Las compañías recurren a la Gestión del Conocimiento para solventar la sobrecarga de información

Las soluciones que aporta la Gestión del Conocimiento (GC) se han convertido en la estrategia más importante para las grandes compañías. Esto se desprende de una encuesta realizada por Economist Intelligence Unit a 122 ejecutivos europeos de 16 sectores de actividad distintos. Un dato que no se puede obviar es que el 57% de los ejecutivos son del Reino Unido y, el porcentaje restante, de otros países del oeste de Europa.

En la encuesta el 67% de las compañías mencionó la GC y el Business Intelligence como soluciones importantes para alcanzar sus metas estratégicas en los próximos 3 años. Un 63% afirmó que el CRM tenía el mismo nivel de importancia para lograr eso mismo, mientras que un 35% consideraron vital la tecnología móvil / sin cables.

Las recomendaciones, publicadas en un informe titulado Know how: Managing knowledge for competitive advantage, revelan básicamente que "despite huge investments in corporate IT, executives currently feel unable to exploit large amounts of corporate information. Two–thirds of companies in the survey complain that while their IT systems generate huge volumes of data, much of it is not actionable. According to the report, executives are now seeking smarter IT tools that enable them to filter, prioritise and analyse corporate data".

Las recomendaciones clave del informe incluyen las siguientes:

1. Too much information impedes decision–making

2. Good customer information remains elusive
"Knowledge about customers, their preferences and their behaviour is the overwhelming focus for improving the quality of information in large organisations over the next three years. The focus of CRM initiatives is now shifting from automating processes and collecting data to enabling more sophisticated analysis of customer requirements and buying habits".

3. For managers, relevant information is more important than "information anywhere"
"When asked where IT needs to improve most to help managers make better decisions, the top two priorities are to make it easier to analyse and drill down into information (40%) and improve the quality of data (31%). Only 12% of executives see ensuring access to information anywhere as a priority for improvement".

4. Corporate culture is as important as IT for effective knowledge management
"The biggest obstacles to knowledge sharing in large organisations are organisational, rather than IT–related. Half of executives say that internal barriers between departments hamper information sharing. Ignorance of what knowledge exists, or of where to find it, is another major barrier according to 41% of respondents. In some cases, a simple solution such as keeping a regularly updated record of who knows what can be more effective than throwing IT at the problem, according to the report".

5. Effective knowledge management pays
"Executives increasingly see knowledge management as a vital tool for competitive advantage. One case study in the report shows how Schlumberger, an oil services company, achieved a return on investment of $200m in a single year from a recent knowledge management initiative".

Cita textual de Ramadorai sobre la Gestión del Conocimiento

"This research underlines our belief that knowledge management is about more than effective IT. It has three critical and complementary components: people and culture; infrastructure and technology; and processes and information flow," said Mr S Ramadorai, CEO and MD at Tata Consultancy Services. "Without addressing corporate culture as well as IT, or using technology to make information actionable, knowledge management projects are likely to fail. It is therefore imperative that businesses work to architect and implement effective and comprehensive knowledge management solutions that enable them to make high–impact decisions in a timely manner."

* Companies Turn to Knowledge Management to Solve Information Overload, por Steven M. Cohen, en su blog Library Stuff, el 21 de julio de 2005