Knowledge Management
As we further progress with the facets of Knowledge Management, highlighting a few well known strategies serves as a better comprehending factor;
• Business Process Reengineering
• Change Management
• Benchmarking
• Risk Management
• Employee Recommitment Management
There seems to be a common thread among these and many other recent business strategies and an acknowledgment that information and knowledge are corporate assets, and that the businesses need strategies, policies, and tools to manage those assets. The need to manage knowledge is obvious, as discussions on intellectual capital have burgeoned.
Because knowledge has become the single most important factor of production and survival, managing intellectual assets has become the single most important task of business.
Knowledge Management: An Organizational Necessity
Knowledge is a framework within which an organization views all its processes as knowledge processes. In this view, all business processes involve creating, disseminating, renewing, and applying knowledge toward organizational sustenance and survival. In essence, it means that Knowledge focuses on 'doing the right thing' instead of 'doing things right’. The underlying premise is that 'best practices' of yesterday may not be taken for granted as 'best practices' of today or tomorrow. Hence, double loop learning, unlearning and relearning processes need to be designed into the organizational business processes Knowledge is necessary for companies because what worked yesterday may or may not work tomorrow. To remain aligned with the dynamically changing needs of the business environment, organizations need to continuously re-assess their internal procedures of business for ongoing effectiveness.
Importance of Knowledge Management
Considering the dynamics today – the onus of managing knowledge requires utmost focus as most of the work is information based. Secondly, it is an undisputed fact that organizations compete on the basis of knowledge, since products and services are becoming increasingly complex. Hence the requirement for a life-long learning has become an unavoidable reality and thus Knowledge has become important because;
• Marketplaces are increasingly competitive and the rate of innovation is rising
• Downsizing staff creates a need to replace informal knowledge with formal methods.
• Competitive pressures reduce the size of the work force that holds valuable business knowledge.
• The amount of time available to experience and acquire knowledge has diminished.
• Early retirements and increasing mobility of the work force lead to loss of knowledge.
• There is a need to manage increasing complexity as small operating companies are trans-national sourcing operations.
• Changes in strategic direction may result in the loss of knowledge in a specific area.
In brief, knowledge and information have become the medium in which business problems occur. As a result, managing knowledge represents the primary opportunity for achieving substantial savings, significant improvements in human performance, and competitive advantage.
Organizational Responsibility: Ensuring Knowledge
Organizations that are competitively conscious need to effectively implement knowledge systems. This includes enforcing a linkage between the archived organizational 'best practices' and the actions taken by organizational members based on that information. Parallel to this also includes unraveling linkage between actions taken by organizational members that serve as a continuous check and balance for renewing the archived 'best practices.' This is where the intellectual organizational creativity and innovation comes into the picture.
For more information about Knowledge visit: http://www.cikm.org/Knowledge-Management.html
Article Source: http://articlecrazy.com
Maria host www.cikm.org and expresses her passion for Knowledge through writing and discussion.
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