Knowledge Management (KM) has become an undeniable imperative in today’s business environment as it paves the way for innovation, better management and performance, thus differentiating an organization from others.
During 2022 - 2030, the knowledge management solutions market is expected to experience rapid growth, with North America holding the largest market share. As customer satisfaction is the primary driver for market growth, KM implementation can help an enterprise achieve greater success in satiating the very need.
“The moment you’re more than a one-person company, you do knowledge management. To set the stage, knowledge management sounds like a huge thing, but at its core it is the question of who should know what, when, and why,” said Claus Raasted, the director at The College of Extraordinary Experiences during a recent Lynk Webinar on innovation and future of knowledge management.
Organizations have hidden knowledge that can be uncovered to boost productivity and equip employees with the tools they need to succeed. In order to uncover hidden knowledge, organizations should leverage user-generated content in order to internalize and share knowledge; and as Lynk’s founder and CEO, Peggy Choi who is also the moderator of the webinar pointed out,
“Precisely, we don’t know what we don’t know. How do we improve and how do we do better? Any knowledge is what underlies that.”
Lack of knowledge management strategies and tools can hinder employee productivity and organizational growth. When information is disorganized and difficult to access, employees spend more time searching for resources and waste productive time. Lack of customer feedback, research insights, and access to required documentation may result in inefficient solutions for customers.
Raasted believes that for a company in growth, the pain of tackling 50 different systems is inevitable, and the earlier a company adopts a robust knowledge management system, the faster it could achieve business goals. He stressed, “with knowledge management and related systems in general, it turns out that for every company that gets to a certain size there is one pathway, and that is at some point they need to create one big system that can do most things.”
To address clients’ expanding needs, some KMS tend to add different kinds of functions to a single system such as payroll system, communication system, etc. Raasted thinks that such expansion can take away simplicity which is the key to facilitating knowledge sharing.
Besides, clean and simple user interfaces (UI) will make KMS easier for employees to access knowledge management systems and use new capabilities. What people see on the screen directly influences their ability to adapt to the system. A concise, engaging, and flexible user interface is therefore the foundation of a successful knowledge management system.
When having KMS in place, Raasted advised, “on the client side, the more flexible you are, the more clients you can serve. And number two, the exact reverse when it comes internally, the more inflexible you are with onboarding people after a certain size, the better.”
KMS implementation can be challenging especially if it is not integrated well with the work system or if employee expectations aren’t met.
Raasted suggested companies who adopt KMS or plan to implement KMS focus on human resources as people, instead of technologies and documents, is the key to knowledge management.
How to drive the adoption of innovative practices and knowledge management in Corporates? Claus suggested “Several things we should be aware of. One is, of course, compliance. When new rules come in place, you need to take them seriously. Be aware of technology but also make sure to set aside time for fundamentals because if you have fundamentals and grasp that then you’re much faster at learning the specifics, whatever it is.”
Not least of all, on how to actually try to keep things simple while addressing these expanding customer needs; Claus believes the resolution to this is to ‘speak their language’. He says that if you want to communicate with someone, if you want to do business with people, if you want to help people, you should speak the language they’re speaking.
Lynk Circle is a purpose-built solution for businesses and organizations that need to unlock knowledge and insights that sit in their people networks to increase productivity, offer added benefits to employees and members, and capture institutional knowledge.
For organizations using Lynk Circle to power a knowledge hub, employees can find people, Q&As, documents and articles all in one place, allowing for faster onboarding and ramp-up so employees can focus on their work.
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