When you need certain information about a company, their products or services, chances are you’ll check their website or any of their social media platforms. Businesses use knowledge management systems to disseminate information to their customers or employees. It’d be draining if a business had to attend to every query from its customers. That’s why businesses integrate a knowledge management system to manage their knowledge base. There are various types of knowledge management systems, and their purpose is knowledge dissemination, which benefits all parties involved in a system.
What is a Knowledge Management System?
When we talk about knowledge management system (KMS), we refer to any tool that businesses used to organize information and document this relevant information in such a way that employees and customers can easily access and comprehend it.
The information in question can be anything from frequently asked questions (FAQs) to manuals, articles, ethics, and so on. Every business must strive to have a knowledge management system, not just to update its employees but also to educate customers or anyone who needs information relating to their product, service, values, and so on. Your customers, as well as employees, encounter various challenges on daily bases. At every point in time, they will need you to clarify something or help them out with a difficult situation.
If you’ve ever visited a website and seen a column with the frequently asked questions, clicking on it will give you a list of several questions that you’ll possibly have operating the business products, services, or just about anything you want to know. That’s one of the examples of knowledge management systems. The business understands that its clients or its workers have tons of question and rather than wear themselves out trying to answer queries, they integrated a system that provides answers and other relevant information and ensure it can be easily accessible by anyone who needs it.
In general, we can also say that a knowledge management system is a tool that helps businesses bring their organizational information together, and then, arranges and present it in a way that it’s convenient and easy for users or anyone in search of the information.
What Are The Types Of Knowledge Management System?
When it comes to knowledge management system (KMS), there are three distinct types. We may witness the rise of others in the future due to research. The following are the major types of KMS available Enterprise-wide knowledge management systems, knowledge work system, and intelligent techniques or approaches.
#1. Enterprise-wide Knowledge Management Systems
With enterprise-wide knowledge management systems, businesses may now focus on optimizing business processes rather than wasting time searching for data. This is because all you may possibly waste time on has been gathered, stored, and disseminated. That way, users can freely access and use knowledge.
Enterprise-wide knowledge management system are classified into three types. These are structured knowledge systems, semi-structured knowledge systems, and knowledge network systems.
Structured knowledge systems
You can simply see the structured knowledge system as the guy who officially maintains the knowledge that is documented in an organization using certain tools or databases. When it comes to what the official knowledge is, it can be anything from procedures to techniques, best practices, research reports and white papers, case studies, employee information, board and investor information, and so on.
Semi-structured Knowledge Systems
Semi-structured knowledge systems take care of a business’s knowledge that is not part of its official documents. It uses another medium to organize, track, and store this knowledge.
Knowledge network systems
When it comes to knowledge network systems, these guys are responsible for transforming unstructured and undocumented knowledge into explicit knowledge. These are then stored in a database.
#2. Knowledge Work Systems
Companies establish knowledge work systems to enable specialized sections of personnel, such as engineers, product designers, researchers, architects, scientists, financial analysts, and so on, to produce new know-how for the organization.
#3. Intelligent techniques
Companies utilize artificial intelligence techniques and technology to capture individual and group knowledge and expand the organizational knowledge base.
Others Include;
- Research and insight
- An online community forum
- Learning management systems
- Customers’ service knowledge bases
Examples Of Knowlege Management Systems
The following are some examples examples of knowledge management systems available for businesses;
#1. Canva
Canva’s knowledge management system makes it simple to access materials for getting started and troubleshooting. They do recognize that consumer interactions with their product and website are critical to their overall success.
#2. Evernote
Evernote is a popular choice for knowledge management systems due to its simplicity in displaying information. The navigation bar stares right out to you so that you don’t have to go in search of it. It is quite visible and accessible. Whether you’re a customer or an employee, you’ll be directed to where to begin your information search prominently.
#3. Slack
The slack style is ingenious. I mean, these guys literally combine brand-heavy messages with bespoke iconography to represent issues in a new and interesting way. When a user interacts with Slack, each section expands to display a useful list of related subtopics and articles while remaining to anchor the primary navigation.
#4. Instacart
Even for individuals who aren’t tech savvy, Instacart’s approach to knowledge management is straightforward to execute. They have a prominent search bar and focus on simple images that answer frequent client queries, such as how Instacart works, how much it costs, and how to order. Instacart does meet clients’ needs by putting this information up in the form of FAQS, satisfying clients without wasting anyone’s time. They also have a friendly user interface and, in addition to these, also ensure that whatever users are looking for is attended to.
Best Knowledge Management System
Daily, businesses are beginning to see the need to integrate a knowledge management system into their operation to help run their daily business tasks smoothly. Well, you’ll agree with me that there’s nothing ecstatic about that till you’re faced with making a choice of what KMS software to adopt. With so many options to select from, you may be perplexed as to which knowledge base is best for your company. There are tons of these available, but check out the following;
#1. Freshworks
If you want a knowledge management tool that’s quite easy to use, you can look up Freshworks. It’s particularly intuitive and aids in the development and maintenance of relationships with clients throughout their journey. In all, you’ll mostly have satisfied clients and a happy workforce
Key Features Of Freshworks
The following are the key features of Freshworks
- Call for assistance if you need solutions
- Bot assistance
- Align teams from various departments.
#2. Zoho Wiki
If you are in search of a knowledge management system tool that builds rapport and also aids the sharing of information, your best bet may be Zoho Wiki
Key Features of Zoho Wiki
The following are the key features of the Zoho Wiki KMS tool;
- Access control with security
- You can customize your interface
- Edit information in the knowledge base software.
#3. Helpjuice
Every business has a specific need that it must highlight before integrating a knowledge management system. If all you want is to improve your customer support and work more efficiently with your team members, your best bet may be Helpjuice.
Key Features Of Helpjuice
The following are the Key features of the Helpjuice KMS tool;
- It has various themes, so you can choose to customize it
- It has a very quick search option for locating information.
- It reveals the analytic of information you consume during usage
#4. Zendesk Guide
The Zendesk Guide enables you to deliver complete self-service support to end users while also empowering your agents to better assist clients. One of the astounding things about Zendesks is that it enables you to initiate a help center.
Features Of Zendesk’s Knowledge Management System
The following are the key features of Zendesk’s knowledge management system Tool
- The user interface is quite simple to use.
- It provides ticketing solutions via knowledge management systems.
- Make a wide range of changes or updates to your data
Choosing the Perfect Knowledge Management System for Your Business
It isn’t enough to decide to integrate a KMS into your company, you must try to identify which knowledge management system is ideal for your organization. Check out the following tips on how to choose the ideal KMS for your business.
#1. Effective search
One of the key things a company must have in mind in choosing its KMS is a robust search. Make sure that whichever one you decide to integrate into your system must be one whose search is clever and changes the results based on the user’s relevancy. It’s frustrating when you search for something and have to be redirected or have to go through tons of other files to get to what you want.
So make sure that in selecting, you look out for a KMS that indexes all information across all file types and formats, making every resource in your firm searchable.
#2. Integrations
Choose a knowledge management system that is able to integrate all the platforms your workers use in one place.
#3. Flexibility
Ensure you choose a KMS that is flexible and scalable. More like one that can adapt to a growing environment because your business will definitely expand. Is your knowledge management system capable of storing more information as your firm accumulates it? Will it accommodate a growing customer base or workforce? A scalable knowledge management system can save you the time and effort of moving your enterprise’s whole knowledge base between technologies later on.
#4. Security Measures
While it must be easily accessible, it must also be able to install security measures, so that information that belongs to a limited number of people will not be accessed by everyone. So there’s a need for permission and access control to manage the flow of information
#5. Analytics, Insights, And Reporting
Reports and analytics enable you to assess the effectiveness of your knowledge management practices. They can assist you in determining how many members and how they use the enterprise knowledge base. This is critical for expanding the knowledge base and keeping it useful.
What are the 2 major types of knowledge management systems?
Knowledge work systems, enterprise-wide knowledge management systems, and intelligent approaches are the three main categories of knowledge management systems.
What are the 4 key processes of knowledge management?
According to the findings, the KM process is divided into four stages: knowledge gathering, storage, distribution, and usage.
What are the five components of knowledge management?
The assessment needs to address the five fundamental elements of knowledge management: people, processes, technology, structure, and culture.
What are the objectives of knowledge management?
The goal of the knowledge management process is to exchange viewpoints, ideas, experience, and information in order to make sure that they are available at the appropriate time and place for informed decisions. It also aims to increase efficiency by minimizing the need for knowledge rediscovery.
How do you introduce knowledge management?
Knowledge management refers to the methodical administration of a company’s knowledge assets with the purpose of adding value and satisfying tactical and strategic needs. It consists of the programs, procedures, plans, and techniques that support and improve the gathering, analyzing, evaluating, and sharing of knowledge as well as its generation.
What are the benefits of knowledge management?
Knowledge management advantages:
- more organizational flexibility.
- speedier and more effective decision-making.
- speedier solution to problems.
- more innovation output.
- aided in the development and advancement of employees.
- sharing of expert knowledge
- improved dialogue.
- enhanced business procedures.
What are the top 5 barriers to knowledge management?
Learn about the TOP 5 obstacles to information sharing in the following paragraphs, along with solutions:
- Time constraints.
- Lack of willingness to change.
- Absence of involvement.
- Tools that are overly complex.
- concerns regarding one’s employment.
What Are the Benefits of a Knowledge Management System?
- Provide better service to customers and employees.
- Stimulate growth and innovation.
- It lowers costs.
- Avoid redundancy.
- It improves decision-making.
- Helps in keeping track of ideas
- It makes it easy to find information
What Are The Features Of Knowledge Management?
- User-friendliness
- Cloud storage.
- Instant updates
- Search functionality
- Feedback system
- Collaboration
- Accessibility and ease of use
- Integration with third-party tools
- Inbuilt analytics and reporting
- Customization
- Mobile app
Conclusion
Every business needs to have a knowledge management system respective of whether its small, medium or large scale business. It makes its information easily accessible to both employees and customers.
Knowledge Management System FAQs
What are some of the tools used to build an effective KMS?
- Intranet
- Extranet
- Document management system
- Content management system
- Decision support system
- Wiki
- Data warehouse and so on
What is knowledge management cycle?
The knowledge management cycle (KMC) describes the steps taken to gather, analyze, and disperse information within an organization to create useful knowledge.
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