KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Knowledge management is gaining more and more attention now- a- days. It has become one of the important factors for an organisations growth because knowledge has become an organisational asset. So, what is a Knowledge management system? A Knowledge management system is an information system used to share, process and integrate the knowledge in an organisation. A KM system is the integration of knowledge acquired, shared and the technologies which support them. Through proper KM system the face of the organisation changes. KM systems can be tailor made or we can even adopt the best practises.

As we all know Knowledge Management is the process of creating, acquiring, processing and sharing knowledge in an organisation, a KM system is used to support this process in a particular way such that knowledge will be available at any time for every staff of the organisation. While designing a KM system, a organisation should bear in mind its clear and specific goals and its strategy to achieve them because they have to align with the KM strategies in the system. Knowledge flow in an organisation involves two strategies. They are personalisation and codification. Knowledge flows in a personal level or codified level or both depending on the structure and culture of the organisation. The major challenge of managing knowledge is less its creation and more its capture and integration (Davenport, 1997). According to Davenport new knowledge creation is not so important, he emphasizes on capturing knowledge from others expenses and experiences. Integration of knowledge that is available from different sources and making it more meaningful is important in a KMS.

Knowledge is of limited organizational value if it is not shared. The ability to integrate and apply specialized knowledge of organizational members is fundamental to a firm’s ability to create and sustain competitive advantage (Grant, 1996). Grant specifies that there is keen need for expertise in an organisation and knowledge creation happens through integration and application of specialised knowledge which gives the organisation competitive advantage. But in my view, if I am concerned I don’t agree with either of the authors because knowledge creation is very important in my view and new ways of doing a work gives a organisation the needed competitive advantage and I dont think that only through expertise does knowledge creation occurs. Knowledge will be tacit in every employees mind. It is the principle of the KMS to make it explicit and by integration does new knowledge is created.

Culture of an organisation is important for any KMS to work efficiently. The culture should be in such a way that there should be no hierarchies and work environment should be open and the flow of knowledge and information should be free. From the view of the culture-based perspective of knowledge management, managers associated knowledge management with learning (primarily from an organizational perspective), communication, and intellectual property cultivation. Some suggested that the information/technology component of knowledge management was only 20% of the concept whereas the cultural and managerial aspects accounted for the bulk of the issue. (Alavi M and Leidner D E, 1999).

Knowledge Management system provides continuous learning in an organisation where lessons learned are related to problems that the employees may face certainly, FAQ’s, and the solutions will be given by their colleagues and expertise who are experienced. An ideal KMS should have a good CKO, knowledge workers, repositories of knowledge, friendly environment in the organisation so that knowledge flow will have no barriers and there should be support of Information Technology so that knowledge can be made available to every employee in an organisation at any time. An ideal KMS should have all these characteristics and their goals can be achieved through proper support of Information technology or any other user- friendly technologies.

I found my argument identical to Davenport et al (1998) where he specified some factors which contribute to knowledge project success. They are

· Technical and organisational infrastructure

· Standard flexible knowledge structure

· Knowledge friendly culture

· Multiple channels for knowledge transfer

· Senior management support

Thus Knowledge Management systems play a vital role in giving the company the required features and making all its employees knowledgeable and helping in gaining competitive advantage and customer satisfaction.

REFERENCES:

1. Davenport, T. H. (1997), Knowledge Management at Ernst and Young,1997, http://knowman.bus.utexas.edu/E&Y.htm

2. Grant, R.M. (1996), ”Prospering in Dynamically-Competitive Environments: Organizational Capability as Knowledge Integration", Organization Science, pp. 375-387.

3. Alavi M and Leidner D E. (1999), “Knowledge Management systems: Issues, Challenges and benefits”, Communication of AIS, volume 1, article 7.

4. Thomas H D, David W De L, Micheal C B (1998), “Successful Knowledge Management Projects”, Sloan Management review, Winter