Knowledge Management: The Ultimate Guide to Knowledge Management

What is knowledge management?

Knowledge Management is a process that caters to managing and overseeing knowledge within a business. At the core of the process, it is a method that companies can use to identify, organize, and share knowledge within their departments to employ varied yet critical ideas to perform high-value business tasks.

Two common knowledge types that exist within a company are:

• Explicit knowledge is any knowledge that is easy to capture, store, and then share. It is, therefore, the most common data stored in databases, memos, videos, and other simple business storage solutions.
• Tacit knowledge is knowledge inside people's minds that is not easy to explain, package, or transfer to others. It is primarily experienced-based, and people can act with experience more than they can explain to others.

Knowledge management system examples

Knowledge Management Systems refer to technological solutions that are effective for collecting, storing, and organizing knowledge for easy collaboration and aligning business processes.

The common types include:

• Organization-wide knowledge management platforms
• Online community forums
• Research and insights libraries
• Customer service knowledge bases

All the systems operate differently but provide platforms for publishing and organizing the company's knowledge to ensure that essential information is not lost.

Knowledge management strategies

Different companies apply specific strategies to manage their knowledge. The most common strategies include the following:

• Motivation: employers motivate employees through communication, establishing goals, and rewarding outstanding performance.
• Network: knowledge is easily shared when there is a direct connection with people and products within a shared network.
• Supply: after capturing knowledge, the company uses various methods to supply it across the departments for reusing purposes.
• Analysis: verification through quality analysis finding valid information to use within the collected knowledge.
• Codify: After collecting information, codification helps offer standard methodologies that will apply to other company sectors.

Benefits of knowledge management

Organizations benefit significantly through sharing, innovating, reusing, and learning information in the following ways.

Better decision making

By obtaining accurate knowledge of the entire organization, it is easy to make quality decisions to speed up business operations that lead to success.

Enhanced customer satisfaction

Sharing business knowledge and cross-collaboration increases the value employees present to clients by offering prompt and personalized responses.

Stimulate growth and innovation

Companies can stimulate growth by using the knowledge they receive to innovate strategies to manage their products and services and stay on top of the competition.  Also, encouragement through using and sharing knowledge creates a savvy workforce by improving long-term relations for better business growth.

Conclusion

The knowledge management process is a vital aspect of any organization. It allows for the fast collection, creation, storage, and sharing of knowledge to achieve business goals. It helps to improve employee and customer experiences efficiently, resulting in boosted sales and customer loyalty.

The processes are often stepwise to realize better results. It occurs in four main parts:

• Knowledge acquisition
• Knowledge storage
• Knowledge distribution
• Knowledge use

Through these processes, an organization gets their treasured information and uses it effectively to diversify their operations.

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