Knowledge Management Essay

Document Type:Thesis

Subject Area:Management

Document 1

The so-called knowledge-based economies require good knowledge management practices to improve organizational efficiency. Thus, knowledge management (KM) has turned out to be a competitive necessity. With the information overload, knowledge management is becoming increasingly important. Based on this, it is evident that the performance and competitiveness of a company in the global world completely hinge on how effectively organizations capture knowledge assets and leverage them. Definition of Knowledge Management Knowledge management refers to the process of effectively capturing, developing, sharing, and using organizational knowledge. Businesses with have the ability to harness their knowledge assets gains its benefits, which can be in the form of profitable and sustainable growth and also maintain the competitive edge in the market as well. Components of Knowledge Management Most organizations have acknowledged the fact that technology-based competitive advantages are transient and thus, their employees are the only competitive edge they have.

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For this reason, organizations ought to have a good capacity of retaining, developing, organizing, and utilizing the competencies of their employees for them to remain at the forefront and maintain a competitive advantage (Omotayo 2015, 3). Technology and processes cannot solely drive an organization as its human force is an integral pivot in the success of the organization. Consequently, it is important to pay attention to four key components namely, people, knowledge, technology, and processes for effective management of knowledge. In the organizational context, knowledge is embedded in repositories or documents and in organizational processes, cultures, routines, norms, and practices. People is the second component of KM. Human beings are sources of knowledge. The capacity of humans to uniquely and creatively think, coupled with talents along with experiences, make them the most valuable sources of knowledge.

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People are creators and also consumers of knowledge since they consume knowledge from a wide range of sources daily besides creation knowledge. For KM, a critical requirement is to be competent enough to understand the work process, and most importantly, how to plan them. By so doing, personnel, inputs, outputs, work, and resources being conducted in a particular process can be described easily. Mapping of processes aids to depict whatever is happening within the organization, and how tasks are being completed. The knowledge required to accomplish such tasks can be articulated and human intervention or requisite technology deployed for purposes of meeting these needs with a goal of increasing efficiency as well as effectiveness in the organization. The last KM component is technology, which is a critical foundational and enabler element of a knowledge management plan.

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• Speeding productivity through timely access to knowledge as well as on-board training. • Increasing the satisfaction of customers and targeting customer delight by the delivery of valuable insights. • Establishing quality assurance along with the capability of collaborating through standardized working ways and allowing discussions with the leading expert. Several important factors, which drive the need for knowledge management are globalization, competitive differentiation, the aging workforce, and organizational survival. Due to the present management dynamics, the onus of effectively managing knowledge requires ultimate concentration because most of the work is information-based. IN the modern globalized economy, organizations continuously seek effective methods and tools of acquiring knowledge and sharing it across cultural and structural barriers. For that reason, globalized has increased the pressing need for organizations to have the capacity of managing knowledge across geographical areas.

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The other factor driving the need for KM is the aging workforce. Many organizations are facing aging of their workforce and this means that much knowledge will soon leave the companies. Therefore, there is need to capture this intellectual capital so that the future generations in these work settings will not have to reinvent knowledge and repeat similar mistakes. For companies to achieve this, they can have business-unit leadership, management development, and focused workshops (Verma and In 2016, 8). The purpose of creating such programs is to convey the latest knowledge to the current and up-coming managers, accelerate dialogue, instil corporate values, and also stimulate cultural change. In the contemporary global business environment, which is increasingly complex, knowledge management programs enable managers to encourage ideas and ideas and embrace change, and this leads to innovation.

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Other benefits of KM As a fundamental business enabler, KM enables companies to: protect their intellectual capital; pay enough attention to human capital, which is the most important asset; link workers with each other through establishing collaborative methods; re-orient their corporate culture through going for a strategy that allows optimal sharing of knowledge. KM opens door to a new dawn of sharing and collaboration. Whether an organization is for-profit or not-for-profit, it competes within a given sector. KM is a fundamental driver of competitive advantage as it improves the organizational capacity to innovate and thus, differential itself from its rivals in the market. Organizations that lack the ability to innovate at a pace that can be regarded as sustainable are unable to continuously attract new customers, which eventually contributes towards their demise.

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On the other hand, companies with the ability to innovate not only secure competitive positions in their respective marketplaces but also retain them. KM efforts enable organizations to share of valuable organizational insights within the company, reduce work redundancy, lessen training time for workers, avoid reinventing the wheel, retain intellectual capital as the turnover of employees in the organization context, and adapt to the increasingly changing markets and environments. HR practices can help in creating a positive attitude among employees towards, and a willingness to be part of KM activities and also make the workers loyal and committed to their employers. Lastly, people and culture form the bedrock of successful KM. The capability to share knowledge and collaborate is of utmost importance in these efforts.

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