Knowledge management seeks to collect, collate and share the knowledge contained in the collective heads and minds of organisations` employees, but the key to success, says Aubrey van Aswegen, MD of Knowledge Integration Dynamics (KID), is being able to do something with that; use it to take action for immediate business benefit as opposed to simply securing the business against potential intellectual capital loss.
Knowledge management (KM) has recently resurfaced in the marketplace after its arguably failed introduction to the business world in the `90s. The majority of implementations failed then, but many pundits believe they will now succeed, with business intelligence (BI) playing a pivotal role.
Understanding the role of the data-information-knowledge hierarchy is important. Data is disconnected facts, such as prices and product names, while information is connected data, such as product price and name in relation to sales figures, while knowledge is applying data and information to discover how things are connected and formed as a whole, such as product price and name in relation to sales according to region, demographics and date.
For example, beer and nappies may sell well the Thursday before a long weekend in affluent suburbs, where there are many new families and the typical age of parents is between 25 and 45. Shop-owners with that knowledge would do well to place beer and nappies on shelves alongside one another, even if they would not normally be placed alongside each other in a retail situation.
In organisations larger than the local retailer, transaction systems such as ERP and CRM applications collect data and typically drop it into one or several databases.
According to Wikipedia, BI: "Refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to and analyse data and information about company operations. BI systems can help companies to have a more comprehensive knowledge of the factors affecting their business, such as metrics on sales, production, internal operations, and they can help companies to make better business decisions."
BI systems typically analyse data against any one or a combination of data repositories, such as warehouses and databases. Data warehouses are useful for collating data from a number of databases that may be spread throughout an organisation across departments, divisions or geographies.
KM revolves around managing knowledge held in various organisational repositories, including people`s heads.
The older crop of BI systems analyse it to generate information in the form of measurements. The new crop extends that capability to contextualise measurement information for business performance management (BPM). Business users then take decisions, based on that information, that lead to actions. That requires a level of knowledge typically associated with higher executive levels or a deep understanding of businesses and the industries in which they operate. And it typically resides in those users` heads.
Tying that knowledge into processes is important to automating those same processes so they can be used, for example, by more junior people in the organisation to deliver a more sophisticated service to customers. KM systems may use databases to store information, but they also add a range of information not normally associated with standard data-gathering data stores, such as author name, role in the organisation, date, time and, importantly, version. Multiple versions can be stored so a thread is created, following the progress a person or people have made on a specific topic or subject.
BI`s role, when linked to a KM system, is to extract that knowledge for strategic use so it leads to action. One of the best methods of achieving that is to link that knowledge back to processes so that, while KM gathers the knowledge and ensures it isn`t lost to businesses, BI allows them put it to good use. In other words, BI allows organisations to extract vital information that helps them to more efficiently make more informed and better decisions across the levels of business, departments, divisions and geographies.
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