August 08, 2011

By Chris DiMarco

TMCnet Managing Editor

 

What can you do with knowledge? If you want to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace, the best thing to do is to bottle that knowledge and manage it according to your company’s strategy. The most important thing is to know what to bottle and why.

This recent Lawyers Weekly report focused on the importance of knowledge management and what it can do for your company. According to The Seven Faces of Legal Knowledge Management by Ted Tjaden, McMillan LLP’s national director of knowledge management, the “what” includes those documents, records and interactions that take place within the daily course of business. 

The “why” in knowledge management is essentially working smarter and leveraging the collective wisdom of the firm or department, without reinventing the wheel. The simple approach is that knowledge management exists to help businesses to improve their bottom line. To accomplish this improvement, companies need to be able to embrace and encourage knowledge management. 

Companies can leverage proper knowledge management by encouraging information sharing, while also cutting down on data duplication. The cost of storing information that isn’t needed is escalating, so companies should be careful to keep only that which improves operations. It can also be beneficial to create a knowledge management library, which will generally hold externally-sourced information.

Knowledge management should be integrated into automated business processes. When knowledge management is integrated with other tools that can be automated, the company can automate overall workflows. And, when knowledge management is made a part of project management, the overall cost of providing services can be reduced. 

Staffing needs can be tracked using knowledge management to identify areas where staff members are over- or underworked. Capturing and organizing information can also help to bring new employees up to speed on the company, customers and the industry. The proper use of knowledge management also helps with the proper tagging of documents. All of these things can be done virtually, eliminating some of the footwork involved in knowledge management.

To get off on the right foot with knowledge management, it is important to understand what is knowledge and how to effectively management it. To start collecting information that adds value, companies should be aware of how they work; designate a knowledge gatherer; create simple policies and doable procedures; adapt systems to how people work; periodically audit knowledge management efforts; and consider automating processes using knowledge management. 

While companies can vary on their approach to knowledge management, the important thing is to put it into practice. Every company has valuable information and that information should be captured and built upon for optimal success.

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Chris DiMarco is a Managing Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page. Follow him on Twitter (News - Alert) @cpdimarco.

Edited by Juliana Kenny