The availability of more information is increasing the complexity of decision-making, driving the necessity to ensure the right information is available when and where it is needed. Knowledge-Centric Organizations connect people and deliver them the right information at the right time for decision and action. They also learn constantly, innovate continuously, make quality decisions faster, reduce product and service cycle times, and accomplish their missions more productively. The bottom line is a high performance enterprise, encompassing the individual, team and organizational levels.
Many organizations are primarily knowledge-driven. They take in data and information and produce either a product or service. In producing a product or service, they use their own, and others', knowledge and information. Much of the knowledge in an organization is embedded in the minds of employees. Past experience and internal learning create processes, insights, methodologies, know-how and understanding, that, in a very real sense, represent what the organization is and how it adds value. Since knowledge is the most basic of all core competencies, its recognition, creation, application, and management become a vital concern for managers and leaders.
In its broadest form, knowledge management is the identification, storage, transfer, diffusion, measurement, creation, and use of knowledge throughout an organization. It does not focus on databases or information technology, although it may use both. It does focus on people and process. Its concern is with the knowledge of the organization: creating, storing, protecting, disseminating and applying it. When people need knowledge, is it the right knowledge and is it efficiently available? Do they know where to find it? Is it kept updated as learning occurs and better ways of doing things are discovered? The awareness of the value of knowledge to an organization, coupled with its management, acts as an integrator that improves cross-organizational communication and cooperation.