TSIA’s third annual Knowledge Management Survey is complete, and the results clearly document how difficult it is for companies to get the people, process, and technology of knowledge management (KM) right. Though respondents see enormous potential in capturing and sharing knowledge, the survey data shows that few companies are rewarding employees to participate in their KM program, and only a handful of companies are actually incenting employees for positive KM outcomes. Though TSIA continues to hear from members about the importance of KM due to rising product complexity and retiring workers, the survey results indicate that few executives are monitoring KM success, with only a small percentage of companies including KM metrics in operational reviews.
With the ongoing consolidation of knowledge management, content management, and collaboration, now is the time to remove the dysfunction from corporate KM programs, or the programs risk obsolescence. As an example, with members reporting it can take as much as 120 days to publish a new knowledge article, static knowledgebases may be losing employees and customers to online communities, where new questions and answers can be posted in seconds. For professional services organizations, only 15% have a formal process to capture best practices and lessons learned at the end of projects. In addition, companies are not making the investments in mobile access, unified search, or video to improve knowledge access and consumption, particularly for younger users.
With high planned spending for KM technology again in 2015-2016, companies need to stop paying lip service to the importance of knowledge management and actively embrace and evangelize a knowledge sharing culture, and finally dedicate headcount to this critical service capability in order to be successful.