Knowledge Management System as a Service is increasingly becoming important in today’s connected world. Large companies and including the Fortune 500 ones are losing a significant amount of money due to not following the right Knowledge Sharing practices.
KM must remain an essential parameter in the overall company strategy. It is a significant factor that will determine the success of the company in today’s competitive market.
Why Should Knowledge Management System be implemented in Organization?
There are many advantages to implementing Knowledge Management System in an organization. It will help in better organizing the operations and result in higher business productivity.
- Faster Access to Information – The central repository concept will help in faster information storage and retrieval. KM will help in reducing work duplication.
- Better Decision Making  – KM facilitates knowledge sharing and workplace collaboration. It enhances the decision-making process by making available ample information to the top management and functional teams.
- Information Sharing & Product Innovation – KM will provide an environment that will initiate research, development, innovation, etc. It also helps in storing the information more efficiently.Â
- Enhance Business Unit’s Efficiency – KM will help in raising the overall work productivity for all teams in an organization. It helps them to work efficiently using the KM best practices.
- Improved Customer Satisfaction- KM’s best practices will help the CRM system and employees to retrieve customer information at a faster pace. Also, it helps in adding value to customers by offering possible up-selling options.
Additionally, the front desk can better answer the customer queries by making the customer details available easily to them.
Enterprise Social Networking – A KM Concept
Enterprise Social Networking is a new concept in the KM sector, where Corporate Chat Software is made available for the organizational teams to collaborate and work together on specific projects.
It uses the latest technology such as Artificial Intelligence to process informative insights on customer management. Few AI-powered tools will capture customer feedback in real-time and help companies engage better with customers.
Knowledge Management, in a nutshell, is at its infancy stage and many organizations in UAE and globally are embracing the KM wave. It has numerous business opportunities for the organization across varied sectors.
Implementing Knowledge Management (KM)– 8 Steps to Follow
1. Goal Setting
The knowledge Management practices insist on setting organizational goals by the employees. There are short-term and long-term business objectives that can be achieved through the implementation of KM. Setting a common goal helps the organization progress in the right direction.
2. Organizational Culture
Knowledge Management System influences the organizational culture significantly. It helps in building an open work culture. It will ready the top management to be more welcoming towards information sharing.
KM will empower employees with awareness training on changing organizational values, exchange of information, and process improvements. The successful implementation of the KM system will help in transforming the overall organizational culture significantly.
3. Process Overview
KM has a well-defined process flow that will help streamline the organizational system performance. A clear process flow chart with execution timelines is essential for the successful implementation of Knowledge Management practices in your organization.
KM has many scopes and there is a vast area of focus that will address the following concepts:
- Identifying Knowledge and capturing it for the next generation
- Categorizing and disseminating knowledge through written, spoken, and visual records
- Facilitate organizational best practices such as formulating a KM Strategy, creating knowledge assets, identification & categorization of information, and more.
4. Prioritize Technology Needs
Depending on various parameters the scope of Knowledge management implementation differs. The complexity of business activities, specific business requirements, data and information structure, team & previous projects handled, etc., play a role in determining the scope of the KM project.
Conducting a cost-benefit analysis is an effective practice before implementing Knowledge Management. It will help in determining the result and feasibility.
5. Analyzing the Present State
Conducting a Gap Analysis of the current organizational system is essential. It helps to assess the current business operations, IT competence, employee management standards, management culture, and more.
Also, for the success of the Knowledge Management System implementation, analyzing the business objectives and the alignment of the KM project scope is essential.
6. Roadmap for KM Project
Having an implementation road for a KM project is essential for the success of the KM program. The insights obtained from the Gap Analysis and the goal setting will come useful in drafting a robust road map.
The road map must account for all the KM process flows and the scope of the KM project. It must be aligned to the organizational goals as well. It will help in implementing the right KM System and build a KM Strategy as well to meet all the compliance requirements of the ISO 30401:2018 KM Standard.
7. Implement the KM System
All the information collected from the KM process analysis, roadmaps, goal setting, and management review will come to use at this stage of the final implementation of the KM System.
The employees are provided training to gain maximum benefits out of the KM system to obtain the desired business objectives at the earliest. Continuous improvement is the key to the success of a Knowledge Management System
8. Performance Measurements and System Improvements
Measuring the performance and working on the system improvements are essential practices that contribute to the overall success of the KM program. It is a continuous process and would take time to start showing results.
The team must look for the scope of improvements, and shortfalls, and create an action plan to enhance the overall system performance to achieve the desired result.
The employees must continue using the KM system and constantly optimize the processes. It will eventually enhance employee productivity and overall business growth.
6 Components of a KM System
Knowledge Management System is a collaboration of the following components. Multiple factors contribute to the success of a KM System. Lastly, the KM System significantly improves organizational productivity, employee engagement, and business growth.
1. Segment the Information
The information must be organized effectively into a centralized system and segmented into various categories. Different teams, projects, and business units can later access the information as required.
The aim of segmenting the information is for easy information retrieval. At the same time, all outdated information must be removed from the system constantly to keep the system up to date.
2. Enhance Employee Productivity
One of the main aims of the Knowledge Management System is to enhance employee productivity. The best practices will empower employees to perform better by enabling more responsibilities for them.
3. Enable Search Directory
The Knowledge Management System must be capable enough for the employees to search and retrieve information easily. File Tagging helps in achieving the objective effectively by identifying a certain group of documents and providing them with identifiable tags.
4. Simplified Training Procedures
The KM System must follow simple training procedures for the employees to easily learn the system. It should be also updated on a timely basis with new documents, recordings, and tutoring materials.
5. Framework for Content Creation
The content creation process must be uniform and must maintain a certain standard to maintain content consistency. The content must be matched with the pre-set framework and edited and organized accordingly.
Consistency in content creation will help employees build a wealth of information to engage, collaborate and interact with. It, in turn, results in enhanced employee motivation and productivity.
6. Leverage Social Elements
Integrate the content management system with Enterprise Social Media Platforms for easy collaboration. It helps employees in creating, managing, and sharing relevant content to enhance their work productivity.
Also, the social component of the Knowledge Management System increases employee recognition and motivation to contribute more to the organization.
Knowledge Management Strategies – How is it important for Organizations?
There are two Knowledge Management Strategies – Short-term and Long-term strategies. The Short-term Strategies include readying the system by implementing best practices of information management, identifying knowledge domains, analyzing knowledge gaps, etc.
- Information Management – All data storage devices, repositories, online documents, etc., must be audited and cleaned up. The Quality Team must create new documentation, policies, & procedures and share them with the employees.
- Identifying Knowledge domains – Optimize two-three business domains to start with the KM Implementation. Once the key functionalities pass the KM best practices compliance spread to other functionalities as well.
- Analyzing Knowledge Gaps – Identify critical gaps in daily business operations and Key domains across the industry sectors. Â Prepare the list of organizational teams to analyze the gaps for enhancing business productivity.
- Knowledge Management Practices –  The organization must practice a culture of knowledge sharing among employees. Adding accurate information to the organization’s data repository is also an important aspect of credibility among stakeholders.
KM Practices – Long-term Strategies
From the larger organizational perspective, achieving their long-term goals is essential for sustainability. Aligning it with knowledge management, there are a few best practices to follow to achieve the organizational goals with much more efficiency.
- Multiple Knowledge Formats – A large content library with various assets including videos, manuals, documents, audio files, etc., describing various complex projects, etc., is essential in today’s world to stay relevant in the industry.
- Accessibility of Knowledge – All levels of employees must be able to access the company’s information anytime. The flexibility and robustness of the KM system make it a success.
- Technology Adoption – New technology adoption is a requirement for the knowledge Management System implementation. Systems based on AI, Cognitive Computing, Predictive Analysis, etc., are the future of KM systems.
Hence, in conclusion, Knowledge Management must be an essential part of any organization’s business strategy. Above all, Knowledge sharing and collaboration are two main areas of focus in KM project implementation.
Knowledge sharing is important because it helps organizations store and share information with the next generation of employees. When a talented employee leaves the company, he takes away the learning experiences if it is undocumented.
There is endless scope to the Knowledge Management System concepts. New opportunities are getting added to the sector on the go.
For any query on Knowledge Management Services, have a free chat with us right away!
Contact: Aurion Business Consultants
