KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

................Benjamin Franklin..................

The conception of new Ideas and generation of vital information in an uncertain and competitive business environment brings to fore the imperative need to effectively utilize knowledge. The concept of Knowledge Management has been in the limelight in the corporate world as a result of the quest to comprehensively approach and address organisation's strategies to meet the competitive nature of the business environment. Presently, KM has become indispensable tool for organisations that seeks to sustain its operations and outperform its competitors in a cost effective means.

The term KM is an established field of study in the academic circles and adopted by organisations in their range of strategies to improve performance and achieve competitive advantage.

I define KM as the exploration and exploitation of knowledge to deliver value and maximise returns. According to Hylton (2006), the KM process (exploration and exploitation) involves "knowledge capture, knowledge organising, knowledge storage, knowledge distribution and knowledge sharing". Knowledge sharing is key to building the knowledgebase of organisation workforce. This is in congruence with the axiom: "Knowledge gained is Knowledge shared".

The selected definitions and remarks from Organisations and Scholars outlined below would further give us a lucid exposition of KM:

McKellar (2009), acknowledge that “KM is an attitude.....a commitment to taking full advantage of all the information at an organisation’s disposal and delivering it to the appropriate constituencies to facilitate decision making at every possible level.”

Microsoft Corporation views KM as the “process of documenting and making available business-related knowledge............this knowledge may be about business processes, market data, product development, or other information specific to how your business runs.”

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) defines KM as “getting the right information to the right people at the right time, and helping people create knowledge and share and act upon information in ways that will measurably improve the performance of an organisation and its partners.”

Many viewpoints in KM could be attributed to the expertise (technical or managerial) or academic background of the contributor.








References:

Hylton A. (2006) Smaller sized Companies also need Knowledge Management(Online) Available at: http://www.eknowledgecenter.com/articles/1005/1005.htm (Accessed 15th January 2010)

McKellar, H. (2009) - KMWorld 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management (Online) Available at: http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/KMWorld-100-Companies-That-Matter-in-Knowledge-Management-52787.aspx (Accessed 15th January 2010)

Microsoft Corporation (2010) - Introduction to knowledge Management (Online) Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/smallbusiness/technology-in-business/security/building-a-knowledgebase.mspx (Accessed 15th January 2010)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. What is Knowledge Management? (Online)[Updated 18th November 2008] Available at: http://km.nasa.gov/home/index.html (Accessed 15th January 2010)