Corporate KM
For the last 15 years, organizations have rolled
out enterprise-wide KM efforts, often with huge
budgets, to a varying degree of success [9]. Much
KM effort is still focused at this enterprise level,
however, the larger the scale of work, the greater the
likelihood of over-commitment, and the more fraught
with dangers the work becomes as it progresses.
Based on some of the lessons learned from the early
adopters, many have begun to step back from this
all-or-nothing mentality, yet continue to see KM as
solely an enterprise-level activity, and consequently
struggle to implement it and make it relevant to their
workforce.
This is the real challenge of corporate-level KM:
how to keep it relevant at a corporate and individual
level, and how to manage and maintain it in a way
that allows for the inevitable fluctuations in business
focus and commitment to it, both from individual
employees as well as senior managers.
Objectives - Corporate KM is often focused on
mechanisms for capturing the knowledge that exists
in the organization, putting it into a format that can
be managed and maintained, and then ensuring all
employees have access to it. The strategic goal for
this kind of activity is to create an environment
where knowledge is created, shared and used for
the benefit of all in the organization.
While the reality is that there are now different
types of KM in play in any organization, that doesn’t
imply that they cannot co-exist, or even be managed
as a single portfolio. Indeed, unless the various
layers are coordinated to some extent then there is
the obvious potential for wasted effort and limited
pay-back for the organization.
If a balance between the needs of the individual
employee and the needs of the organization can be
achieved, then KM at all three levels will flourish,
and will start to work for the benefit of not just the
individual but of the organization as a whole.