Implementation of Knowledge Management Systems in an organization

After a long research Knowledge management is said to be very effective and essential for an organization. Earlier not many of the organizations had implemented Knowledge management, but nowadays all the organizations are implementing knowledge management. Majority of organizations believe that much of the knowledge, they need existed inside the organization but identifying that it existed, finding it and leveraging it remained problematic. Hence such problems maintaining, locating and applying knowledge have led to systematic attempts to manage knowledge (1).

According to (Ronald, 2004) Knowledge Management requires a systematic Knowledge Management Initiative in order to be used more frequently. And it includes the knowledge management strategies and the development of KM goals, it also requires a supportive organizational culture and a corresponding KMS controlling that evaluates whether the goals of using these system have been achieved

The recent interest in organizational knowledge has prompted the issue of managing the knowledge to the organizational benefit. Knowledge management refers to identifying and leveraging the collective knowledge in an organization to help the organization compete (Krogh, 1998) nowadays many organizations are trying to manage their knowledge for its own benefit, and by managing the knowledge they can also be ahead in the competition.

Some of the Knowledge Management Systems are designed to achieve process results improvements leading to organizational outcomes. The process improvements involves process like Shortening the proposal time for projects, Saving time, Improving project Management, Increasing the participation of staff, improving communication, reducing the problem saving time, and providing better measurement and accountability (M.Alavi & D. Leidner, 1999). On the other hand we have (Davenport and Prusak, 1998) and they say that according to their research Most of the projects have atleast one of the three aims listed below

• To make knowledge visible and show the role in an organization, mainly through Maps, yellow pages.

• To develop the knowledge – intensive culture by encouraging and aggregating behavior such as knowledge sharing and proactively seeking and also by offering knowledge

• To build knowledge infra structure, not only a technical system, but a web of connections among people given space, time, tools and encouragement to interact and collaborate.

Need of Knowledge Management systems in organizations.

In any successful organization, knowledge worker is the person who has a key role to play, and these knowledge workers may be scientists, engineers or architects, who designs products and creates new knowledge for the organization. Knowledge workers should able to find out effective solutions to problems. The work of the knowledge worker is to contribute their knowledge, skills, experiences, and proper judgment to organization. These knowledge workers share their knowledge through knowledge management system, they use knowledge management system as it helps the employees to communicate and learn more. People working in various departments of the organization can make effective decision using KMS. The use of KMS helps the organization to make right decision at right time. (M. Borghoff, 1997) says that“ knowledge that doesn’t flow doesn’t grow and eventually ages and becomes obsolete and useless, just as money which is saved without being invested eventually loses value until it becomes worthless” so according to him knowledge that flows, by being shared, acquired and exchanged, generates new knowledge. And he also adds further that Knowledge has been lately recognized as one of the most important assets of
Organizations and every manager, consultants, IT professionals and customers believes that knowledge makes the organization work.


After doing all the research that is related to this field and based on all the articles and journals that are related to the use of Knowledge Management in organizations one can say that there are many factors which shows the need of KMS in an organization. And the few factors are culture, strategy, Information Technology, Human Resources Management, training of employees, encouragement by giving proper incentives and using the resources that are available in a very effective and efficient way. Each and every factor that are mentioned shows as how knowledge management systems are used in organizations

References:

1). Maryam Alvi & Dorthy E.Leidner, Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Systems, 2001, retrieved on 1st April, 2009.
2). Davenport T.H and L. Prusak, working knowledge, Harvard business school press, 1998.
Retrieved on 31st, march, 2009.
3). Maryam Alvi & Dorthy E.Leidner, Knowledge Management systems: Emerging views and practices from the field, 1999, retrieved on 1st April, 2009.
4). von Krogh, G. Care in Knowledge Creation, California Management Review, 1998,
5).Ronald Maier, Knowledge Management Systems: Information and Communication Technologies for Knowledge Management, 2004. Retrieved on 1st April, 2009.
6). Uwe M. Borghoff, 1997, Information Technology for Knowledge Management. Retrieved on 1st April, 2009.