1. Knowledge is Not Accessible
While search and retrieval technologies are everywhere, paradoxically
access to contextually -relevant information and knowledge is not. Hence
existing knowledge is not properly leveraged and business is
suboptimal. Organizations don’t know what they know – and don’t use
what they know very well. This lack of access and relevance carries huge
economic consequences: lack of relevance to customer needs, lower sales
conversions, customer satisfaction, lower quality service, customer
churn, suboptimal products and services, costs associated with
reinventing the wheel, etc. Extracting this knowledge presents a
challenge for many organizations though, as it is housed in systems
inside and outside the firewall, and, more importantly, in the minds and
experiences of their employees and experts outside the firm. Data must
be organized into information and transformed into knowledge, often with
the help of contextually- relevant experts who must also be found,
before it can be interpreted by humans into actionable insight for
strategic decision-making.
2. Knowledge is Useless without Relevance
Ultimately, knowledge has no value to
users unless it is in context. The need to be relevant is more important
than ever – and the inability to deliver and obtain the most relevant
knowledge negatively affects business. Sales, service, online
transactions and operations all depend on relevant information, because
in a customer-centric world, customers are more demanding, empowered and
knowledgeable than ever. Customers expect companies to return with
speed and relevance, knowing their history, issues and having an
immediate solution.
3. Knowledge is Confused with Information
Organizations often treat knowledge as
a transferable commodity that can all be stored in a system of record,
retrieved and used mechanically. Companies are realizing that they
cannot execute on the vision that knowledge is a transferable commodity,
predominantly because knowledge is not just information. Knowledge is a
form of competence or human ability to take action. Searching and
retrieving information from a central source does not deliver actionable
insight.
4. Knowledge Gaps Exist
With the crowded chaos of
applications, databases and online resources, the data sources where
knowledge is extracted also provide opportunities for knowledge to be
lost. IT has traditionally handled this problem through integration, but
i – that has been a very complicated, time-consuming and an expensive
task. In a fragmented and heterogeneous environment, enterprises should
resist the temptation to migrate data to a central system. The more data
moves around, the more complicated it becomes to find again. And we’ve
all learned from experience that systems of record never don’t really
contain the “only” record. Fragments of data simply proliferate outside
the system of record – different processes, point solutions,
employee-activated cloud solutions, the list growsetc. Unfortunately,
employees end up using incomplete or wrong information, or simply
re-inventing the wheel. Often times, transactions stall or fail due to
knowledge gaps.
5. Knowledge is Not not Generating the Business Return it Should
Anyone in business would agree that
knowledge is a highly valuable asset for most organizations. Yet, like
any other asset, that collective knowledge will only generate returns to
the extent that it is re-utilized, often by employees and customers to
take higher-value business actions. Otherwise the asset only sits there,
latent and untapped. Because knowledge is what keeps organizations
competitive, it is imperative for it to be accessed and shared across
teams and geographies. Knowledge is useless sitting in repositories
where no one even knows it exists; it is only valuable and can see
deliver a return when it is accessible and reused as often as possible,
and relevant to the dynamic context at- hand.
http://www.information-management.com/gallery/five-reasons-knowledge-management-is-broken-10025162-1.html
http://www.information-management.com/gallery/five-reasons-knowledge-management-is-broken-10025162-1.html
