Why is knowledge management important for your company?

Knowledge management is a set of strategies used within organizations to maximize results.

In a society in which knowledge is well recognized and sought primarily by professionals who wish to excel, it is practically impossible to try to make improvements in a business without thinking about acquiring specific knowledge.

Every day we are impacted by new information that can help us improve certain aspects of both our personal and professional lives.

But there’s no use in receiving all these ideas if you don’t know how to use them in your favor and especially for your business.

Sounds hard?

Keep reading this post to understand the concept of knowledge management and learn how it can be applied in your company.

What is the importance of knowledge management?

The concept of knowledge management is relatively new in the business world.

For some years now, working on strategies that allow the intellectual growth of organizations has become a priority. Managers, trainers and business owners have begun to realize the importance of adding value to the processes in their companies.

The focus of knowledge management is not only on results and financial growth, but also on results and personal growth. They are complete strategies that generate benefits for the company as a whole, but mainly for the entrepreneurs and employees who work in the organization.

1. Advantages of knowledge management for employees

When knowledge management is applied, the entire individual potential of employees is optimized and exploited as best as possible.

Each person working in a company has knowhow and useful knowledge for the development of business processes.

However, this knowledge is often not used and even goes unnoticed by managers.

An environment in which knowledge is constantly developed and encouraged tend to be more creative, generating value for those who learn something new and especially, the sharing of experiences.

Employees in organizations concerned about knowledge management are able to work much better and grow along with the company.

2. Advantages of knowledge management for entrepreneurs and companies

Entrepreneurs who head the company, as well as the company itself, gain with knowledge management because this process is not specific to one area or sector, but covers the entire organization.

Perhaps the main benefit to the company is the creation of value. But it isn’t about financial or market value, but about added value.

The knowledge generated, shared and maintained within the company is converted into productivity, more human views and increasingly improved processes.

Consumers, customers, partners and society in general view the company as a unique organization; in other words, its internal value is highlighted.

Organizations are made up of people, physical space, processes, tools, and the organization’s own culture (thoughts, beliefs, and challenges).

Knowledge management seeks to develop all these aspects simultaneously.

It isn’t about organizational learning (focus on employees), but about the use and effective application of corporate knowledge.

Knowledge management tools

Now that you understand the importance of knowledge management for both those who work as well as for entrepreneurs, it is time to get to know the best tools to put this strategy into practice.

Get to know 8 powerful resources that can be applied within a business and their benefits.

1. Information management

Every day a company deals with various information regardless of whether it’s an online or offline business.

Knowing which information is the most important, which must be filtered and discarded and which should be passed on to employees is critical.

In addition, you need to be sure who will receive the information in order to maximize results and reduce errors.

Information management is related to the control of information within the company. Not only regarding its distribution, but also its acquisition and analysis.

Without good information management, data gets lost inside the corporation, goes to the wrong receivers and causes operational confusion.

Information management is related to knowledge management since information and knowledge are approximate concepts, but that are often confused.

Knowledge is conveyed together with the shared information. Ensuring the quality of information is therefore, guaranteeing the quality of knowledge.

2. Corporate education

Education should be understood as a process that is broader than simply carrying out employee training and professional qualification.

Training is key to guarantee the level of quality and knowledge within organizations, but corporate education goes beyond.

To ensure good knowledge management, it is essential that the individual potential of employees be explored. All this must be done aiming at the growth of the company as a whole.

Professional diplomas and hours of training are good market indicators, but they are not enough to measure the level of knowledge and added value.

In general, corporate education is the result of knowledge management combined with people management. When these two processes are developed, the company’s long-term goals can be achieved more efficiently.

Education is designed to allow the continuity of the company over time, with continuous increase of internal quality levels.

Therefore, the focus should be on the application of complete strategies that go beyond the mere training of employees. Even the training needs to be rethought to enable real growth for all employees, with optimization for the mission and company goals.

3. Corporate intelligence

Corporate intelligence is represented by the sum of all individual intelligences.

The intellectual potential within companies is immeasurable. Implementing strategies to use this potential for the business mission is always desirable.

In conceptual terms, corporate intelligence represents the integration between people, tools, practices and processes.

Having good updated tools, rich and well-structured processes is important. But it is also equally important to integrate all these aspects, generating what we call corporate intelligence.

This is the level of compatibility between all areas of the company.

The intelligence of an organization can be measured based on the capacity of integration among the most varied parts that compose it. Without this integration, without the correct sharing of information and knowledge, intelligence is lost.

4. Organizational knowledge management

To carry out organizational knowledge management, it is essential to put various techniques and strategies into practice.

Among them is the creation of clear and efficient communication channels, decentralization of the processes of forming ideas, presentation of solutions and the encouragement of individual improvement.

Within the organization there are infinite knowledges, a great creative mass and productive energy. These are very rich dimensions that can contribute to the growth of the company not only in the financial sense but also in a personal sense.

5. Skill management

There are skills that are useful to the corporate context. For each business model, different skills are required. How do you manage these skills in order to create a productive, rich and creative environment? The answer lies in the management of employees, focusing on each one’s potential.

All positive features should be encouraged, while small errors should be solved. Knowledge management necessarily involves the improvement of individual skills, so that they become global skills of the company itself.

This transformation of individual potential into added value is critical to the organization’s growth in the marketplace. Competent professionals make competent companies.

6. Best practices

All internal practices of an institution can be improved on and perfected over time.

Knowledge management shows us that the level of quality in all sectors does not present a maximum limit; on the contrary, it’s possible to increasingly grow and improve.

Making business practices better requires monitoring, information analysis, and experiments.

In order for the changes to be embraced by all employees, and not rejected as is the case in many companies, practices must be analyzed with the help of all those involved.

Making recipients of change feel like participants in the transformation process is critical to ensuring acceptance.

Whenever possible, managers should consult their employees, understand what practices need to be improved and how to do so in order to optimize experiences and processes.

7. Talent management

Having good talent in the company is a major differential.

However, as is often the case, talents exist but they are unknown to managers, trainers and entrepreneurs.

The potential wasted is a serious risk for the growth of the organization, which despite having good professionals, cannot extract the best they have to offer.

To solve this problem, talent management is indispensable.

This consists of the implementation of strategies that allow the identification of existing talents within the company, boosting and exploring each of them. All based on the company’s values ​​and mission.

In addition, talent management allows the development of skills that might be dormant, which contributes to increasing the level of organizational knowledge.

8. People development

Last but not least, people development is one of the great knowledge management strategies for companies.

Company employees, and here we’re talking about all of them, from the technicians to support, including the administrative staff and general services, must receive constant attention.

When people who work in a business grow, business grows as well.

This is the logical result of good people management, which must be done in a complete and organic manner. The company’s human resources department is very important in this process.

Knowledge management is one of several processes that must be implemented in a business so that it is successful and grows in the market.

However, there are many other processes that are equally important, all with their characteristics and peculiarities.

If you’re an entrepreneur or work with people management in a company and want to learn more about it, read our additional post on corporate training and see which one is best for your business.