Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management (KM) is the term used to cover a range of activities used by companies and organisations to identify, create, represent (perhaps in visual form) and the distribute the "knowledge" gained for re-use amongst members of that organisation.

This knowledge, when made accessible in this way, ensures that all are made aware of otherwise hidden facts and the importance of these facts for their organisation. Such knowledge can then be used both for training and other business purposes.

Knowledge Management programs are normally tied to the objectives of an organisation and have been put into place with a view to improving performance or innovation or some other form of competitive advantage.

Contemporary can offer your business both the applications and the training on the full range of Knowledge Management and Business Objects Products.

History of Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management has in fact always been around, if only in the fact that knowledge is passed from the manager of a department to their staff so that they understand the data and operation of that department. However, with the invention of the computer, new applications such as "knowledge bases", "expert systems" and "knowledge repositories" have come into being.

The Aims of Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management programs are designed to manage the process by which knowledge (as apart from just data) is created from the data in that organisation and then made available to all appropriate individuals in that organisation. The process by which this is achieved follows the following steps:-

• Identification
  Here the data in the organisation is surveyed in order that the data that can be used to create the required "knowledge" can be identified.
• Processing
  The data is then processed in order that the knowledge it "contains" can be extracted.
  
• Creation
  The "knowledge" is then created.
• Application
  This accumulated "knowledge" is then applied and distributed across the organisation.

Benefits of Knowledge Management

The Benefits of Knowledge Management are obvious in that knowledge, being so much more than mere data, allows members of an organisation to understand the true impact of changes to the business and to why it works as it does. Therefore, if the knowledge held in a business can be extracted and made known to all, everyone can better understand why they must do what they must do, better decisions can be made and importantly, the business becomes more resilient as it becomes less reliant on a few members (those previously the holders of all knowledge) of staff.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the difference between data and information

A: Data can mean a lot of things to people but we are all guilty of walking into meetings with spreadsheets of data that is really just numbers and doesn’t mean that much to people that haven’t written them. What we are looking at with information, is making it available in a format that is instantly readable and relevant to the individual person that is looking at that information. And the other side of it is that it might not be just numbers or numerical figures, it may be that information around the business; documents knowledge, and other information that we may want to look at and that’s business intelligence.

Who is Enterprise Reporting relevant to?

Q: Who is Enterprise Reporting relevant to?

A: Enterprise reporting is relevant to two communities within an organisation; the first community is obviously the people who need to get the reports and rely on them, also there is the IT community. It’s in the IT department’s interest to control and manage the distribution of information throughout the organisation so really it is key to two different areas.