Why your organization needs knowledge management?

Sevinj Aghayeva
Nov 4 · 3 min read

“If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.”

Lew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard

Did you know that poor knowledge-sharing practices cost Fortune 500 companies 31,5 billion dollars annually?

Let´s admit it — right now we are in a knowledge span, and the knowledge-based economy (KBE) has become a very important aspect. Many organizations are rapidly transforming, from a product-based structure to a service-oriented structure. Even if you sell products or services, your products are being used as a channel to transfer experience to your customers.

If we want our businesses to survive, we need to realize that experience matters.

A small example of my own life. On the days, when I work from home, I prefer to work for the first part of the day in a cafe. Can´t I brew a delicious cappuccino at home? Of course, I can. Is the coffee the only reason why I go to the cozy coffee shop “MeinBarista”, even when there´s heavy rain? Of course, not. I enjoy the atmosphere: the slow background music, the smiles of waitresses, nice chit-chats, and that I can continue working while someone brings me a cup of Joe.

I am a true believer that experience is the enjoyment per service.

Reason #1:

But you cannot deliver an excellent experience to your customers without best practices, nice templates, documenting lessons learned and sharing knowledge within the organization. Like Sisyphus trying to roll a boulder up a hill, the product team in your company will be making the same mistakes over and over and the marketing team will be lost while creating a new pr company. Meanwhile, endless meetings will be scheduled to ask the selfsame questions. Statistically proven, that employees spending 30% of their time looking for or recreating information that already exists.

Really?! Is that what you still do?

Get a Confluence and capture all important information there, make it reader-friendly and make it available for everyone across the organization.

Reason #2:

Organizations need to learn how to find, collect, and hitch-up collective knowledge to generate a competitive advantage for the organization.

Reason #3:

Important facts- some of the 75 million baby boomers began to reach retirement age in 2011. In the year 2000, only 12.4% of the population was 65 or over and this predicted to reach 18% by 2020, largely due to the baby boom (info credits- Wikipedia).

What does it mean today when 60–65 years passed? Well, this generation is on the egress from organizations, or they might have already left. We have never seen such a big group of people exiting the organizations before. It impacts organizations a lot.

Because if they haven’t done anything on knowledge management, they may have lost a significant amount of important knowledge from the organization.

So what could be a panacea?

Knowledge Management is the correct answer.

Reason #:4

Organizations find it difficult to take on people and have these people to spend a long time learning something. They expect that people can get up to speed and start contributing as soon as possible.

The awareness of the organizational memories about who is working on what can help organizations with higher agility and higher odds of solving problems productively in a limited time.

Friendly tip:

When you roll out a knowledge management program, please make sure you think not only about business outcomes but also about your employees.

Believe me, it will be difficult to let people embrace a new KM system.

Because expect them to say:

Image 1. S.A. Doodle

Acknowledge their fears.
Embrace it.
But be persistent-
Make knowledge sharing your new corporate culture.

It is a win-win strategy in the longer term.