KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: DEFINITIONS AND CHALLENGES
From the hive to the company: the importance of Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management is not a recent concept, far from it. Born in the 90s, this discipline quickly established itself as a strategic lever for companies. For the Davenport Group, Knowledge Management is “the systematic exploitation of the company’s knowledge to improve its operations“.
Companies such as Microsoft, iconic in the world of knowledge management, are renowned for their culture of innovation and their ability to quickly adapt to market changes. To achieve this, the Redmond firm uses knowledge management tools to share skills and expertise among its employees, whether they are in the United States, India, France… or anywhere in the world.
These tools, such as internal wikis or discussion forums, make it possible to capitalize on existing knowledge and make it accessible to everyone. It is this ability to transform collected information into useful knowledge that makes Microsoft a market leader even today. And also a magnificent beehive.
From monitoring to intangible asset: a natural evolution
How is this knowledge obtained in the first place? This is where monitoring comes in. In the company, monitoring is the process by which information is collected, analyzed, and disseminated. It allows the company to stay up to date on the latest market trends, technological developments, competitors’ moves, and many other key factors.
The intangible asset, at the other end of the spectrum, is the final product of effective information and knowledge management. Here are some common examples of intangible assets:
- A knowledge base
- Intellectual property
- An organizational culture
- A network, relationships, an address book
- The know-how of your employees
Through these examples, we understand that the challenge is not only to gather relevant information. It must also be given a structure to simplify access and make it truly useful.
Google, another champion of knowledge management, is today one of the world’s largest tech companies. One of the reasons for its success lies in its ability to create valuable intangible assets from monitoring. This intangible asset is an unparalleled knowledge of user behavior on the Internet. Thanks to constant monitoring and the analysis of billions of queries, Google has been able to develop increasingly tailored services and optimize its advertising revenue.
No need to be called Microsoft or Google to benefit from monitoring tools. If your hive is small, you can still fully benefit from Knowledge Management tools and methods. But before implementing such processes, you must first understand what goes wrong when trying to do without them…
HOW THE LACK OF STRUCTURING IN MONITORING WORK HARMS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Corporate monitoring: an often untapped treasure
Why don’t all companies succeed in transforming their monitoring into a valuable intangible asset like Google?
One of the reasons is the lack of structuring in monitoring work. In the absence of a clear strategy and coordination between different stakeholders, monitoring can quickly become an isolated and unstructured task.
Companies in the pharmaceutical sector often illustrate this point in an enlightening way. Positive point: many engineers carry out in-depth monitoring on specific subjects. Negative point: in the absence of coordination, everyone carries out their own monitoring in isolation. The knowledge acquired in this way is rarely shared with the rest of the company and risks disappearing when the employee leaves.
This situation is unfortunately common in many organizations and hinders the effectiveness of knowledge management. It is all the more common in roles where individual monitoring is necessary, putting collective interest in the background.
The illusion of easy information: the trap of the digital age
At the same time, the information age has radically changed the game. Today, thanks to the Internet, companies have access to an almost unlimited amount of information. But this abundance of information is a double-edged sword. Without a structured monitoring strategy, companies can easily be overwhelmed by this mass of information. We’ve all experienced this at some point.
Let’s illustrate this… Your company might have an online sales site. Thanks to the Internet, you have access to a multitude of information about your competitors, customers, suppliers, etc. Without an adequate monitoring strategy, this information can turn into a flood of indigestible data. You then risk finding yourself paralyzed, unable to sort through relevant information and make informed decisions.
TKM PLATFORM: AN OVERPOWERING TOOL TO FINALLY TURN YOUR MONITORING INTO AN INTANGIBLE ASSET
TKM Platform: a lever for transformation
Fortunately, there are tools that can help companies overcome these challenges. Our strategic monitoring software is one of them. Thanks to its advanced features, it allows companies to structure their monitoring, collaborate around information, and capitalize on their knowledge.
For the SME manager as well as the R&D director, TKM Platform can quickly become a major asset. Indeed, it makes it possible to structure the monitoring work and turn it into an intangible asset. Thus, even if an employee leaves the company, the knowledge they have acquired is not lost. It is stored in the software platform and remains easily accessible to all other members of the company, much more so than in a dark Excel file.
An intangible capitalization tool
TKM Platform is more than a simple monitoring tool. It is a genuine knowledge management platform that literally creates your intangible assets. For example, you will be able to build a centralized knowledge base, or set up detailed competitor profiles, or even build sector expertise. Once these assets are created, you just need to feed them, and above all, use them.
With TKM Platform, monitoring does not disappear: it is capitalized and shared, thus contributing to strengthening the company’s knowledge heritage.
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THE FUTURE IS “JUST UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED”
Just like pollen for a bee, information is your most precious asset. But it is only precious if you know how to transform it. Each of your information sources and knowledge must be leveraged, so that your monitoring helps you create useful intangible assets. This is the role of Knowledge Management, and TKM Platform can significantly contribute to it.
The future belongs to companies that know how to make monitoring a strategic asset, by structuring their monitoring approach and capitalizing on the acquired knowledge. The honey of the digital hive is within reach of those who know how to extract it. As science fiction writer William Gibson said: “The future is already here – it’s just unevenly distributed”. It is up to each company to empower itself to capture its share.