Knowledge management can help organizations drive business success. Dive into the blog to explore the challenges and benefits of having a strong knowledge management approach and learn from companies who are getting it right.
Published on Sep 9, 2024
If your company is facing challenges in decision-making, efficiency, or innovation, you may want to further invest in what’s known as knowledge management. The same goes for if you’ve noticed your team making the same mistakes, having difficulties sharing best practices, or missing chances to collaborate.
In this blog, we’ll focus on managing internal knowledge within an organization because it’s key to making operations run smoothly. By improving how knowledge is handled, organizations can make better decisions and create a more connected and informed team.
Knowledge management (KM) is the process of creating, gathering, organizing, and sharing knowledge within an organization. Good knowledge management ensures everyone gets the information they need right when they need it. By creating a system where knowledge can be easily accessed, understood, and used, companies can improve performance and support innovative decision-making.
Knowledge management is not only about handling information, but also about cultivating a culture of continuous learning and collaboration. By encouraging employees to share their expertise and learn from each other, organizations can build a more knowledgeable and adaptable workforce.
To centralize and maintain knowledge well, organizations can leverage a variety of tools and technologies, such as databases, content management systems, and collaboration platforms. These tools help capture, store, and share essential materials and documents, ensuring that employees have easy access to the information they need.
Before we dive more into the specifics of managing knowledge, let’s briefly touch on the types of knowledge that an organization typically has.
Organizational knowledge—the collective intelligence and expertise that exists within a company—can be classified into three types. It’s important to understand what types of knowledge you may need to capture, so that you set up an approach to knowledge management that yields the best outcomes. Here are three main categories:
Effectively managing these different types of knowledge requires a centralized system where all this information can be stored, accessed, and utilized efficiently. This is where a knowledge base or portal can come into play. We’ll explore those benefits in more detail later, but first, let’s look at the common challenges companies face when knowledge is not intentionally or accurately maintained.
When there is no effective knowledge management strategy, organizations can experience hurdles like silos that block collaboration and sharing of information. Here are some issues that can come up if knowledge management isn’t handled properly across a company:
When teams or departments don’t share information, it creates silos that block communication and teamwork, making collaboration harder. As a result, teams may struggle to identify and solve common problems together—for example, a sales team might have valuable customer data that is not accessible to the marketing team, preventing them from tailoring their campaigns effectively. Or a human resources department might not be aware of the skills gaps in the engineering team, hindering their ability to hire qualified talent.
We’ve all been there—working hard on a project, only to find out later that another team was doing something similar. It’s frustrating, right? Without a centralized system, teams can easily duplicate efforts, wasting time and resources. Imagine the frustration of multiple teams tackling the same issue separately! By improving information sharing and cross-company visibility, we can avoid these inefficiencies and make the most of our time and resources.
When knowledge isn’t unified, different departments might come up with their own ways of doing things. This can sometimes cause confusion, as everyone might not be on the same page. Mixed messages can make it difficult for employees to know which practices to follow, and inconsistent policies can weaken organizational standards.
When knowledge isn’t shared well across departments, an organization may miss out on the benefits of collective intelligence. Teams that work in isolation might not use insights from other areas, which can weaken teamwork and creativity and make solving problems more challenging.
A strong knowledge management culture, backed by the right process and tools, can have a big impact—let’s dive into the benefits it can bring to your company.
So, how can a solid approach to knowledge management make a real difference? While there are many benefits, we’ve narrowed down five key advantages.
Keeping everyone in the loop across different teams can be tricky—but there’s a solution: using a knowledge base or knowledge management portal helps ensure that everyone in the company has access to the same information. This means that employees from all teams have access to the most recent resources and best practices. This way, your team is more likely to avoid mistakes and complete tasks with the same level of quality, no matter who’s doing them. Plus, this approach also helps teams make decisions much faster since everyone knows exactly where to look for what they need without having to sift through emails or outdated documents.
By bringing all the information together in one place, it becomes much simpler for companies to see their current state of knowledge and expertise. This can highlight the differences between the skills needed to achieve organizational goals and the actual skills of employees. Once these skill gaps are spotted, companies can take proactive steps to address them through tailored training or recruitment efforts.
Knowledge management safeguards an organization’s intellectual assets. It ensures that valuable insights and information are captured and stored systematically rather than being lost. Consider just how much accumulated wisdom exists within your organization: lessons from past experiences, best practices, innovative ideas, specific processes and their structures. Ensuring that knowledge is preserved when an employee leaves is key. Not only can it help provide a strong foundation for new hires, but it also supports continuity and promotes a culture of ongoing learning and improvement.
Lastly, good knowledge management tooling can truly improve data security. By keeping all company information in one spot, it’s easier to set up strong security measures to protect sensitive data from unauthorized access or breaches. It also makes it simple to control who has access to specific information and helps streamline data protection policies, ensuring your company meets regulatory requirements.
Often, the management of knowledge can be looked at from two perspectives: knowledge for internal audiences, like employees, and knowledge for external audiences, like prospects or customers. Sometimes, there may even be significant overlap between the two. Here, we’ll go a bit deeper into the benefit of managing internal knowledge to support the employee experience specifically.
So, what role do internal knowledge bases play in an organization? As we shared earlier, knowledge management as a practice helps ensure that everyone is on the same page and served consistent, up-to-date information.
The benefit of a knowledge base—a central repository where knowledge is stored—is an extension of that practice: having knowledge captured in one central hub makes it even easier for employees to access information and resources they need to perform their jobs effectively, including company rules, how-to guides, and training materials. They know they only have one place to go and they can trust that information there is accurate.
A knowledge management portal is another tool you may have already come across in your research. While sometimes the term is used interchangeably with knowledge base, these two tools are not exactly the same. Recognizing some of the main differences can help ensure your organization lands on the best knowledge management approach for you.
A knowledge base is like a digital library containing articles, FAQs, and guides where important information is stored and organized.
A knowledge management portal can be seen as a more comprehensive platform that not only provides access to this knowledge base but also includes tools like search functions, collaboration features, and analytics to make finding, using, reacting to, and collaborating on information easier.
Understanding what tools are out there and what your organization needs isn’t so easy. Start by mapping your organization’s challenges and requirements, and then check out how other companies like yours have tackled them. Let’s look at some examples to get inspired.
To close, we’ll take you through two examples of companies who have harnessed their organizational knowledge to elevate their business. Advantage General and Hynds Pipe Systems—both valued Kontent.ai customers—decided to choose a headless CMS to manage their internal knowledge and elevate the employee experience.
Large insurance companies like Advantage General Insurance Company (AGIC) manage a ton of information for various products and processes. In order to uplift the employee experience, AGIC decided to create a solution that would make it easier for their staff to access the information they needed.
That’s why they implemented a new, user-friendly employee portal. Their new portal integrates seamlessly with various internal systems, including their CMS, Kontent.ai. Taking advantage of this flexibility, Advantage General can ensure information is displayed in the most helpful way for each employee’s needs.
Portal contributors use Kontent.ai’s platform to create, edit, update, and publish the content within the portal, without having to worry about the technical details of how it will be displayed. Plus, portal administrators can track changes, identify who made them, and even revert to previous versions if needed—another major pain point with their old system.
For employees, the new portal serves as a one-stop shop, connecting them to all the services they use most frequently. This change has led to an increase in employee adoption, engagement, and overall happiness with the portal. What’s more, keeping content up-to-date is now super easy for everyone.
Many companies have faced the challenge of modernizing how they present their products, switching from traditional paper catalogs to online commerce experiences. Hynds Pipe Systems, a renowned provider of water management solutions in New Zealand, found themselves ready to make that step. They needed a more modern way to showcase their products across different regions quickly.
With Kontent.ai, Hynds created a central hub for all their product information. Now, their product portal has become a go-to resource filled with detailed information about the company’s products. The dual-purpose of this central hub quickly became evident: it also makes for an invaluable for training resource for new hires, helping them get up to speed with Hynds’ extensive product line.
With access to a central wealth of knowledge, Hynds’ employees can confidently answer customer questions, make better decisions, and contribute to the company’s overall success.
Effective knowledge management creates consistency and fosters confidence within a company. When information is centralized, everyone in the organization has access to the same accurate and up-to-date data. With the right tools and a focus on sharing knowledge, your organization can become more agile and competitive.
For employees, this consistency means more efficient work, fewer mistakes, and smoother operations. It helps with better decision-making and improves teamwork. Later in this series, we’ll also tackle some best practices for managing knowledge for external audiences.
If you want to learn more about knowledge management or explore how a content management platform like Kontent.ai can support your knowledge management needs, request a demo and speak to one of our experts today.
