Management and Business Processes

Economic Benefits of Knowledge Management and Business Processes

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Economic Benefits of Knowledge Management and Business Processes

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Economic Benefits of Knowledge Management

Database Management and Communications are two fields of study that can be taken at a lot of higher learning institutions today. These fields play a major role in business and its sustainability.

The developments in information and communications technologies which have made knowledge production and exchange easier and further enhanced the methodologies of knowledge discovery are the major factors for the amount of scientific knowledge produced in the last 30 years and continues to grow rapidly. (Kaniki & Mphahlele, 2002) The practice of Knowledge Management as a field is relatively new in the U.S but has been in use by European companies for quite some time.

Human capital as an asset is slowly being realized by companies as a major contributor to maintaining the accounting bottom line and even remaining relevant. There has been a recent boom in technological tools that promote knowledge shares such as Microsoft SharePoint.

Coupled with the new field of Knowledge Management, is this a viable resource to improve a company’s productivity and profitability? Businesses should adopt a knowledge management process and collaborative technologies to be innovative and competitive in today’s market.

Statement of the Problem

It has become important in today’s workplace to take inventory of a business’s knowledge assets to include both tacit and explicit to increase equity, innovation and competitiveness. In today’s free market and ever-changing economy, businesses understand the need to manage proprietary knowledge or “in house” knowledge to maintain competitiveness.

How this is done and fostered in a way that it is embraced by the employees is the challenge realized by those who understand the need for knowledge management. For this reason, many business managers are seeking a solution. (Carlucci, 2006)

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to research different methods of knowledge management strategies to inform on how business can become more competitive in today’s economy by capturing and storing knowledge from within the workplace. This study will explore effective collaborative methods of communication and various data management repository tools utilized in the current industry. This research will expound upon the premise behind the management of knowledge as an asset.

Research Questions

Q1. How can an effective Knowledge management program aid in keeping a business competitive in today’s economy?

Q2. Why is collaboration and knowledge share difficult for business to implement and profit from?

Study Significance

Assessing current value and having knowledge of what is already known can be more valuable to success in the workplace than previously understood. Embracing change when that change is of great benefit to all show’s growth. Research breaking down the benefits of a well-structured knowledge management program can benefit companies in this economically challenged market.

Research assisting in the blueprint of effective knowledge capture and sharing can also reveal how fostering a collaborative environment in the workplace will improve employee morale and increase retention of talent.

From a research perspective, although a number of theoretical contributions have stressed the strategic importance as well as the role of knowledge resources as key value drivers for companies, there is still a need for a better understanding of the approaches for the identification, development and deployment of knowledge resources for the improvement of organizational performance and company’s wealth creation (Carmeli and Tishler, 2004)

Knowledge Management and Business Processes

Webster’s dictionary definition of process is a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. In business there is the process in which a business achieves production of its product or services. This process requires all parties employed to have a certain level of knowledge or know how to achieve the company’s mission.

Knowledge management is the process to promote the dissemination and retention of that requisite knowledge. “In current era, both knowledge and business process capabilities are integral elements for organizational success”. Studies in the past have concluded and argued that business processes are a series of work activities that produce a particular input or output or how an organization utilizes its resources and capabilities to gain a competitive advantage. (Rehman &Ahmad, 2015).

Wu and Chen (2014) find that business process capabilities enable the organizational competence in a unique way and thus increases the market value. This indicates that business process describes how an organization performs and implements the given capabilities.

Moreover, business processes are actioning that firms engage in for achieving its organization objectives and tasks. Combining the two processes can be the key to increasing a business’s marketability. How well the processes produce results directly depend on how well the personnel involved understand and execute. Organizational learning and performance will determine those results.

Organizational Learning and Performance

Companies can invest a lot of dollars into training its staff. This can be financing personnel to attend classroom training, online courses or contracting instructors to conduct onsite training. No matter the size of the company this can be a major line on the budget. Finding the right course of action could be a drill of trial and error.

A highly trained staff can increase a company’s productivity which equates to profitability. Knowledge Management can be a way to enhance and assist in the retention of acquisition of new knowledge learned by personnel within the organization. The codification or transformation of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge is paramount.

“Explicit knowledge (can be expressed in words and numbers, easy to capture, easy to codify, documented and easily distributed and share). Tacit knowledge (embedded in the mind of people; hard to articulate, capture, codify and share because of personal nature of knowledge).

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) established a “Knowledge Conversion” model that deals with explicit and tacit knowledge. It interacts in the human beings and is presented in four steps; (i) Combination (explicit to explicit); (ii) Internalization (explicit to tacit); (iii) Socialization (tacit to tacit); and (iv) Externalization (tacit to explicit)”. (Basit, Tahir, Khan & Latif,2017).

Organizational learning enhances performance which leads to solving existing problems and coming up with innovative ways to tackle new problems and gain competitive advantage. Cultivating a learning environment within an organization takes more than just training collaboration is important to ensure knowledge is shared with all. Collaborative tools and technology are needed to assist in wide dissemination of information.

Technology and Knowledge Infrastructure

“Technology refers to the mechanism within organizations that facilitates the effective transmission of information, knowledge and wisdom within and outside the organizations.”. (Imran, Ilyas & Fatima, 2019). The timely acquisition of information, communication and getting the knowledge to the right person at the right time can heavily depend on the types of technology used.

There are many collaborative tools or apps on the market today to assist in the dissemination of information. There will be those who resist change and ask “why a tool or app is needed?” Some common reasons are collaboration tools help with time wasted in meetings, increases productivity, increase visibility of work progress and deadlines.

(Proof Hub) In an article that studied the relationship between infrastructure capabilities and organizational performance, it was discovered that there is a direct effect on organizational performance when coupled with an effective Knowledge Management process. (Imran, Ilyas & Fatima, 2019).

Discussion

Competitive Edge is the name of the game to maintain a business in today’s free market. Companies spend a lot of money on market research to figure out what the public needs and desires. Even in the government research dollars are spent to figure out how something was done in the past seeking lessons learned from within their own organization.

The knowledge management process is a way to alleviate investments in these types of research and capitalize on knowing what is already known. Lew Platt former CEO of Hewlett-Packard once said “If only HP knew what HP knows, it could be three times more productive.” (Murray, 2002).

Although this is a statement made some time ago, that theory rings true today. Understanding how knowledge can become an asset to business and how to best utilize this knowledge is the key to success.

Building off current know how and understanding or knowing the future needs whether it is a product or process is the driving force behind innovation. How to capture and disseminate both tacit and explicit knowledge has been the key focus of knowledge management. Tacit knowledge is the knowledge within one’s head.

In the case of business, the focus must also be on customer knowledge or the tacit knowledge from a customer’s perspective. Marketing relies on this knowledge to create new knowledge fostering innovation to gain competitive edge and meet market needs. (Basit, Tahir, Khan & Latif,2017).

Codifying tacit knowledge to create explicit knowledge which facilitates dissemination of new knowledge within an organization is the pathway to innovation.

Previous research has shown that creating an organizational learning environment and involving every member of the work team can be beneficial to increasing productivity and taking advantage of human capital within the company. These alone saves money that can be invested in other areas to become more competitive.

Every company has a business process that maps out how the company accomplishes its mission or goals. How is this process disseminated and understood by the entire team within the organization? Implementing a knowledge management process is a way to accomplish this and if implemented correctly decrease wasted time by employees trying to learn why something is done the way it is and focus more on how to do it better.

The amount of training that is required sometimes within a business during the onboarding process can take months just to get the new employee acclimated to the company and its mission. When the new hire is replacing a key member or management level employee, historical knowledge of what was done before can get lost because that tacit knowledge walked out the door with the previous employee.

Properly captured tacit knowledge in a well-structured knowledge management process shortens the time and effort required to onboard new employees. Knowing the who what when and where concerning the requisite knowledge is the driver to success.

There are many collaborative tools on the market today that can assist with capturing and disseminating explicit knowledge data. In the wake of COVID-19 we have seen how having some of these technologies have enabled businesses to not only remain in business but now understand the true benefits of these collaborative tools.

Microsoft and other competitors such as IBM have held collaborative tools such as Microsoft TEAMS for some time now, more businesses are taking advantage of these types of tools now to keep the work team flowing in a telework environment. Products like Microsoft SharePoint and a host of other enterprise management tools on the market today make collection and dissemination of data across a collaborative environment almost seamless.

Companies can not only take advantage of proprietary knowledge captured within the organization but can also protect this knowledge from being copied by a competitor. Having the ability to share the information required for the organization via the company’s intranet and not having to use the internet increases security measures for data.

In a small business having a knowledge base tool housed on the company intranet allows managers to provide independent learning/ training sessions for their employees. Accessing the right information for the right person made easy all predefined based on employee needs by the managers. This eliminates the time it would take to research or find this information and save money on wasted man hours and unnecessary training. (Oros, Pester & Berbenni, 2015)

Acceptance of collaborative tools by employees of a company or business has been a major issue with implementing a knowledge share initiative. Companies realize the digital storage and sharing of organizational knowledge is the fastest and assumed most efficient way. (Taskin & Van Bunnen, 2015).

Unfortunately, some employees look at this solution as more work or something else they must learn. Getting the workforce to store explicit data on the share drive or repository is normally the easy part, getting them to use it and share it is the problem. Software companies innovate new products yearly to make this process more intuitive and less cumbersome to assist in acclamation to knowledge share solutions.

Although the need for Knowledge management is widely realized and slowly starting to be accepted worldwide. In this research, there are not enough current studies being done in the United States on the effectiveness and value. Most studies currently are concentrated in European countries. The United States leads the world in innovative technologies and should be leading the way in the field of managing knowledge.

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Conclusion

Today knowledge drives the economy. Many studies considered knowledge as a primary source of input for value creation rather than the physical or traditional capital, such as land, equipment, and raw material. (Rehman & Ahmad, 2016). Businesses should adopt a knowledge management process and collaborative technologies to be innovative and competitive in today’s market.

Harnessing the human capital and in-house knowledge within an organization can promote innovation and competitiveness. Knowledge Management and business processes coupled with collaborative technology can cultivate or enhance an organization’s learning capabilities thus improving overall company performance. A well-executed program could prove to be advantages to business sustainment and competitiveness.

“A knowledge management system can help firms with staff training and orientation, support better sales, or help business leaders arrive at critical decisions,” says an industry expert from (Infiniti, 2018).

References

Basit, A., Tahir, A., Khan, M. M., & Latif, M. I. (2017). Tacit Knowledge Augmented Customer Relationship Management Systems: An Empirical Investigation. Pakistan Journal of Commerce & Social Sciences, 11(3), 1005–1026.

Bultrini, L., McCallum, S. H., Newman, W. B., & Sempéré, J. (2016). Knowledge Management in Libraries and Organizations. De Gruyter Saur.

Carlucci, D., & Schiuma, G. (2006). Knowledge asset value spiral: linking knowledge assets to company’s performance. Knowledge & Process Management, 13(1), 35–46.

Carmeli A, Tishler A. 2004. The relationships between intangible organisational elements and organisational performance. Strategic Management Journal 25: 1257–1278

Infiniti Research. (8 C.E., February 2018). Power of Knowledge Management Systems and Its Benefits For Your Business | Infiniti Research. Business Wire (English).

Imran, M. K., Ilyas, M., & Fatima, T. (2017). Achieving Organizational Performance through Knowledge Management Capabilities: Mediating Role of Organizational Learning. Pakistan Journal of Commerce & Social Sciences, 11(1), 105–124.

Kaniki, A. M., & Mphahlele, M. E. K. (2002). Indigenous knowledge for the benefit of all: can knowledge management principles be used effectively? South African Journal of Libraries & Information Science, 68(1), 1.

Murray, P. (2002, March/April). KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS A SUSTAINED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. Retrieved May 11, 2020, from https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/knowledge-management-as-a-sustained-competitive-advantage/

Economic Benefits of Knowledge Management and Business Processes

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