctor confidentiality.
However, a KM system enable you to capture, and share symptoms, medical condition or any other helpful information while keeping the identity anonymous. This makes easier to share life-saving knowledge without compromising the patient’s privacy.

There is ample evidence to support how a KM framework can help healthcare organizations and professionals improve quality of care of the patients and save lives. The setting up of a KM framework in healthcare organizations is no longer a choice, it is imperative to make more-informed choices and improve patient care, which is the ultimate goal of healthcare industry.

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Information is crucial to the success of a business. Without proper management of information, there won’t be synergy among the staff, which could hurt its success. We now live in an era where staff cooperation is needed more than ever, especially as there are various means of communication and information gathering. These different means of gaining information or communication don’t translate the data into helpful knowledge. Also, it doesn’t guarantee that the knowledge gained will be shared appropriately. Knowledge management comes in here, so this post is just for you.

This post will arm you with the necessary knowledge you need to have about knowledge management and how to determine the right knowledge management strategy that will suit your business.  

What is Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is the creation, use, sharing, and management of information in any organization or business. This process involves the employees of a company and their customers. It is geared towards using knowledge to improve a company’s competitive advantage and allow it to be dominant in the market. In essence, knowledge management is making appropriate use of a business’s information.

The main areas of knowledge management are;

• Knowledge accumulation
• Knowledge storage
• Knowledge sharing

Benefits of knowledge management

• It makes it easy to access knowledge and information
• An efficient workplace
• Quicker informed decision-making
• Optimized collaboration
• It improves idea creation
• Efficient knowledge and communication network for business
• Boosts information and knowledge quality
• The improved training process for employees
• Boots employee focus and morale
• Security for business information
• Faster, better decision-making

Types of Knowledge Management

The types of knowledge management are;

Explicit Knowledge
Implicit Knowledge
Tacit knowledge

1. Explicit knowledge

Explicit is the knowledge reduced to a physical form through writing. It is the knowledge that has been codified, documented, and shared in that manner. It is the knowledge that is rigid in form. In summary, it is knowledge with a formal structure. Examples are instructions, reports, charts and other diagrams, worksheets, FAQs, office slides.

2. Implicit Knowledge

Implicit knowledge is, in essence, applied knowledge. It involves learned skills and the application of explicit knowledge to a scenario. Implicit knowledge is knowledge gained then applied to solve a problem. It consists of putting explicit knowledge to practice. For instance, using a strategy slide which is a form of explicit knowledge to a situation, would be categorized as implicit knowledge.

3. Tacit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge is a mutually understood knowledge. It is the information that doesn’t need to be disclosed before it is understood. It doesn’t exist in a structured format, nor is it applied to a situation. It is knowledge known without being taught. This type of knowledge is informal, and it has cultural ties—for example, understanding body language.

Examples of Knowledge Management Strategy

Documentation: This strategy revolves around centralizing manually or, better still, digitally the business documents. These documents can be stored using a manual filing cabinet or a digital one. This system has the following advantages.

Document retrieval becomes easy, and it is easier when stored digitally.
It adheres to the ethics of running a business.
It helps improve workflow.
It secures document longevity as there are backup processes.
Sharing document becomes easy.

Disadvantages

The document might not be protected adequately from outsiders. For instance, if an employee exposes the password to access digital files, the company can be adversely affected by the compromise.
Documentation can be time-consuming.
The document must be appropriately organized and structured for ease of retrieval, the.
There must be a continued update of documents, or the knowledge contained becomes obsolete.

Intranets and Collaboration Environments

These are private computer networks put on easily accessible and searchable communication platforms. The advantages of this strategy are;

• They encourage cooperation among employees.
• Knowledge flows freely among employees.
• It improves internal social networking among employees.
• Innovation levels rise due to the level of cooperation among employees.
• Organized communication lines that help connect all teams.

Disadvantages;

• Free flow communication can breed distractions.
• Outsiders can easily access it.

Determining the right knowledge management strategy

In determining to use a knowledge management strategy or whether your knowledge management strategy is the right one, consider the following and use it as a guide to inform your decision.

Product Improvement

Knowledge management is not done for its sake. It has to establish something, and one of those things is whether the knowledge you have gotten from customers and other sources has caused you to notice problems with your products. Detecting these problems is a precursor to their Improvement. If your strategy is not giving you knowledge of customer experience with your products and their performance in the market, you should be changing your knowledge management strategy.

Customer Service: Assisted Service

Are your support personnel getting information from their customer service sessions, and how have they used that information? This is what should echo in your mind with your knowledge management strategy. The info gotten from customers through customer service sessions with them should translate to how you can help them. This knowledge of how to help them must also be shared and reused by your customer support. This suggests that there is room for collaboration in your customer support.

Customer service: Self Service.

Businesses now offer customers the ability to attend to some issues by themselves. Companies achieve this by giving customers the necessary direct knowledge. The information needed here is whether businesses share self-service knowledge on time, if customers find the knowledge enticing to read and if customers find the knowledge useful. To be sure of the impact this self-service has on a customer, businesses should provide ways to get feedback from their client. If your knowledge management does not allow you to know how impactful your self-service is, it needs to be fine-tuned or changed.

Impact on Business.

Your knowledge management must have a positive impact on your business. It would help if you got sale figures that would impress upon you the strategy you would take to improve sales. Your knowledge management has the ultimate goal of improving your business and your chances to compete in an already competitive market. If you can’t achieve this, then your knowledge management strategy isn’t as beneficial to you as it should be, and as such, you have to make changes.

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