Why Knowledge Management

Long before Knowledge Management became a term du jour, the industrialist giant, Andrew Carnegie, said, “The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.” The author of modern management, Peter Drucker, wrote, “The basic economic resource—the means of production—is no longer capital, nor natural resources, nor labor. It is and will be knowledge.” Even the genius of Charles Darwin makes the point, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” In this age, the only constant is change. Beside the well known changes in technology, there are continuing changes politically, socially, and economically. The ability of an organization to stay current and stay relevant requires a core competence in Knowledge Management.

Knowledge Management can transform your organization to new levels of effectiveness, efficiency, and scope of operation. Through advancements in technology, data and information are readily available. The modern business manager is able to discover and learn new measures, new technologies, and new opportunities, but this requires the ability to gather information in usable formats and disseminate knowledge to achieve the organization’s objectives.

Knowledge Management is continually discovering what an organization knows—codifying tacit knowledge, Data Mining, and Business Intelligence; continually increasing what the organization knows—organizational learning and communities of practice, and continually organizing and disseminating explicit knowledge for use throughout the organization.