Developing a knowledge based organization:
Knowledge Management is a business model embracing knowledge as an organizational asset to drive sustainable business advantage. A management discipline promotes an integrated approach to create, identify, evaluate, capture, enhance, share and apply an enterprise’s intellectual capital. Knowledge Management is all about getting the right information, to the right people, at the right time
Knowledge Management is NOT a tactical program, an end in itself, a single technique or technology, a mature science and an event. It is strategic, a long-term proposition, an environment that leverages assets, an embedded process.
Recently companies are interested in Knowledge Management. Companies are engaging in e-commerce. For some companies the values of “intangible assets” are greater than “tangible assets”. Intangible assets are gaining importance. Businesses are looking at growing to success and not cutting costs to survive. Within the company, there are new organizational dynamics, e.g. employee empowerment, redefining the workforce, e.g. the employment contract, the outsourcing movement. Companies are moving toward the virtual companies connected by networks. Companies are competing for talents and expertise. Expertise can be found within the company, from your global customers, suppliers, partner and the world wide web.
Companies are investing in Knowledge Management:
1) Create an Intranet to start sharing information.
2) Building Datawarehousing and creating knowledge repositories to collect, aggregate information.
3) Implement Decision Support Systems to use Information in decision making
4) Implement Groupware, e.g. Lotus Notes, Microsoft exchanges to support collaboration.
5) Build networks, LAN, WAN, and VPN to support collaboration
6) Identifying Internal experts.
7) Define and establish Knowledge Management roles and responsibilities.
8) Implement Knowledge Management systems, e.g. Enterprise Portals, tec.
Companies invest in Knowledge Management because it adds value. To sell Knowledge Management within your organization, you have to articulate the fundamental business reasons and expected benefits that drive the organization to pursue Knowledge Management. You have to states the payoff and the business driver to manage knowledge systematically and fund Knowledge Management initiatives. Focus on how Knowledge Management can add value to the organization. Identify the basis to measure results.
With appropriate value proposition, business drivers and the measurement metrics, your knowledge management initiatives will lead to support of senior management.
Knowledge Management creates value by fostering customer relationship, improving operational effectiveness, enhancing employee’s capability, and delivering product/service leadership. With knowledge management, companies can gain more intimate customer knowledge and deliver what customers want. Having a great understanding would allow the company to deliver products and services at the best price with the least cost by leveraging the talent within the company in service and delivery.
Product/Service Leadership: Delivering the best products and services – offerings that push performance boundaries.
These four value propositions are applicable to the core business, organizational structure, management systems and culture.
The Four Value Propositions are Built Around Entirely Different Operating Models:
Operational Excellence:
Core Business: Product supply, basic service, demand management
Organization and structure: Central authority, finite level of empowerment; High skills at the core of the organization.
Management systems: “Command and control”, standard operating procedures. Managing total quality
Culture (mindset and behavior): Process push. Conformance, "one size fits all" mindset
Emphasize efficiency and dependability.
Product Leadership:
Core business processes: Concept invention, product development, market exploitation.
Organization and structure: Ad hoc, organic, loosely knit, and ever-changing. High skills abound in loose-knit structures.
Management systems: Rewarding individuals' innovative capacity and new product success. Managing risk.
Culture (Mindset and behavior): Concept push. Experimentation and "out-of-the-box" mindset. Emphasize breakthroughs.
Customer Intimacy:
Core business process: Solution development, results management, relationship management.
Organization and structure: Empowerment close to customer contact. High skills at boundary of the organization.
Management systems: Customer equity measures like life time value and share-of client.
Managing outcomes.
Culture (Mindsets and behavior): Relationship push. Flexibility and "have it your way" mindset. Emphasize complete solutions.
Employee Capability:
Core business processes: People development, expertise enhancement, performance management.
Organization and structure: Empowerment on work teams. High skills at all levels.
Management systems: Rewarding demonstrated applications of individual and team expertise. Managing learning and development.
Culture (Mindsets and behavior): Learning push. Resilience and growth mindset.
Emphasize development.
Which business driver could your Knowledge Management activity be based on or linked to? Operational excellence, Product leadership, Customer intimacy, Employee capability.
For Knowledge Management to be successful, it has to be supported by organizational factors (key enablers), leadership and strategy, culture, technology and intra-structure and measurement to create, identify, share, collect, organize, adapt, apply organizational knowledge.
One KM architecture and process:
External content (News, industry, research. technical information), and Internal content (Work products, Practices) feeds into Knowledge Manager. It performs Quality assessment, Value assessment, Security, Taxonomy assignment, Channel assignment, and publishes to Knowledge Exchange. At the Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge are filtered, aggregated, and sorted based on content screen, research, rules, heuristics, guidelines, process flow. Knowledge are aggregated, focused, directed and prioritized. They are published into the Enterprise Knowledge portal.
They are used through collaboration and generate insights, interpretation and analysis.
To implement Knowledge Management into an organization, you have to implement the “Change” model.
Adoption: Awareness, Interest, Installation, Repeated use
Loyalty:
Perceptive perception – KM systems fully implemented.
Recommend to others – Utilized long enough to prove its benefits
Commitment – Users recognize the advanatages.
Collaboration:
Internalization – Knowledge sharing driven by personal motivation and beliefs
Institutionalization – Formally incorporated into routine operations.
Employees use a single portal for workflow, share human knowledge, define and reinforce processes, set goals and support performance review.