Knowledge Management

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Concept of knowledge management Knowledge management (K M) involves the identification and analysis of available and required knowledge assets and knowledge assets related processes, and the subsequent planning and control of action to develop both the assets and the processes so as to fulfill organizational objectives Knowledge management is the management of an environment where people generate tacit knowledge, render it into explicit knowledge and feed it back to the organization. This forms the base for more tacit knowledge, which keeps the cycle going in an intelligent, learning organization. It is the process of creating, institutionalizing and distributing information and best practices to solve business problems rather than continually reinventing the wheel.

Data, Information and Knowledge Data represent observation or facts having no context and are not immediately or directly useful. Information results from placing data within some meaningful context, often in the form of a message. Knowledge is that which a person comes to believe and value on the basis of the systematic organized accumulation of information through experience, communication, or inference

DIKE flow Data

information

knowledge

expertise

Data arranged in a meaningful sequence is what is called as “information” and capability and experience of using information to make judgments and the ability to link them to decisions or actions is said to be “knowledge”. When knowledge is applied to specific subject or discipline, for an extended period of time, then it is defined as “expertise” Knowledge is highly contextual and depends largely on the mental models, experience, values and beliefs of individuals and organizations.

Importance of knowledge management For a company operating in the uncertain global environment, source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge. When markets shifts, technologies proliferate, competitors multiply and products become obsolete virtually overnight; successful companies are t hose that are consistently create new knowledge, disseminate it widely throughout the organization and quickly embody it in new technologies and products.

IMPLEMENTATION OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Following steps are suggested 1. knowledge creation : to discover, realize, conclude, articulate and discuss for creating new knowledge. 2. knowledge capture : includes documenting, digitizing, extraction, representation and storage of relevant knowledge 3. organizing knowledge : structuring, cataloguing, abstracting, analyzing and categorizing of knowledge for specific usage 4. knowledge access : presentation, display, notification, profiling and searching the knowledge for specific application. 5. knowledge application or use : includes application of knowledge for business performance, providing service, making new products and continuous learning at organizational level. The set of KM processes primarily involves people. thus, KM activities are fundamentally linked with collaboration, interaction with people and the systems, which support this.