Successful Knowledge Management Initiatives - Case Study Example

Knowledge Management Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Introduction Knowledge Management (KM) is the management of processes, roles, relationships, people, governance and technology within organizations structures which allows the transfer and application of expertise, competencies and insights from others to help in overcoming the challenges facing the organization and treating knowledge as a universal asset. Knowledge management involves provision of knowledge to the indented users at the right time to inform their decisions towards the correct actions. KM has recently attracted interest by researchers and scientists to perform research on a wide variety of topics ranging from technological adoption, managerial implementation of best approaches, theories and definitions so as to contribute to the pool of knowledge available. Organizations usually invest in KM for various reasons. One of the main reasons why organization engage in KM is to safe guard their employees know-how when the senior staffs are about to retire. This helps to transfer their acquired skills and competencies to the junior staff. Also when organizations employ new employees from different industries there is need to engage in KM so as to improve the level of performance of the new employees. It is necessary to note organizations engage in KM so as to ensure that they reap the most of the market through learning from past experiences, recycling of intellectual capacity in different business locations or different projects. Knowledge has been used to reduce risks associated with uncertainties in business operations. For example, a risk can be evaded in the future by developing intellectual capacity as a result of a happening which resulted to loss of income or impacted negatively on the lives of employees within the organization. Cross-border KM practices have proved to be an effective way of ensuring knowledge is transferred from one location or organization to the other for effective business management. Oman Flour Milling Company has engaged in KM initiatives with an aim of retaining their know-how as the organization has a high employee turnover. Also the company has established a clear link between its systems, processes and technology they use to optimize their performance. The most important elements of knowledge management initiatives which determine the success of adoption of KM strategy are assets, tools, people and processes. The relationship between these elements determines whether a KM initiative will succeed or not depending on the alignment of the framework to the overall strategy of the organization. The framework is generally a guide and positions the particular initiative by providing direction on the procedures to be adopted. The general arrangement handling of knowledge is important as it helps to align the initiatives towards organizational strategy which calls for adoption of a systemic approach in order to achieve the best results. In our case, we see Oman Flour Milling Company technology advancement as part of their strategy to drive the business to the next level. Literature Review KM discipline has been an area of great importance to organizations in the past decades which want to gain competitive advantage. In this times where globalization is viewed as the driver of large economies, with fast transfer of information across geographical areas, there is need to develop approaches to effectively manage available human capital to ensure value creation through efficient decision making, and doing the right thing at the right time so as to create competitive advantage. In fact, organizations are measured in terms of knowledge acquired and applied in production processes alongside with other determinants of growth like financial strength in creating competitive advantages in their line of business. This has pushed organizations to adopt the best knowledge management approaches so as to improve their performance and efficiency. Also knowledge management practices have been widely applied as a way of stimulating industrialization in economies which have shifted from focusing on natural resources as their key driver to adoption of intellectual capital. KM has become an important tool in organizations after realization that most organizations in the private and public sector compete on the basis of knowledge-based assets. Success or failure of any organization is mostly depended on the adoption, implementation and leveraging on this important asset to gain competitive advantage (Desouza, 2011). According to Teng & Song (2011) importance of KM is not only evident in high tech industries but all the sectors of the economy. KM is beneficial to all sectors in an economy like in our case manufacturing (Oman Flourmills Company). General management of knowledge has become crucial in management due to its ability to achieve desirable results relating to capacity growth, competitive advantages and increased profitability of the organization (Chua, 2009).Organization require sufficient capacity to effectively tap in to their employees’ capabilities and competences with an aim of developing, learning, retaining and utilizing these strengths in order to remain ahead of competition and guarantee survival in their industries of operation. Organizations which identify and transfer knowledge are more innovative and are in a position to perform better (Riege, 2007). Organizations which have tasted the fruits of KM now understand why they should mange knowledge, come up with strategies on how they will achieve the goal of knowledge management and mobilize resources towards the initiative. This is because KM has been identified as a source of competitive advantage hence improving organizational performance. In a knowledge based economy, KM is seen as the driver of organizations efficiency and performance. It is important for organizations to consider KM as an important component of organization which determines survival and competitive advantage. Therefore it is imperative that managers and leaders in any organization to consider KM as a factor in the production process so as to tap in to its ability to increase efficiency and flexibility in production both in the private and the public sector (Martensson, 2000). There was a fallacy that with time KM will fade away because it was believed that this was an approach executives were using to impress their contemporaries. However, this has been proven to be untrue by numerous researches done evidence that management of knowledge within organizations has increased due to its ability to influence performance. Also according to Spender (2008) KM has remained to be a key subject area within organizations and has opened up new ways of viewing the nature of organizations and with time has proved to be an important contributor of business performance within the business world. Key Components of Knowledge Management Many organizations for example, Oman Flour Milling Company, have come to realize that technological competitive advantages are not as effective as competitive advantages brought about by effective KM initiatives. KM has helped to develop employee competencies and maintained enough capacity to develop and utilized employees’ competencies fort the organization to remain ahead of competition. The realization after noting that processes and adoption of technology is not enough to drive the organization to a higher level of performance but it’s only the employees who have the power to propel to the desired heights in terms of performance. In order to achieve these organizations must focus on the four main components which include people, processes, knowledge and technology (Desouza, 2011). Therefore knowledge management should focus on linking people, processes and technology with an aim to tap on the benefits of knowledge to achieve organization success. Without knowledge to manage in organization which is usually in the form of information, then it would be difficult for the organization to link the other components and achieve success. The company has identified proper channels of information flow through adoption of effective communication channels. Knowledge Knowledge is the practical understanding, insights and know-how which employees possess and helps them to perform their duties intelligently and accurately. According to Wang & Noe (2010) knowledge is information processed by people in form of ideas, facts and expertise relevant to the performance of the organization. It can then be concluded that knowledge is an intangible asset which can only be acquired through transfer, communication, learning, training, association and reasoning (Enkundayo, 2011). Knowledge can be seen as combination of information, experience, reflection and perception which bring about new insights and interpretation of existing information. In organizations knowledge becomes embedded in documents, systems, culture, norms, practices and technologies. Oman Flour Milling success to a large extend attributed to proper management of this intangible asset since the quality of their products has been maintained over the years. People The ability of people to creatively think in a unique way supported by their talent and experience makes people an important source of knowledge; therefore effective management of people in an organization is equally important as the management of knowledge. People are the originators of knowledge in the sense that they come up with ideas, facts and procedures to embed the information and process it differently to come up with new knowledge. It is therefore important to come up with strategies of knowledge management with people involved in mind so as to achieve the intended results. According to Drucker (1999) people should be in apposition to acquire knowledge, experiment and pass it to the rest of the team members as a way of promoting new knowledge. Processes These are the mechanical and logical frameworks within an organization that allows work to flow in the intended direction. Processes within an organization govern work flow and it is important to have a knowledge management approach in place that appreciates the need of processes. The key requirement of an effective KM initiative is the ability to understand work and how the processes have been configured to achieve the highest level of desirable results. The level of involvement the company has put to continuously improve the systems and processes ha s made it possible for the organization to improve performance. Technology Technology is considered as the key enabler of the entire knowledge management initiative. Technology facilitates the linking of people and processes within one geographical location or different location with the aim of ensuring that the organization can achieve an effective and efficient flow of information to enable real time decision making. With advancements in ICT this collaboration has significantly improved how organizations perform and has offered solutions to challenges which were faced by organization decades ago. Although technology does not make organization share knowledge, it helps the people within the organization to relay knowledge inform of information. Also technology increases the scope and ease of sharing the required information. The purpose of this study is to highlight how Oman Flour Mills Company has implemented KM initiatives and components to help in improving their performance. Also the study looks at the extent to which knowledge acquisition and application has been achieved in Oman Flour Mills Company with the challenges which have been faced while linking these components in order to allow free flow of information across the company. A review of the company structure to highlight key challenges they are facing due to failure of adoption of knowledge management initiatives. Overview of Oman Flour Mills Company The company which deals with wheat flour production and allied products such as poultry and animal feeds was started in 1977 with an initial capacity of 150 metric tons a day. To date the company has a milling capacity of 800 tons a day and has diversified to include other subsidiaries within their industry. The company has diversified poultry feed production, bakery, grain storage and production of diet foods for their customer in the market niche they operate. The critical asset of the organization is human capital with the support of state of the art technology; the company has ensured production of quality products which reach their customers. The company has a top management consisting of CEO, CFO and CIO and middle level management stretching from corporate affairs, internal audit, purchase, export, maintenance, marketing and IT to mention a few. It is clear that the company has embraced state of the art technology in all of its processes to ensure that their operations run smoothly and the quality of products is superior. As the company has a huge customer base both local and international markets, the company has come up with a customer management system so as to overcome the challenge of managing diverse and widely spread customer base. The customer management system is designed to systematically manage customer requirements like servicing their orders, collecting feedback information, responding to customer’s queries and complaints and assessing customer preferences. All the aspects of customer management have been included in the system to allow free flow of customer information to the right person for decision making. All the departments involved ii relying on outside information have been accommodated into the system to allow them receive the information they require on time. Though the systems adopted by the company to a large extend have contributed to better performance in terms profitability and acquisition of a large market share, it is a challenge that the company has lost touch with most of their customers as a result of over reliance on the systems to provide information concerning customers. Over 60 percent of the company knowledge and information has not been standardized and organized in a uniform format for ease in retrieval and usage. The official files on sales, production, exports, purchases and human resources which was initially in hard copies was not uploaded in to the new ERP system which is an important business fortune. Most of the documents files and records exist in the database but have not been formatted in to usable format which makes it difficult to manage the different files at the same time. The organization has unlimited flow of different kinds of data from customers in to the system and this makes it difficult to find related data in the database to for use. The inadequacies of these external data has passed a challenge to the organization pool of knowledge as all this information does not really help the organization in decision making. With the emerging of technologies which can facilitate coordination, sharing, fusion and displaying information collected by the company to enable it make sound judgment about their market and customer needs, it still remains human depended as the information requires a lot of time and man power to sort it to a more usable format. It is difficult for employees to freely relay the information due to increased complexity in the working environment brought about by technological advancement and regulations; therefore it is imperative that the organization comes up with systematic knowledge management initiatives so as to ensure processes, people and technology are correctly linked to achieve the best results. A systematic knowledge initiative can help to sorting unstructured data, improve learning of new staff, enhance data reserves and improve the quality of decision making. Findings and Analysis Due to increased competition in the Milling industry, the company should focus on improving its customer service team and systems through adoption of knowledge management initiatives which in the long run will help the organization remain at the top of competition. Though Oman Flour Milling Company had initiated knowledge management approaches through their customer management systems there is need to have a clear strategy on how to ensure there is adequate transfer of knowledge within the organization. With regard to adoption of technology and the challenges the organization face due to lack of proper knowledge management initiative, the organization faces below challenges which should be addressed in order to achieve a better performance Poor training process of existing and new staffs Lack of precise information for decision making High staff turnover Lack of knowledge management in to work flow Poor data format during storage KM as a strategic tool requires managing the collective information of the organization so as to effectively be captured in the business strategy. In our case, Oman Flour Milling Company has not adequately identified and captured the information in its possession to shift the capabilities associated with this information to a knowledge-based view of the organization. The information the organization has should adequately provide a competitive edge to the organization. In order for the organization to achieve coordination between people, processes and technology there is need to apply knowledge management. Due to the nature of customer service, the information collected from different customers need to be sorted, recorded and stored in a simplified format in the system for future use. The company lacked proper way of sorting; organizing and storing data to enable their employees make use of the data for both current and future needs. The taxonomy approach the company adopted of classifying data was not sufficient in capturing all the important data required for decision making and most of the data collected was discarded. Knowledge sharing of all the information available in terms of records, marketing information, product and production information and experience from staff need also to be captured in the business strategy to allow proper and timely decision making. Lack of sound training practices within the organization to allow transfer of knowledge from staff who is experienced to new staff is another challenge the company was facing. Implementation of a proper knowledge management system would help with this challenge since it will ensure that the company taps from the experience of staffs by allowing them to conduct trainings whenever new staff member so as to allow the company retain the desirable traits. Also the company experienced high employee turnover which could lead to loss of critical skills and knowledge when an employee leaves the organization. Knowledge management initiatives would help to make sure that these skills are safeguarded within the company and any time a critical employee leaves, the knowledge is not completely lost. Though Oman Flour Milling Company is faced by many challenges associated with knowledge transfer and retention, it has come up with programs to ensure there is knowledge acquisition and application within the organization. The organization has come up with an e-learning portal that stimulates employees’ motivation to learn. Core business skills which every employee is required to have are mandatory learning modules and every employee is required to undertake within a specified period of time and refresher training offered annually. Also skills specific to certain roles are available to the specific employees. From the study it is clear that Oman Flour Milling Company has made strides in knowledge management initiatives. The initiatives aimed at linking people, processes and technology within the company has helped in improving performance though more needs to be done so as to exploit full potential of the knowledge available. The importance of people and technology in building a culture of continuously improving on KM cannot be overemphasized since it is a contributor of implementation of successful knowledge transfer initiatives. Knowledge is an asset locked in humans and sharing and communication requires the people who possess it to be willing to be part of the process. Therefore building a culture where this is possible should be encouraged in organizations. In our case the willingness of employees to participate in information sharing is missing. Recommendations KM initiatives success is largely depended on people within an organization to actively engage with processes and technology to ensure that there is improved performance of the organization. Oman Flour Milling Company can improve its KM initiatives through training of their employees and assessing the available technology to help them improve on their customer service. The following areas can be improve to make sure success is achieved Adopting appropriate technology to manage information processing. Establishing customer service centers with proper information processing tools. Speeding up training of new employees Conclusion This case study has illustrated some of the benefits in implementing knowledge management initiatives which in the long run improve organization performance with the challenges the company is facing in implementing the initiatives. It is imperative for the company to ensure that the approach adopted is in line with the business overall strategy so as to achieve the best results References De Long, D. & Fahey, L. (2000). Diagnosing cultural barriers to knowledge management. Academy of Management Executive Desouza, K. C. (2011). An introduction to knowledge management Desouza, K. C. and Paquette, S. (Eds.) (2011). Knowledge management: An Introduction. Chua, A.Y. K. (2009). The dark side of successful knowledge management initiatives. Journal of Knowledge Management Riege, A. (2007). Actions to overcome knowledge transfer barriers in MNCs. Journal of Knowledge Management. Martensson, M. (2000). A critical review of knowledge management as a management tool. Journal of Knowledge Management Spender, J. C, (2008). Organisational learning and knowledge management: whence and wither? Management Learning Read More