What is Knowledge Management and why is it important?
In his famous quote, Lew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, once said: “If HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.” This quote is much more important than it seems. It is well known that “Knowledge is Power” and we witness it every day in our work and personal life. We live in a knowledge economy, making knowledge one of the modern company’s most important assets. Given the importance of knowledge to efficiency and productivity, it’s critical that organizations manage their knowledge effectively.
What is Knowledge Management?
According to Gartner, “Knowledge Management (KM) is a business process that formalizes the management and use of an enterprise’s intellectual assets. KM promotes a collaborative and integrative approach to the creation, capture, organization, access, and use of information assets, including the tacit, uncaptured knowledge of people.”
One of the knowledge management’s key objectives is to use company practices and technologies to leverage corporate knowledge. Lew Platt and hundreds of other CEOs all know that if only they could tap the skills and knowledge within their staff, it would be transformative.
Traditional Knowledge Management Systems were focused on passing knowledge down the hierarchy situation when it seemed necessary. However, this system had very little success, therefore it was left for dead.
But the advent of Enterprise 2.0 (2006) has brought about new efficient ways of knowledge management. Modern Organisations have changed the workspace drastically.
The workplace was once confined to a physical office space with employees working face to face and communicate through email during a set hours.
Modern Workplaces are not confined to a single office space. The employees work across multiple locations, hours and devices. As these diversified workspaces emerged, it became extremely important to connect the employees in a team-based and collaborative, digitally connected workplace.
Digital Workspaces open doors for a complete digitized Knowledge Management System. Digital KM methods were so much more efficient than the prevailing traditional methods that it became a must-have for all the organizations that wanted to achieve success. Thus, a new era opened for knowledge management through knowledge-sharing and collaboration movements.
Reasons Why Knowledge Management is important
So, why is knowledge management useful? It is useful because it places a focus on knowledge as an actual asset, rather than as something intangible. In doing so, it enables the firm to better protect and exploit what it knows, and to improve and focus its knowledge development efforts to match its needs.
- In a corporate world, all the knowledge which an employee gains in his life by working throughout the years is very valuable.
But without a knowledge management system, the employees quit or retire, taking with them what may amount to decades of company knowledge.
In these situations, knowledge management is essential to retain the knowledge gained by senior employees that can benefit the freshers. It is estimated that 44 percent of employees are either poor or very poor at transferring knowledge.
When knowledge isn’t shared new employees have to waste their time recreating solutions, making mistakes made by the people before them. - A good knowledge Management System helps the firm to learn from its past mistakes and successes.
- It promotes innovation as the employees have a good baseline knowledge of the company’s deeds using the knowledge management tools.
- Employees can get the required information sooner with fewer headaches.
- Make fewer mistakes. The old saying “history repeats itself” is as true in business as it is in all other aspects of life. When employees don’t share valuable information, the newcomers are doomed to repeat the same mistakes others have already made.
- When there is a good knowledge management system employees can take quick well-informed decisions based on the past knowledge available.
- A good knowledge management system allows all employees to share a common knowledge platform where they can share and access any information related to the company’s procedures and experiences of ex-employees.
- It provides a standardized process for all the employees of the company.
- It ensures the efficient and effective workflow of the company that eventually leads to the success of the company in the market.
Knowledge Management, the Intelligent way
We at Zuzu AI work day and night to bring an improved customer experience by delivering information when and where your team needs it.
Keep your customer-facing teams up-to-date, consistent, and confident with trusted knowledge that’s accessible in every application they use.
We provide well-designed Knowledge Boards to organize knowledge for your teams based on the Buyer journey.
With integrations functionality with your favorite platforms like Gmail, Hangouts, Chrome and Slack, we try to incorporate Artificial Intelligence with your workflow so that you can have seamless knowledge assistance whenever needed.
To know more visit our official site — https://zuzu.ai/
