Knowledge management in the business environment

Introduction

The conditions of the business environment today, where high complexity and strong competitiveness prevail, are making knowledge management in the company a fundamental element to ensure sustainability over time of the world's businesses and companies.

The globalization of commercial relations, the world crisis, technological development and the appearance of fast growing sectors, make the ability to obtain information and transform it into useful knowledge that can be quickly incorporated into the organization and then put it into practice., be the best advantage with which to play against the competition and the challenge of serving customers better.

What do we understand by knowledge management?

It is the process by which the company or organization facilitates the transmission of information and skills to workers, in a systemic and efficient way. It is important to clarify that the information and skills do not necessarily have to be exclusively within the company, but can be or be generated outside of it.

These are some concepts of knowledge management:

Knowledge management is the area dedicated to directing the tactics and strategies required for the administration of intangible human resources in an organization (Brooking, 1996). Knowledge management is the function that plans, coordinates and controls the flows of knowledge produced in the company in relation to its activities and its environment in order to create essential competencies (Bueno, 1999) Knowledge management has tactical and operational perspectives, is more detailed than intellectual capital management and is focused in the way of publicizing and managing the activities related to knowledge such as its creation, capture, transformation and use. Its function is to plan,implement and control all the knowledge-related activities and programs required for the effective administration of intellectual capital (Wiig, 1997).

Knowledge management implies going much further than a mere computer system or training plan. It is essential to foster an innovative and efficient business structure. If knowledge flows and is transmitted correctly in the organization, it can only grow.

Knowledge management cycle

This cycle is made up of all the phases through which the data passes, or the information before it becomes valuable information for the company, in the words of Kahili Gibran “A little knowledge that works is infinitely more valuable than much knowledge idle ”, the knowledge management cycle is made up of three phases or stages:

Capture and / or creation of knowledge Diffusion and / or transmission of knowledge Acquisition and application of knowledge

One of the main objectives of the knowledge management cycle or process is to identify and locate knowledge within and outside the organization. This content or valuable knowledge must be explicitly expressed to be transmitted, something highly complex and that can only be partially accomplished.

This attempt to express knowledge explicitly is what is called “knowledge coding” and is what facilitates the phase or stage of diffusion or dissemination.

Identification and capture where valid knowledge is evaluated, selected and codified The diffusion or dissemination of knowledge that is where it is transmitted

For this transfer to be efficient, we must have adequate incentives, networks, repositories and means that allow the transfer of knowledge and know-how.

Knowledge Management in theory and practice by Kimiz Dalkir

Somehow these repositories where knowledge is stored in different formats constitute part of the organization's memory.

When this memory is activated, we reach the last phase or stage of the knowledge management process, where knowledge is acquired and applied. If we look closely at the figure above, we will see three actions between the phases that are of vital importance:

Assess: literally means evaluating and means choosing which pieces of knowledge within and outside the organization are of value to our asset and must be incorporated for dissemination. Contextualize: the selected knowledge must be disseminated and disseminated to the right people within the organization. and incorporated into it. This is the mission of contextualize it. Here the knowledge formats are prepared (encoded) and made available to the right people.Update: o Update… as in every cycle we must go back to the beginning and repeat the process. In this case it is about updating our knowledge on a specific topic or acquiring new knowledge to develop new professional skills.

Importance of knowledge management in companies

Introducing knowledge management in the company has the virtue of gradually transforming our rigid structures into more flexible elements, capable of giving the company the necessary waist to transform threats into opportunities.

The reasons for this correlation are due to the fact that a correct knowledge management in the company facilitates a more efficient management of key elements such as:

internal and external information in the organization business innovation the creation of more efficient organizational routines the coordination between the different organizational levels the rapid incorporation and assimilation of new capacities to the teams

All this contributes to creating more successful processes, products and business models, establishing routines in the organization that allow:

Improve distribution channels Better work teams Better relationships with customers, suppliers, employees etc…

The most important thing about knowledge management is that it allows us to have an organization that is adaptive to the changing circumstances of the environment.

Knowledge management and cultural change

Every time you try to introduce a change in Organizational Culture, there are a number of factors that can pose an obstacle, and it becomes more evident in the case of Knowledge Management as it is an intangible issue, finding important differences between organizations traditional and mature in the use of knowledge management.

Comparison between Traditional Organizations and Knowledge Conscious Organizations

Comparison between Traditional Organizations and Knowledge-aware Organizations.

Knowledge management in SMEs

Knowledge management is a discipline born in the early 90s in large organizations, which were the first to realize the need to capture and value the knowledge they generated and also first to have the means to do something by respect. For this, computer systems such as repositories of knowledge and organizational structures such as communities of practice were implemented, which since then have evolved hand in hand with technological and social changes.

Among these technological and social changes is one that interests us especially: the massive access of people and SMEs to the Internet, the technology that is triggering changes that are only comparable in scope to those caused by the steam engine. Precisely because of this disruptive power, SMEs that do not use the Internet to their advantage may be in danger of extinction. Using the Internet for your benefit means, among other things, using it for the continuous generation of relevant knowledge to continue selling and creating employment in the market. It is no longer something just within the reach of large organizations. Knowledge management is within the reach of SMEs and SMEs need it, since the vast majority of people in the labor market are knowledge workers.

As it makes sense in SMEs today, managing knowledge is not so much about transmitting knowledge that one already has to another as about ensuring the constant generation of new knowledge, the key to this is the creation of feedback loops inside and outside of the SME.

When referring to "inside" it implies partners, employees and collaborators and "Outside" implies customers, suppliers and competitors, that is, the market.

To do this, there are several valid approaches. One that for its simplicity seems especially useful to me is from the Canadian consultant Harold Jarche. It delimits three types of activities of people that, concatenated and carried out continuously, result in the continuous generation of knowledge:

Observe and filter. Make sense. Share.

Knowledge management in SMEs

Observe and filter: Consciously capture useful conversations and information for the person and business in which the person is involved. The essential activities are the selection of information sources and their systematic follow-up, the management of links and searches, both automated and imaginative. Make sense: Add value to the pieces of information selected in the first step. The most common activities are checking whether a source is trustworthy or not, preparing abstracts of articles (or books, talks, videos) and expressing our own opinions and visions about things that we have heard, seen, read or experienced.. In this step of knowledge management it is necessary that all the people who make up the SME become creators.After the activities carried out in the first two steps, we will be ready to create those feedback loops that we discussed earlier. We can do this, for example, by making the links we save and the content we create available to others or directly open. Its dissemination on social media is, of course, another very effective way of inviting others to reflect and comment and thus receive their opinion.

conclusion

The implementation of knowledge management is very important for companies to preserve and contribute to the evolutionary knowledge of organizations, whether external or internal, the information that is used appropriately for the company is of great value, the underlying problem is that skills or information is transmitted by people, which is usually a problem, you have to work hard on the mission and organizational objectives so that there is no such "envy" to share information.

Bibliographic references

BROOKING, A. (1996): Intellectual Capital Core Asset for Third Millennium Enterprise, ed. esp. (1997), Paidós Empresa, Madrid.WIIG, K. (1997): “Integrating Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management”, Long Range Planning, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 399-405.BUENO, E. (1999): “Knowledge management, learning and intellectual capital”, Bulletin of the Club Intellect, no. 1, January. Madrid.