Importance_of_Knowledge_Management_in_Organisation

Introduction In today’s organization business trends, knowledge management has already plumbed the depths of disillusionment. However as it moves towards maturity as a business discipline, it is spawning successors that offer more direct business traction. The basic purpose of knowledge management is to enable an organization to leverage the knowledge and in turn improve productivity. The publicity that surrounds the concept of knowledge management has made it even more difficult to manage and deploy to attain better business results. Managers of today need more focused view on these issues, so that they take the right action. The rapid evolution of intensely connected global economy has resulted in the development of knowledge capabilities. This is very crucial for the growth of any business activity. The pioneers of knowledge management have developed valuable tools and approaches which are now being applied to a wide range of emerging business disciplines. There are five key frames that are emerging as the successors to knowledge management, for leveraging knowledge in organizations. They include social networks, collaboration, relevance, workflow, and knowledge-based relationships. Traditional organizational charts and business process maps does not provide a clear picture about the way in which work is actually performed in an organization. The reality is that, work and knowledge flow in often highly informal patterns, based on who the people actually communicate with in doing their work. Leading companies around the world have started to apply the analysis of social network to gain insights into the invisible organization. In addition, the companies also apply this social network analysis to design interventions that enhance the productivity and effectiveness of knowledge work. In an economy based on highly specialized knowledge, collaboration is essential. Many of the approaches such as, communities of practice pioneered in knowledge management are extremely relevant and useful. However, focus on fostering collaboration between individuals, teams, divisions, and organizations are the most critical. Nowadays, collaboration tools such as video conferencing and web conferencing are being widely used. Now companies are working as a top priority on developing the skills and culture that enable high-value collaboration. However, implementing a whole new set of business processes is also required to unlock the full potential of collaboration. In today's world of massive information overload, we want to see only information that is highly relevant to our work and interests. Among the many evolving technologies that support this, there are two key practices that will be central to enhancing information relevance. Implicit profiling works from what we are searching for and looking at, when, and for how long, to improve over time at understanding what we find useful. Collaborative filtering allows us to draw on the insights and discoveries of people having similar profiles and interests. The future lies in finding relevance for individuals from the vast amounts of information. Knowledge work literally flows through an organization. Before we start to explore and understand the details of what knowledge management is, and how to implement knowledge management projects and initiatives, we need to first ask ourselves why we want to consider knowledge management in the first place. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Knowledge management is the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge (Movement, Davenport, T.; 1994). It is a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, and capturing; evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all enterprise’s assets. These assets may include databases, documents, policies, procedures, and previously uncaptured expertise and experience in individual workers. The Third definition by McLnerney, C (2002) is that “Knowledge Management” is an effort to increase useful knowledge within the organization. The principles and practice of KM have developed in a very conducive environment, given that in this post-industrial information age, an increasingly larger proportion of the population consists of information workers. This is a logical development then to attempt and apply those successful environmental aspects to knowledge workers at large. Work becomes more effective and efficient if the corporate use the Information System and Information Technology with good. Work is certainly not just simple. It is a major focus, because the organization in a corporate environment also becomes an important aspect of the sustainability of the road business. Purpose Knowledge Management  Facilitate the transition of the old with the new employee  Minimize loss of “knowledge” for the release of employees  Know the resources and critical knowledge possessed era  Develop methods to prevent the loss of corporate intellectual property Knowledge Management phase Source: Wikipedia Benefits of Knowledge Management Some benefits of Knowledge Management correlate directly to bottom-line savings, while others are more difficult to quantify. In today's information-driven economy, companies uncover the most opportunities and ultimately derive the most value from intellectual rather than physical assets. To get the most value from a company's intellectual assets, Knowledge Management practitioners maintain that knowledge must be shared and serve as the foundation for collaboration. Yet better collaboration is not an end in itself; without an overarching business context, Knowledge Management is meaningless at best and harmful at worst. Knowledge management is far reaching. Maybe you are considering developing your own personal knowledge management competencies, to become a more effective player in the global knowledge economy, or becoming a more competitive knowledge leader and knowledge driven organization. Most importantly, effective knowledge management is now recognized to be 'the key driver of new knowledge and new ideas' to the innovation process, to new innovative products, services and solutions. Consequently, an effective Knowledge Management program should help a company do one or more of the following: - Foster innovation by encouraging the free flow of ideas - Improve customer service by streamlining response time - Boost revenues by getting products and services to market faster - Enhance employee retention rates by recognizing the value of employees' knowledge and rewarding them for it to streamline operations and reduce costs by eliminating redundant or unnecessary processes These are the most prevalent examples. A creative approach to Knowledge Management can result in improved efficiency, higher productivity and increased revenues in practically any business function. The following graphic shows how operational knowledge management and strategic knowledge management through different systems and strategies are putting the people in the middle of all activities in an organization or firm by motivating them: Importance of knowledge management Knowledge Management is important in the way it arms people with the right information, so that they are able to make better judgments, smarter decisions and create environments in which to encourage innovation, in order to be able to provide a high quality service to its customers. All this, by implication means a Knowledge Management-centric company is a successful company. If a company does not recognize some of the issues a raised, then don’t be surprised if one day a competitor sails passed carrying companies client base. Knowledge Management is not a fad; it has been doing for years, but now the focus has changed. Knowledge is a valuable asset and one needs to use to gain that edge. Even if the company does a lot to change cultures and foster knowledge sharing, in the end it comes down to one thing: unless the knowledge is put into action, there is no reward, only pain. Consequently, an effective KM program should help a company do one or more of the following: - Foster innovation by encouraging the free flow of ideas - Improve customer service by streamlining response time - Boost revenues by getting products and services to market faster - Enhance employee retention rates by recognizing the value of employees' knowledge and rewarding them for it Streamline operations and reduce costs by eliminating redundant or unnecessary processes These are the most prevalent examples. A creative approach to KM can result in improved efficiency, higher productivity and increased revenues in practically any business function. The need for knowledge management is self-explicit. With increasing competition, knowledge about how to produce and sell a service or a product efficiently has become the key factor distinguishing companies. There has also been an explosion in such knowledge in line with the increase in the complexity of the products and services. At the same time, many organizations have been downsizing in a bid to reduce employee costs. As a result, the number of people attached to organizational knowledge is smaller. Knowledge Management System Knowledge Management (KM) is the hottest topics of the internet world today. It is the process where organizations create value from their intellectual and knowledge based assets. In General, knowledge can be classified into two types: - Explicit Knowledge - Tacit Knowledge 1. Explicit Knowledge: Wikipedia says, explicit knowledge can be articulated, stored and codified in a certain media. Explicit Knowledge can also be easily transmitted into others. 2. Tacit Knowledge Tacit knowledge is a knowledge which is difficult to transfer to another person by means of verbalizing and writing it. It is just opposite to Explicit knowledge where people are not aware of the knowledge they possess. Benefits companies expect from Knowledge Management Some benefits of Knowledge Management correlate directly to bottom-line savings, while others are more difficult to quantify. In today's information-driven economy, companies uncover the most opportunities — and ultimately derive the most value — from intellectual rather than physical assets. To get the most value from a company's intellectual assets, Knowledge Management practitioners maintain that knowledge must be shared and serve as the foundation for collaboration. Yet better collaboration is not an end in itself; without an overarching business context, Knowledge Management is meaningless at best and harmful at worst. All employees learn lessons from somebody else’s mistakes and take advantages of each other’s attainments. New and existing employees acquire job knowledge faster, reducing training time and providing higher job quality. Corporate knowledge management systems allow employees and departments work more efficiently, avoiding re-inventing the wheel, reducing redundant work. Knowledge management should meet the minimum demands like knowledge sharing, collection , transference and storage. Knowledge management system possibly includes the following process when treating with knowledge: The basic idea behind this knowledge management system is to enable employees to access the company’s documents base of facts, solutions and sources of information. Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice. Many large companies and non-profit organizations have resources dedicated to internal Knowledge Management efforts, often as a part of their 'Business Strategy', 'Information Technology', or 'Human Resource Management' departments. Several consulting companies also exist that provide strategy and advice regarding Knowledge Management to these organizations. Knowledge Management efforts typically focus on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, and continuous improvement of the organisation. Knowledge Management efforts overlap with Organisational Learning, and may be distinguished from that by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge. KM efforts can help individuals and groups to share valuable organisational insights, to reduce redundant work, to avoid reinventing the wheel per se, to reduce training time for new employees, to retain intellectual capital as employee’s turnover in an organisation, and to adapt to changing environments and markets. Strategies Knowledge Management Knowledge management (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizations as processes or practices. Many large companies and non-profit organizations have resources dedicated to internal KM efforts, often as a part of their business strategy, information technology, or human resource management departments. Several consulting companies also exist that provide strategy and advice regarding KM to these organizations. Knowledge management efforts typically focus on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration and continuous improvement of the organization. KM efforts overlap with organizational learning, and may be distinguished from that by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge. It is seen as an enabler of organisational learning and a more concrete mechanism than the previous abstract research. The components of KM include people, processes, technology (or) culture, structure, technology, depending on the specific perspective. Knowledge may be accessed at three stages: before, during, or after Knowledge Management -related activities. Different organisations have tried various knowledge capture incentives, including making content submission mandatory and incorporating rewards into performance measurement plans. Considerable controversy exists over whether incentives work or not in this field and no consensus has emerged. One strategy to Knowledge Management involves actively managing knowledge (push strategy). In such an instance, individuals strive to explicitly encode their knowledge into a shared knowledge repository, such as a database, as well as retrieving knowledge they need that other individuals have provided to the repository. Another strategy to KM involves individuals making knowledge requests of experts associated with a particular subject on an ad hoc basis (pull strategy). In such an instance, expert individual(s) can provide their insights to the particular person or people needing this. Other knowledge management strategies for companies include: • rewards (as a means of motivating for knowledge sharing) • storytelling (as a means of transferring tacit knowledge) • after action reviews • knowledge mapping (a map of knowledge repositories within a company accessible by all) • communities of practice • best practice transfer • competence management (systematic evaluation and planning of competences of individual organization members) • master-apprentice relationship • measuring and reporting intellectual capital (a way of making explicit knowledge for companies) • knowledge brokers (some organizational members take on responsibility for a specific "field" and act as first reference on whom to talk about a specific subject) • social software (wikis, social bookmarking, blogs, etc.) • Inter-project knowledge transfer Technologies More recently, development of social computing tools (such as blogs and wikis) have allowed more unstructured, self-governing or ecosystem approaches to the transfer, capture and creation of knowledge, including the development of new forms of communities, networks, or matrixed organisations. However such tools for the most part are still based on text and code, and thus represent explicit knowledge transfer. These tools face challenges in distilling meaningful re-usable knowledge and ensuring that their content is transmissible through diverse channels. Dimensions Different frameworks for distinguishing between different 'types of' knowledge exist. One proposed framework for categorizing the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge represents internalized knowledge that an individual may not be consciously aware of, such as how he or she accomplishes particular tasks. At the opposite end of the spectrum, explicit knowledge represents knowledge that the individual holds consciously in mental focus, in a form that can easily be communicated to others. The Knowledge Spiral as described by Nonaka & Takeuchi. A successful KM effort needs to convert internalized tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in order to share it, but the same effort must also permit individuals to internalize and make personally meaningful any codified knowledge retrieved from the KM effort. Subsequent research into KM suggested that a distinction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge represented an oversimplification and that the notion of explicit knowledge is self-contradictory. Specifically, for knowledge to be made explicit, it must be translated into information (i.e., symbols outside of our heads) the model above has been proposed by SECI for Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) which considers a spiraling knowledge process interaction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. In this model, knowledge follows a cycle in which implicit knowledge is 'extracted' to become explicit knowledge, and explicit knowledge is’re-internalized' into implicit knowledge. A second proposed framework for categorizing the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between embedded knowledge of a system outside of a human individual (e.g., an information system may have knowledge embedded into its design) and embodied knowledge representing a learned capability of a human body’s nervous and endocrine systems (Sensky 2002). A third proposed framework for categorizing the dimensions of knowledge distinguishes between the exploratory creation of "new knowledge" (i.e., innovation) vs. the transfer or exploitation of "established knowledge" within a group, organization, or community. Collaborative environments such as communities of practice or the use of social computing tools can be used for both knowledge creation and transfer. Strategies Knowledge may be accessed at three stages: before, during, or after KM-related activities. Different organizations have tried various knowledge capture incentives, including making content submission mandatory and incorporating rewards into performance measurement plans. Considerable controversy exists over whether incentives work or not in this field and no consensus has emerged. One strategy to KM involves actively managing knowledge (push strategy). In such an instance, individuals strive to explicitly encode their knowledge into a shared knowledge repository, such as a database, as well as retrieving knowledge they need that other individuals have provided to the repository.[13] This is also commonly known as the Codification approach to KM. Another strategy to KM involves individuals making knowledge requests of experts associated with a particular subject on an ad hoc basis (pull strategy). In such an instance, expert individual(s) can provide their insights to the particular person or people needing this (Snowden 2002). This is also commonly known as the Personalization approach to KM. Motivations A number of claims exist as to the motivations leading organisations to undertake a Knowledge Management effort. Typical considerations driving a KM effort include: • Making available increased knowledge content in the development and provision of products and services • Achieving shorter new product development cycles • Facilitating and managing innovation and organisational learning • Leveraging the expertise of people across the organisation • Increasing network connectivity between internal and external individuals • Managing business environments and allowing employees to obtain relevant insights and ideas appropriate to their work • Solving intractable or wicked problems • Managing intellectual capital and intellectual assets in the workforce (such as the expertise and know-how possessed by key individuals) Technologies Knowledge management systems can thus be categorized as falling into one or more of the following groups: Groupware, document management systems, expert systems, semantic networks, relational and object oriented databases, simulation tools, and artificial intelligence [17] (Gupta & Sharma 2004) More recently, development of social computing tools (such as bookmarks, blogs, and wikis) have allowed more unstructured, self-governing or ecosystem approaches to the transfer, capture and creation of knowledge, including the development of new forms of communities, networks, or matrixed organizations. However such tools for the most part are still based on text and code, and thus represent explicit knowledge transfer. These tools face challenges in distilling meaningful re-usable knowledge and ensuring that their content is transmissible through diverse channels[18](Andrus 2005). Software tools in knowledge management are a collection of technologies and are not necessarily acquired as a single software solution. Furthermore, these knowledge management software tools have the advantage of using the organization existing information technology infrastructure. Organizations and business decision makers spend a great deal of resources and make significant investments in the latest technology, systems and infrastructure to support knowledge management. It is imperative that these investments are validated properly, made wisely and that the most appropriate technologies and software tools are selected or combined to facilitate knowledge management. Knowledge management has also become a cornerstone in emerging business strategies such as Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) with companies increasingly turning to software vendors to enhance their efficiency in industries including, but not limited to, the aviation industry.[19] Future of knowledge The Future of knowledge management would be that of companies shifting their business processes to platforms that enable smooth and efficient workflow. This shift will enable them to reconfigure the way in which work is done as their wish and even allow clients and suppliers to participate in their processes which create a powerful lock-in. The emerging discipline of workflow learning integrates access to every type of learning, whether it is information, e-learning modules, or human experts into the everyday flow of work. This ensures that the information is available as and when they are needed. In the present global hyper connected economy, the drive to commoditization is relentless. This means that an increasing proportion of business value resides in trusting knowledge-based relationships that allow companies to create value with clients, suppliers, and alliance partners. Organizations have started realizing that outsourcing and off shoring will work only if there is effective flow of knowledge between companies. Professional firms are finding that clients are increasingly demanding knowledge transfer. In addition, the professional firms are finding that engaging in knowledge-based relationships increases customer loyalty and profitability. Therefore relationships are the future of society and business. Conclusion In summary, knowledge management involves connecting people with people, as well as people with information. It is a management philosophy, which combines good practice in purposeful information management with a culture of organisational learning, in order to improve business performance. The core skills of library and information professionals are both relevant and essential to effective knowledge management, but they are often under-utilized and under-valued. Surely it is our job to put this right knowledge is seen as a commodity or intellectual assets; Knowledge-based economy-Information and communication technologies encourages a company accessing a variety of information resources needed too quickly, the organization is constantly changing the impact of technology growing the dynamic professionalism of every employee, Social capital and intellectual capital hidden and explicit knowledge. Knowledge implications applied to the Excellence model are applicable to all types of organizations. Some fundamentals are addressed in the document; some will be inherent in current practices while others will be new. Simple messages that could be emphasized are that cultural and process issues are critical for Knowledge Management success. Because it was not developed in the context of business objectives or staff needs. Most likely, it does not address the way people work and/or the processes that should be implemented to support them. This may be a simplistic conclusion and the reasons for failure are probably far more complex, but the point being any implementation MUST address people, processes and technology NOT in isolation to each other but holistic. KM by definition is complex and dynamic; it requires great attention to detail, and attention to the dynamics of change. Unexpected changes will occur, education will be slower then anticipated, new working practices will be foreign to many. KM implementation is an art form. However, realistic expectations must be set. Issues like cultural change can and will take a long time to implement but the vision once set should be followed through. Holistic strategy is suggested which will embrace all aspects of the organization towards the transformation into a knowledge-centric organization. The change will be less painless if KM is inherently adopted as part of the business model. It should not be implemented in isolation or as a silo function in the company. Leaders will be pivotal, led by example and develop a strategy such that ALL feel they have contributed. Benefits will be slow but sure.