What is Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management is about utilising the brains of your organisation. If you have a knowledge based company where value is generated by how your employee’s work with information, then Knowledge Management is about making that ‘work’ more effective. It’s about getting more done with less, and doing things that couldn’t be done before (to increase your competitive advantage).

The vision of a company that has fully embraced knowledge management would have the following characteristics.

• Every knowledge worker would spend 100% of their time adding value to the company (through knowledge work) rather than spending most of their time doing ‘no-brain’ activities like searching, chasing-up, sorting, and compiling information.
• The company would fully understand its customers' needs and be able to react to them the instant that they change. It would also be able to continually open up new niches by serving its customers in innovative ways.
• Information would be where it is needed, when it is needed, and in the right format so that the knowledge workers can use it immediately. The overall speed (and agility) of the business would blow away today’s competitors.
• Every process, project status and partner interaction would be completely transparent throughout the entire organisation. People could easily see the progress being made and where any hold-ups are occurring.
• The knowledge of the company would be captured by its systems so that it doesn’t walk out the door when its employees go home for the night.

It’s not difficult to see how a company like this would be more focused and have a much easier time capturing market share and opening up new business opportunities.