Technology

A company specializing in developing revolutionary products had multiple departments working simultaneously. These departments included the Research  Development department, the Finance Department, the Legal Department, the Marketing Department, and numerous other departments. However, these departments worked mainly in isolation, and even though there were meetings between the department heads, the information gathered by each department hardly ever was used by any of the other departments. The knowledge that these departments gathered were strictly contained within their own departments confines. Over time the company noticed that their organization had numerous losses occurring in money and time. There would be situations arising where the RD department would make a scientific breakthrough but the legal department would get wind of it later, leading to late patents and even later production schedules. Corporate espionage led to other better organized companies stealing their ideas and then coming up with products first which were truly created by the main company. The organization realized that this lack of knowledge utilization was bringing it near to ruination and they decided to hire some professional to analyze what they were doing wrong.

The professional they hired happened to be from a consultancy specializing in Enterprise Resource Planning and represented a networking firm which provided companies with dire need for strong inter-departmental correspondence and realization of better knowledge channels with proactive solutions. The consultant established that the main reason for their failures and lack of capitalization was that they had very poor knowledge management and that the organization had numerous loopholes within their management system which allowed for competitors to exploit their weaknesses.

The consultant offered them a knowledge management solution which basically introduced a intranet communication network which brought the various departments to correspond with each other more easily and effectively and included a central hub, where departments could keep a check on the activities of the other departments and gain insightful knowledge about what each department was busy doing, hence creating a central depository for data which provided real-time information of activities within the organization.

The need for knowledge management was realized by the organization and it began identifying knowledge elements in their respective light and began giving more critical weightings to different knowledge pieces and identifying the relevance and importance of the knowledge segments to the organization. The RD Department was given a highly classified database management system which allowed outside entry to be very tough and enabled the stopping of corporate thefts to a high degree whereas departments which had little threats and weaknesses were given less budgetary concerns and the funding was directed towards the more relevant fields.

The implementation of the new system led to a sharp decline in the wastage of information and budgets towards unnecessary processes and the knowledge channels became more streamlined as the legal department would file for the patents of products designed by the RD department within an hour of their discovery as they were well aware of the product from its initial stages. Knowledge management helped the organization to save itself from losing all its market share and going into ruination (Why KM - the importance of knowledge management, 2009).

Knowledge Management Components
A Knowledge Management system for a company takes into account various factors. These factors include the element of people, the processes involved in the production or service, the technology used within these processes and the content of the knowledge being transmitted within the organization.

With regards to the people aspect, the organization needs to firstly identify the correct people to contribute to the submission of knowledge and the correct people to use the knowledge databases. The example for the entire process can be taken to be the production of BMW in India. The company has begun manufacturing cars in India to tap into the Asian market. However, it must follow the correct guidelines and procedures throughout their operations so that the brand BMW can be associated with quality even then. Knowledge Management suggests that the people who must be dealing with supplies acquisition and other functions be receiving information relevant to them, in a timely manner as well. They must also be sharing their knowledge with others who are dependent on it such as the sales force or customer support or finance department.

The processes in the production of each unit within the plant in India for BMW must be efficient and should follow the best practices. Also, all other processes within the organization should be efficient and effective. The processes could be elaborate as the import of a certain part for the manufacturing of a sports car or it could be something as simple as an entry for a unit sold. All the processes should be providing knowledge all to the relevant parties and should be offering the knowledge to the right people at the right time. Knowledge management ensures that the knowledge transfer is done using the best channels which do not lead to any wastages in the organizations resources.

Knowledge management also takes into account the technology used as well. BMW has operations spread all across the world and they have numerous suppliers and customers worldwide. By using internet and websites, they have created a fast information network which works in real time offering the company up-to-date information for their use. They have adopted the best technologies to maintain plant supervision to guarantee perfect quality for their automobiles as well. It is necessary for the company to identify the best technologies from a pool of possible alternatives to find the technology which offers them the most utility while also being a good knowledge management tool as well.

It would be a poor knowledge management system if the knowledge content is either outdated or irrelevant to the concerned parties. Supposing BMW begins sending its marketing department details about the interest rate at which the company took its last debt. Therefore, knowledge management also keeps a check on the content of knowledge on the knowledge channels and checks whether the knowledge being disseminated is relevant and is directed towards the right people and is actually offering the organization any good at all or is it simply a waste of resources and is meaningful or not (BMW).

Metaphor for Nonakas Model
The Nonakas Model is a two dimensional matrix which depicts 4 different quadrants and the corresponding learning conversion, which states that knowledge is converted along the domain of time. The four conversions are basically socialize, externalize, combine and internalize, which have varying degrees of tacit and explicit knowledge (Nonaka, Toyama,  Konno, 2000). The following description is a parable metaphor as to depict the notion of the Nonakas model.

When a new student enters into a school, he is exposed to a certain culture and he begins to make new friends and social groups. During this time he basically is in his personal domain while relying on his tacit knowledge to deal with the social groups and create certain knowledge about the environment and the institution.

But as time goes by, the student, now turning into a popular character in his own right, begins to enforce his views and beliefs and knowledge about social groups dealing onto those who are with him and who deal with him. This is the stage known as Externalizing in the Nonakas model. The knowledge leaves the realm of tacit knowledge and transforms into explicit knowledge as the knowledge becomes shared with others.

Due to the long stay in school and a consistent pattern where the kid, who was a successful sports figure in his school, used to hang out by the gymnasium a rule became understood that the gym area was for the sports kids to hang around. The institution realized the knowledge pertaining to that incident and it combined as the personal knowledge now became shared with the enterprise as well. The social norms on the individual level became a enterprise norm as well and the knowledge remained explicit throughout.

As time went by, the enterprise accepted the gymnasium area as solely for the sports kids and every took this as a fact and for granted. The knowledge became common and everyone entering the school later accepted this without question and the knowledge became internalized as the enterprise moved the explicit knowledge to the tacit knowledge quadrant.

This completed a whole cycle however, the transformation is continuous and does not see an end. Since the general assumption is that due to the involvement of time as a critical factor, the change would keep occurring as newer batches of students would create their own social norms (Socialize) in the school and would gather a certain group of like-minded individuals which would lead to the information to become obvious to those around them (Externalize). The enterprise would begin to share similar beliefs and would accept the knowledge being gathered (Combine) and eventually became a fact of the institution no matter how it previously used to be (Internalize). This cycle would continue to go on through time immemorial (Knowledge Management Systems, 2004).

Knowledge Audit
Knowledge audits are critical for organizations as they help in identifying the knowledge flows and transfers and helps in identifying opportunity relating to the community, content of knowledge and conversations. They also help add value into the community, content and conversations as well. And most importantly it also helps with strategic analysis and come up with the proper utilization of knowledge for the organization. Knowledge is only relevant if it is recorded and can be used to help others, therefore by conducting knowledge audits organizations are able to enhance knowledge sharing and knowledge harvesting for corporate competence development.

The information which is gathered by knowledge audits are useful as they help identify most importantly the core knowledge flows and assets and helps organizations identify who creates the knowledge and who uses it. By identifying these targets, organizations can be able to maximize their performance and help identify any lapses which may exist within the channels which result in the source to not provide the destination with the relevant knowledge. When the sender of the knowledge knows who the target is, they can better package the knowledge for the receivers use and make it more coherent and specific.

Another way companies can leverage knowledge is that knowledge audits help them identify gaps in the information and knowledge channels too. These gaps lead to wastages and stopping companies from running at their maximum potential. Knowledge audits can provide organizations with channels which work the most effectively and efficiently.

To make your organization more knowledge leveraged, by conducting an audit you would be able to determine opportunities to reduce the costs in handling information and improve the coordination and access to much commonly needed information. This relates to the fact that companies can lose thousands of dollars due to lack of information availability and improper information channels. And information results to the formation of knowledge base. Therefore, audits provide organizations with the opportunity to streamline their information channels and eliminate wastages in information transfer and information handling.

Knowledge audits are beneficial also due to the reason that they provide a clearer comprehension for managers and executives about the contribution that knowledge gives to their business and how the results can be attributed to the use of the knowledge held by the organization (Skyrme, 2008). By identifying which results are relevant to which knowledge base, organizations can pay closer attention to the  knowledge which provides more returns while pay less attention towards those knowledge segments which do not offer so good a return.

In todays recent cost saving and maximizing existing resources organizational atmosphere, companies are searching for newer ways to leverage their resources, and knowledge is one intangible resource, which if used correctly would result in immeasurable profits. Therefore knowledge auditing today is more critical then it was ever before and managing knowledge is now as significant as it could ever be. Knowledge audits are able to not just save costs for organizations but give them a competitive edge over their competition as well, as those companies which are able to leverage knowledge have better returns as compared to those companies which have improper knowledge channels and unnecessary knowledge bases and unidentified targets for knowledge.