Despite the phenomenal proliferation over the past 30 years of digital computing and some extraordinarily innovative uses of computing power, business is still about information and its use. Although document management systems, or content management systems, have been deployed, it is the knowledge these systems contain that is important.
John O'Brien, partner and managing director of IRM Strategies, a company that specialises in information resource management, or knowledge management (KM) solutions, said companies must deal with many problems that were related to document management systems that spilled over into other areas such as collaboration and even compliance.
The skills that his company could bring to an organisation were best brought in early, before certain decisions were made, he said.
'We like to get in before there is a decision to focus on either document management or sharing and collaboration technologies. The fact is, business needs both - and more - to ensure risk and compliance management, while still supporting knowledge building,' Mr O'Brien said. Although the term knowledge management has been around for quite some time in academic circles, it is still not well understood in a business context. As it doesn't appear to bring an immediate financial reward, companies often overlook it. But the way certain issues of collaboration and compliance are moving means that companies may be forced into thinking about knowledge management.
'A knowledge-focused company takes a broad approach to managing knowledge that today is captured in many ways including on paper, in photographs, video, CD-Roms and other media,' he said. 'It is vital to ensure that what is stored is authentic, reliable, and even defensible later on should issues of compliance arise. But to do this, an organisation must understand this and know that it has a lot to do with changing the way people think and behave.'
One of the more challenging problems associated with knowledge management is the question of who is responsible for it? It is usually handed over to information technology (IT) or human resources without much thought. Mr O'Brien said this was not only inefficient, but it could also be harmful.
'Many business people think they are handling profit and loss, and that everything they do is viewed in that context. If you were to say, for example, that they were responsible for corporate knowledge, many executives would have no idea what you were talking about - but they are responsible.