Role of Knowledge Management System in an IT-Oriented Company - Essay Example

?Running Head: Knowledge Management System Knowledge Management System [Institute’s Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 2 Background Information 4 Knowledge Management System 5 Strategy Assessment 5 Knowledge Assessment 6 Ways to Penetrate 8 Gap Analysis 9 Opportunity Identification for KMS 10 Critical Analysis 11 Reasons for implementation of KMS 13 Conclusion 14 References 16 Executive Summary With the technological innovations and developments, organizations are now moving towards the implementation of different software that they can adopt for sorting and sharing of implicit and explicit knowledge and one of the widely used and adopted systems is Knowledge Management System. Although, it is essential and crucial to determine, classify and evaluate the potential, competence, human intellect and their tacit knowledge in order to implement the Knowledge Management System lucratively. Knowledge Management System has developed into one of the most important features that any corporation would look into as it refers to the administration and management of the employees’ tacit or the embedded knowledge and understandings in view of the company’s goals and objectives. This thesis report highlights the importance of Knowledge Management System in an information-consulting firm that makes implementations of solutions like ERP in order to validate and substantiate the administration of its tacit knowledge. In addition, the Knowledge management theories, methods, and structural design that the enterprise can implement will come under evaluation in conjunction with the knowledge assessment of the company’s tacit knowledge, and will identify the necessary and existing gaps. Based on the assessments and the gap analysis, a framework and collection of possible approaches comes under proposal and recommendation that can better understand the needs of the talked about enterprise, reduce and shrink the threats involved in a Knowledge management system, and eventually facilitate the company in its development and growth. Furthermore, the discussion of the paper will also highlight and accentuate the advantages of a Knowledge Management System that will contribute to the business value of the ABC consulting firm and its productivity. Background Information As the world has entered into the twenty first century, it has undergone many technological advancements and improvements and the industries are transforming their manual processes onto technology-based processes. With this increasing demand of technology, and the growing competition, it becomes complicated and challenging to react to such market oscillations and instability. Therefore, several corporations are moving towards the implementation of solutions such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which is considerably one of the best solutions for the integrated processes, which raise and augment the competitive advantages of the corporations’ (Khosrowpour, pp. 115-118, 2001). The service provider or the information consulting company of these kinds of solutions is the subject of study and report that comes under limelight. Customization has always come under contemplation and observation as the best alternative way out of any situation, trouble, or different business scenarios from the standard ones that the customer experiences during the implementation phase. It is imperative to comprehend the business processes coupled to the experience factor for the administration of designed and spontaneous situations while implementation. Therefore, during the entire life cycle of the ERP implementation, Knowledge Management is the key and crucial aspect that comes under utilization by the employees in the information-consulting firms (Khosrowpour, pp. 115-118, 2001). The entire life cycle comprises of planning, business process analysis, requirement mapping, gap analysis, system design and configuration, data conversion, communications, end-user trainings, pilot run and production run. As these processes are multifaceted and difficult, therefore, corporations count on experts or consultants with special skills. Attributable to such complex process, an individual must possess project knowledge and in-depth domain knowledge. Since the success of the project, profoundly rely on the knowledge of the consultants, thus, endorsement and adaptation to the knowledge becomes a significant matter of subject for the consulting enterprises (Khosrowpour, pp. 115-118, 2001). The company established itself few years back and with the rising demands, it has gain a competitive advantage over others in the market with a good number of consultants. The goals and objectives of the ABC consulting firm is to have successful implementations, enhance the competitive position of our clients by equipping them with state-of-the-art software solutions and provide them with value-added services and support on a continual basis. Knowledge Management System Strategy Assessment The strategy assessment of a consulting firm would carefully examine its consultants that they must acquire specialized knowledge and skills that they can be capable for assisting the customers with precise and exact evaluation of their business processes so that they can advice and recommend an effectual and valuable solution in order to accomplish their aims and objectives. In addition, the consultants can come under examination by their professional dimensions as well, which signify and demonstrate their areas of expertise (Kubr, pp. 751-758, 2002). The ultimate and vital goal of ABC consulting firm is to enhance and raise its productivity and profitability and that can come under achieved through client satisfaction. With the Knowledge Management System, the value, pace, competence and output of the consultants would boost, thus customer satisfaction would be the outcome of it. In addition, the firm would be able to understand the clients’ needs and their problems through the information entered by the consultants. With better understanding of the customer’s requirement coupled to efficient consultants with tacit knowledge and expertise will lead the firm to be competent enough to gain advantage over others in the market as the recent trends proves the fact that the marketplace has emerged into a global competitive environment (Kubr, pp. 751-758, 2002). The strategies would also include the operating costs that include the training expenditures of the hired consultants, implementation costs, direct costs of purchasing the technology that consist of databases, computers, software licenses etc. and other overhead costs. The cost measurement is one of the foremost elements of the planning due to the reason that these consultants are the future of the company and the success of the enterprise heavily counts on them (Kubr, pp. 751-758, 2002). Knowledge Assessment The knowledge that the organizations utilize divides into two main categories: implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge refers to the hidden, unspoken or tacit knowledge that is either personified in people and their social groups or knowledge embedded or rooted in the methods, procedures and products that an individual produce or construct. In person communication between two or more people, or by converting and metamorphosing the tacit knowledge into explicit form are the widespread ways of transferring the implicit knowledge to others. Looking at the other end of the spectrum, explicit knowledge is the knowledge available via reports that are in the form of documents. The technological progressions and developments have made essential to govern and oversee the implicit and explicit knowledge that an individual have power over (Maier, pp. 21-22, 2007). Enterprises practice and take advantage of collection of methods and procedures involved in Knowledge Management in order to recognize, distinguish, characterize, and share knowledge, understanding, awareness, experience, proficiency, competence, and other forms of wisdom. The administration of course of actions that entail the formation, development, preserving, transferring, and distribution of the knowledge is the primary purpose of Knowledge management systems that comes into the practice by the organizations (Maier, pp. 52-58, 2007). As providing resolution to the issues and concerns of the clients through the consultants’ knowledge and experience is the key emphasis and foremost goal of ABC consulting firm, therefore, auditing of the tacit knowledge becomes an integral part for any consulting firm as the success of them lies within the hidden knowledge of their consultants (Maier, pp. 52-58, 2007). Every individual have their own social networks and groups where, the tacit knowledge that personifies in people can easily come under sharing and dissemination through the exchange of ideas and perceptions, transferring information of their real-life experiences, surveillance and substitution (Maier, pp. 52-58, 2007). According to the studies and researches, experts has come to a finding that the machinery, equipments, work force will shift and substitute to knowledge and information in the contemporary world of technology with innovations. As the professional knowledge and experience of the consultants increase and amplifies with communication and dealing with other associates and co-workers of the enterprise, therefore, this specialized and tacit knowledge is the principal component of ABC consulting firm that increases the competitive advantage and makes them predominant and leading firm in the marketplace (Maier, pp. 52-58, 2007). Although tacit knowledge is complicated to understand and communicate, as it is the knowledge embedded in the processes and products created by people as well, yet, it can come under sharing and accumulation through the documentation and citation of the process flows with which the products come under development (Maier, pp. 52-58, 2007). Ways to Penetrate The individual’s approach, mindset, behavior, and perspective play a great deal of importance on their decisions, therefore it becomes very difficult, complicated, and challenging to convince and persuade them for a change. Due to this reason, the implementation of Knowledge Management System is not simple and easy. Although the implementation of Knowledge Management System is a difficult task, yet it is beneficial and significant as it helps a great deal of amount in diminishing and cutting down the operational expenditures of the enterprise. The Knowledge Management system would produce such a working environment for the consultants that they can utilize the knowledge and understanding, and permit them to exercise the best practices in an efficient and productive way (Becerra-Fernandez & Sabherwal, pp. 258-265, 2010). Furthermore, the consultants in an information consulting organization are the biggest assets, therefore, their retention and recruitment is a massive and colossal task, which involves a huge amount of money. Knowledge Management System plays a great deal of assistance in reducing and upholding the cost of the complete process of recruitment of consultants as it immensely and immeasurably support in upholding and catch the attention of fresh expertise (Becerra-Fernandez & Sabherwal, pp. 258-265, 2010). With the implementation of Knowledge Management System, one of the furthermost gains that ABC consulting firm would have is the loyalty and devotion from the consultants. This is due to the reason that employees tend to continue to their jobs which augments their learning, knowledge, and experience, and facilitates them in their career growth and escalation. This will eventually add to more value to the business (Becerra-Fernandez & Sabherwal, pp. 287-293, 2010). The successful implementation of any ERP project depends principally upon the one chief and prime consultant and that person’s exit from the organization would manipulate and have a radical impact on the entire project. Nevertheless, with the Knowledge Management System, this issue can come under resolution because the information, work processes, and the tacit knowledge would be present in the system in the form of documents that can come under utilization by any other consultant (Becerra-Fernandez & Sabherwal, pp. 287-293, 2010). Gap Analysis The model of Knowledge Management has come under several controversies and different experts have diverse opinions. According to some schools of thought, the concept of Knowledge Management does not relate to technology or computers predominantly, rather, it is a complete practice and course of action that comes under alliance to the determination, identification, development, circulation or sharing, practice and implementation of knowledge. In addition, the people have a universal perception that Knowledge Management is moreover a technology-based concept and they ignore and overlook the fact that its building block and components lies in them in the form of tacit knowledge (Cavaleri & Seivert, & Lee 2005, pp. 210-215). Furthermore, one of the leading and prevalent gaps takes place when consultants are not ready to share and disseminate their knowledge and information with other coworkers. Therefore, it is important to consent them on the perception that sharing of knowledge and information will benefit the firm in the distant future and they would possess a worthwhile intellect capital that will make them more competent from others (Reimer & Karagiannis, pp. 245-248, 2006). The new recruitments did not managed to perform and practice the operational tasks as compared to the old consultants and faced problems in gathering, transferring and sharing the tacit knowledge, understanding and expertise, which became one of the leading gaps and created hindrance in achieving success for the organization as well as their own progress (Reimer & Karagiannis, pp. 245-248, 2006). Another problem or difficulty that ABC might encounter is that some of the consultants have a perception that completing the project before the time-period will lead to another project regardless of the fact that they might have not fulfilled all the clients’ requirements or due to lack of tacit knowledge they might close the project prior to their deadlines. This is one of the widespread problems that the corporation might fact; therefore, it is critical and crucial to keep a check on the projects by the senior project managers in order to accomplish the project successfully and on a timely basis (Cavaleri & Seivert, & Lee 2005, pp. 210-215). Opportunity Identification for KMS Although, Knowledge Management is not a new concept, has been a matter of concern regarding its meaning and description, and has come under several argument and debate for over many years, yet it has come under functional use by many enterprises into their universal and wide-ranging actions that involve administration, conversion, generation, improvement, and enrichment of the intellectual capital. Different authors and experts have penned-down several definitions but the main essence by all the experts comes under finding to be similar. According to the experts Knowledge Management facilitates the enterprise to accomplish its aims and goals in an efficient manner due to the reason that the implicit and explicit knowledge are the key embedded features of the enterprise employees or consultants that influences its practices, designing, organizing and implementation (Gottschalk, pp. 115-117, 2005). With the passage of time, the world is experiencing enhancement in the technological and industrial revolution coupled to the growth of globalization, corporations have started to look knowledge as one of the considerable and noteworthy resources for their growth and prosperity. For the prolific and flourishing consequences, the new recruitments and consultants shall come under comprehensive training programs that give them the apparent understanding, explanation and clarifications about how to use the system, how the system can promote them and so on. This would clear all their related issues, and give them hands-on on the Knowledge Management Systems, so that they are able to better record and share the knowledge (Al-Shammari, pp. 299-305, 2010). The Knowledge Management System also eliminates and eradicates the hassle of searching and conferring the information and required knowledge from an external source, as this system raise the effectiveness and value of accessing and acquiring the knowledge and provides a simple software solution where all sort of information and knowledge is available (Gottschalk, pp. 98-107, 2005). Critical Analysis The basis or the foundations of the information and data, the elucidation and explanation to the problems and the enterprise’s recorded and authentic information and particulars are the key documents that facilitate the Knowledge Management System for the workforce to get the rights to use. The outcome of practicing and exercising knowledge in an efficient way, endorsement of the disseminating the knowledge will lead the corporation to attain a competitive advantage and will augment their productivity (Keyes, pp. 45-48). The first and the foremost action of step of ABC consulting corporation should be to make the organization where understanding, familiarity, knowledge, experience, and expertise ought to be the cornerstone, and develop a Knowledge Management System with the aim to record and disseminate the information and knowledge in order to accomplish the enterprise’s success (Keyes, pp. 45-48). Knowledge Management is a crucial and vital feature for the ABC consulting firm due to several motivational reasons. It helps in promoting and boosting the other actions, programs and departments of the enterprise that includes quality management, re-engineering of business procedures, and administer with novel, innovative and imperative platforms of prominence that leads to uphold and prolong competitive place in the marketplace (Keyes, pp. 45-48). Due to such a competitive environment, knowledge management system will prove to be a mode of success for ABC consulting firm as it will grant and acknowledge the corporation to turn out to be flexible and adaptive to various factors. These factors contribute the firm in being open and quick in responding clients’ requirements, transforming into adaptive and state-of-the-art procedures, creative in establishing plans, policies and approaches and act promptly and zestfully for forthcoming opportunities and prospects (Keyes, pp. 45-48). The top-level management people, who plan, develop and design the mission, visions, goals, and objectives of the ABC consulting firm should come under one roof and make accurate and appropriate strategies for the execution of the Knowledge Management system. These people should provide justifications, interpretations, and response to the substantial and salient subject of concerns that include queries like what would be the consequence of the implementation of the Knowledge Management Software. Moreover, the organization should also observe and monitor that the route and channel in which the organization is surging ahead should be in alignment with the strategies and visions (Keyes, pp. 45-48). Reasons for implementation of KMS In the today’s fast-paced world where everybody is in search for more knowledge in the minimum time, Knowledge Management System is one of the significant features that an organization can implement as it provides a wide variety of benefits for any organization. The supervision of the intellect and brainpower of the existing and accessible assets in the form of consultants for the organization turn out to be more effectively and simple with the implementation of Knowledge Management System that results in improved and augmented output and competency. In addition, the consulting firms can utilize and make the most of the facts, intelligence, and knowledge on a large-scale or a universal platform as well (Schwartz, pp. 34-40, 2006). With the Knowledge Management System, the training period for the new and existing consultants will abate, as this system will allow the consultants to learn more promptly and rapidly from the success and failures of other employees. Furthermore, it will also help in abridging the extravagant, repetitious, and manual work of recording their tasks for the consultants (Schwartz, pp. 34-40, 2006). As the below indicated diagram illustrates the piece of information that a Knowledge Management System will integrate the knowledge and information of all the consultants and have all the documentations in a synchronized way through the reachable and easy to get knowledge management tools with the centralized database of the knowledge, which will result in working in harmony. In addition, due to the centralized database, consultants will have the access to the knowledge and information that would be in a structured form, rather than individual consultants having their own set of documents and information in isolated formats (Schwartz, pp. 34-40, 2006). Knowledge Management System (KMS) also fulfills the fundamental and vital requirements of the ABC consulting firm that is to provide effective solutions to the problems of the clients, minimize the time of the implementation lifecycle, carry out the tasks with nominal intellectual capital and human capital, curb, and decrease the customization period. Moreover, KMS also helps in improving and increasing flexibility and transformation, disseminating and storing of knowledge (Schwartz, pp. 34-40, 2006). Conclusion Employees or consultants are hesitant and uncertain about moving towards any kind of change such as the implementation of the Knowledge Management System, due to the reason that they do not have the willingness to share their expertise and tacit knowledge. Regardless of the fact of the reality that this system will not only enhance and increase the productivity and profitability of the organization but will also boost their learning process and will enhance their growth in their career. With appropriate and vigilant planning, carrying out the implementation of KMS, it will result in optimal efficiency, conflict toward the change in a smallest amount and promising outcomes (Cavaleri & Seivert, & Lee 2005, pp. 210-215). The project managers and the senior consultants play an influential and dominant role on their subordinates and their juniors; therefore, it is recommendable and comes under proposal for the ABC consulting firm that the top management should have an alliance with them prior to making any change in the organization. This will certify and make certain the execution of the Knowledge Management System as a part of the company’s mission and goal. The top management of the ABC consulting firm should converse the planning of the company’s goals and missions in an appropriate manner with all the consultants so that they can clinch and uphold those missions in order to accomplish the desired outputs and productivity in a fruitful way (Gottschalk, pp. 115-117, 2005). ABC consulting enterprise should make the consultants apprehend and become conscious the need for implementing a Knowledge Management System and highlights the significance of it on a recurrent basis so that the risk of adapting a change comes under diminution. Once the need arise and the employees prepare themselves for accepting the change, a smooth implementation of KMS can come under process by the organization. Looking at the other end of the spectrum, abrupt, rushed, and unexpected execution of Knowledge Management System would lead to failure as mentioned previously that people do not always welcome the change in their environment and working atmosphere. Hence, it should come under performance in small phases and chunks so that each consultant accepts the new happenings within the organization in a favorable way (Gottschalk, pp. 115-117, 2005). References Al-Shammari, Minwir. 2010. Knowledge Management in Emerging Economies: Social, Organizational, and Cultural Implementation. Idea Group Inc IGI. Becerra-Fernandez, Irma., & Sabherwal, Rajiv. 2010. Knowledge Management: Systems and Processes. M.E. Sharpe. Cavaleri, Steven & Seivert, Sharon & Lee, Lee. W. 2005. Knowledge leadership: the art and science of the knowledge-based organization. Butterworth-Heinemann. Gottschalk, Petrer. 2005. Strategic knowledge management technology. Idea Group Inc IGI. Information Resources Management Association. International Conference, Khosrowpour, Mehdi. 2001. Managing information technology in a global economy. Idea Group Inc IGI. Keyes, Jessica. 2006. Knowledge management, business intelligence, and content management: the IT practitioner's guide. Auerbach Publications. Kubr, Milan, International Labour Office. 2002. Management consulting: a guide to the profession. International Labour Organization. Maier, Ronald. 2007. Knowledge Management Systems: Information and Communication Technologies for Knowledge Management. Springer. Reimer, Ulrich & Karagiannis, Dimitris. 2006. Practical aspects of knowledge management: 6th international conference, PAKM 2006, Vienna, Austria, November 30 - December 1, 2006 ; proceedings. Springer. Schwartz, David G. 2006. Encyclopedia of knowledge management. Idea Group Inc IGI. Read More