Imperatives of digital transformation for Knowledge Management
Traditional Knowledge Management (KM) models focus on codifying knowledge nuggets derived from processes and projects and encourage stakeholders to share tacit and explicit knowledge, thus building knowledge repositories that can provide access to organisation knowledge to all stakeholders connected with the business. With the availability of digital tools for access and new modes for dissemination of knowledge, KM is no longer seen as a support function but has the potential to act as the catalyst to reap the real benefits of digital transformation of businesses.
Very often when digital transformation is considered, the aim is to consider one of the critical functions such as marketing or operations or an entire process which is reengineered with the help of digital interventions. We have come across successful case studies of enhanced customer experience or enhanced productivity resulting from integration with the digital ecosystems. The success in each of these cases is primarily on account of the ability to generate and analyse the data and use these insights to transform the way businesses are able to function.
The potential advantages arising out of data is driving the investment decision towards IoT, Robotics, AI and embedded systems which are throwing up a variety of data leading to exhaustive analytics. With the help of AI and advanced analytics, the signals and cues businesses are in a position to get, bring more precision to the decision making process.
In this context, it is important for KM practitioners to examine their current systems supporting KM and make their platforms intelligent by adding the cognitive power to it. While businesses may be creating intelligent systems to aid in their respective functions, it is important to create linkages of data, knowledge and business need and redesign the systems such that they are able to deal with dynamic situations.
The other challenge businesses have often experienced is how to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.
