All businesses have access to an extensive pool of knowledge – whether this is their understanding of customers’ needs and the business environment or the skills and experience of staff.
The way a business gathers, shares and exploits this knowledge can be central to its ability to develop successfully.
This doesn’t just apply to huge multinational companies. Knowledge management can benefit everyone from a local newsstand to a manufacturing firm.
This guide explains the basic sources of knowledge available to your business, how you can best harness and exploit this information and how to create a knowledge strategy for your business.
WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE IN A BUSINESS?
Using knowledge in your business isn’t necessarily about thinking up clever new products and services, or devising ingenious new ways of selling them. It’s much more straightforward.
Useful and important knowledge already exists in your business. It can be found in:
- the experience of your employees
- the designs and processes for your goods and services
- your files of documents (whether held digitally, on paper or both)
- your plans for future activities, such as ideas for new products or services
The challenge is harnessing this knowledge in a coherent and productive way.
BASIC SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
Your sources of business knowledge could include:
- Customer knowledge – you should know your customers’ needs and what they think of you. You may be able to develop mutually beneficial knowledge sharing relationships with customers by talking to them about their future requirements, and discussing how you might be able to develop your own products or services to ensure that you meet their needs.
- Employee and supplier relationships – seek the opinions of your employees and your suppliers – they’ll have their own impressions of how you’re performing. You can use formal surveys to gather this knowledge or ask for their views on a more informal basis.
- Market knowledge – watch developments in your sector. How are your competitors performing? How much are they charging? Are there any new entrants to the market? Have any significant new products been launched?
- Related: The Benefits of Training and Development in the Workplace.
- Knowledge of the business environment – your business can be affected by numerous outside factors. Developments in politics, the economy, technology, society and the environment could all affect your business’ development, so you need to keep yourself informed. You could consider setting up a team of employees to monitor and report on changes in the business world.
- Professional associations and trade bodies – their publications, academic publications, government publications, reports from research bodies, trade and technical magazines.
- Trade exhibitions and conferences – these can provide an easy way of finding out what your competitors are doing and to see the latest innovations in your sector.
- Product research and development – scientific and technical research and development can be a vital source of knowledge that can help you create innovative new products – retaining your competitive edge.
- Organisational memory – be careful not to lose the skills or experience your business has built up. You need to find formal ways of sharing your employees’ knowledge about the best ways of doing things. For example, you might create procedural guidance based on your employees’ best practice. See the page in this guide: create a knowledge strategy for your business.
- Non-executive directors – these can be a good way for you to bring on board specialised industry experience and benefit from ready-made contracts.
EXPLOITING YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Consider the measurable benefits of capturing and using knowledge more effectively. The following are all possible outcomes:
- An improvement in the goods or services you offer and the processes that you use to sell them. For example, identifying market trends before they happen might enable you to offer products and services to customers before your competitors.
- Increased customer satisfaction because you have a greater understanding of their requirements through feedback from customer communications.
- An increase in the quality of your suppliers, resulting from better awareness of what customers want and what your staff require.
- Improved staff productivity, because employees are able to benefit from colleagues’ knowledge and expertise to find out the best way to get things done. They’ll also feel more appreciated in a business where their ideas are listened to.
- Increased business efficiency, by making better use of in-house expertise.
- Better recruitment and staffing policies. For instance, if you’ve increased knowledge of what your customers are looking for, you’re better able to find the right staff to serve them.
- The ability to sell or license your knowledge to others. You may be able to use your knowledge and expertise in an advisory or consultancy capacity. In order to do so, though, make sure that you protect your intellectual property.
MAKE KNOWLEDGE CENTRAL TO YOUR BUSINESS
In order to manage the collection and exploitation of knowledge in your business, you should try to build a culture in which knowledge is valued across your business.
One way to do this might be to offer incentives to staff who supply useful market news or suggest ways customers can be better served. You can use these knowledge management practices throughout your organisation to build better processes.
As part of your knowledge management, you should also make sure that any intellectual property that your business holds is protected.
This means that you have the right to stop competitors from copying it – and also allows you to profit by licensing your business’ knowledge.
Protecting and exploiting your knowledge base will be more effective if you develop efficient systems for storing and retrieving information.
Your files – whether stored digitally or on paper – contain knowledge that you can use to make your products, services, systems and processes better and more customer-focused.
Keep knowledge confidential. Your employment policies play a central role in this.
For example, you might get staff to sign non-disclosure agreements (also known as confidentiality agreements) when they join the business as this ensures that they understand the importance of confidentiality from day one.
Employment contracts can be written to reasonably limit your employees’ freedom to quit and work immediately for one of your rivals (restraint of trade clauses) or set up a competing business to yours in the vicinity (restrictive covenants).
SHARING KNOWLEDGE ACROSS YOUR BUSINESS
It’s essential to avoid important knowledge or skills being held by only a few people because if they leave or retire that expertise could be lost to your business.
If you have efficient ways of sharing knowledge across the business, it will be more widely used and its value and effectiveness are likely to be maximized.
Consider the best ways of sharing new ideas and information with your staff. You may already have regular meetings when you can brief employees and ask them to share ideas and best practice.
You could consider holding innovation workshops or brainstorming sessions at which staff are given the freedom and encouragement to think of ways in which the business could improve.
It can also be a good idea to create a knowledge bank containing useful information and instructions on how to carry out key tasks. Putting this on an intranet is ideal as it will encourage staff to post news or suggestions.
Technology alone isn’t the answer to sharing knowledge – it has to be managed carefully so that information is channeled properly.
You may decide to appoint a senior manager as a knowledge champion for your business
Incentives and training– remember that offering staff incentives to come up with suggestions for how the business can be improved is often an effective way of getting them to use and share knowledge.
Don’t forget the importance of training in spreading key knowledge, skills and best practice across your business.
