Knowledge Profiling

The leveraging of information has become a vital concern for businesses seeking to remain competitive in a rapidly changing global economy. Information and communication technologies have provided us with the wherewithal to handle huge amounts of data and information. And because we can, it has also become a must. Maintaining a position in the market place demands the availability and effective application of a wide range of current information pertaining to a companies own business status, that of the customer, the competition, and other partners in the value chain. In order to deal more efficiently and effectively with vital competitive information there are a number of challenges that must be overcome. Two particular features of business information that make up this challenge are its availability to competitors and its diminishing shelf life. Some of the same rigour that has been applied by successful companies to other key resources must also be applied to the management of knowledge.
Technology has upped the pace of business activity, and technology clearly has a central role to play in meeting the challenges of succeeding in a global, real time and networked economy. Knowledge management tools are developing and will provide very powerful methods for creating, storing and processing business knowledge. But technology is not necessarily the place to start. Many businesses have discovered the hard way that investment in IT solutions does not necessarily correlate with greater business effectiveness, better customer relations, or improvements on the bottom line.
The place to start is with the business as an organisation of people and processes. Knowledge management may be a new discipline but dealing with knowledge is something that businesses are already doing. The first step is to profile the current practice, either of the business as a whole or of a single project or business unit. This is sometimes referred to as a knowledge audit. A more descriptive term is profiling because it is less about a listing of fixed and static assets and more a characterisation of a dynamic set of processes and relationships.
The five major components to a knowledge profile are explored below. These are components of the first analytical step in a full knowledge management project that provides the basis for developing an appropriate KM strategy.The five components of a knowledge profile

Business Context
The nature and goals of the business will give shape to the knowledge that is needed and used by an organisation. The honing of knowledge management to better serve the business objectives is the central motivation for profiling. A review of the business and its goals is therefore an essential background to subsequent stages of profiling.

Ontology
This concerns the kind of knowledge with which we are dealing. Ontology is a word borrowed from philosophy to do with the nature of being. There are major categories of knowledge such as tacit skills, bodies of knowledge, business intelligence, and existing business processes.
Tacit skills are those difficult to define masteries of a discipline possessed by individuals or teams, and generally learnt only by becoming part of that community of practice.
Bodies of knowledge are the product of academic study or long experience in a field.
Business intelligence includes knowledge of customers, competitors, partners, and the value chain or network.
Business processes represent the embedded wisdom of an organisation in achieving certain tasks.

Locus
Where does knowledge exist? We carefully avoid the idea that all knowledge resides in a fixed location. Some knowledge does reside in one place such as a document or database. Other knowledge exists at the interface between elements of the organisation. Examples could include knowledge embedded in a team, or skills in the use of a certain tool that enables knowledge to be dynamically created.
We need to consider the kinds of people that have knowledge of value to the organisation. This is not limited to employees. Customers can be a source of very valuable knowledge, and one that is easily overlooked. Business partners, suppliers, distributors, end customers are all part of the value community which provides the context for our own operations, and therefore a potentially invaluable source of knowledge.
Other questions concern the flow of information and the way it is transformed as it moves through the organisation.

Culture
Culture is an interpretive framework that enables us to recognise and solve problems in a certain way. National, organisational, and functional cultures all have their effect on the way that businesses deal with information. A knowledge profile will provide a better self understanding for individuals, organisational elements and the for organisation as a whole, and as a result offer up effective strategies for increasing the leverage of knowledge.
One very important aspect of organisational culture is the level of trust and openness that exists between levels of responsibility, between functional units, and between individuals. When trust is high it is much easier to overcome the common tendency to see knowledge as power and therefore as something to be hoarded. A central objective of any KM strategy is to enable and enhance the flow of information such that beneficial actions can result. A knowledge profile will provide a realistic assessment of obstacles and opportunities embedded in the organisations culture.

Value
It may seem obvious to say, but not all knowledge has the same value. Knowledge profiling goes beyond this simple recognition to give a value to the different kinds of knowledge held, used, or processed by an organisation. There are two aspects to knowledge value. The first is to do with the amount of leverage that knowledge provides to a required business process or processes. Knowledge that cannot be leveraged to achieve some result is an unnecessary overhead for a business. Strategic and tactical relevance to specific business processes should be considered. The second aspect is time related. An understanding of shelf life, decay characteristics, and window of relevance will affect the way that knowledge is handled and maintained. The cost of maintaining knowledge should be correlated to both of these value factors: leverage and life time.

Developing a KM strategy
The knowledge profile provides the raw material to move on to the work of sharpening an organisations knowledge management practices. Awareness will bring immediate benefits in focussing the creation and application of knowledge. Beyond this there will be need for housekeeping which may also include decisions about IT tools and infrastructure. The greatest benefits from the process will come however from a conscious inclusion of an organisations knowledge profile in the continual development of the organisation and its business strategy. This could take the form of a focus on building greater levels of trust and openness within the organisation and with partners in the value chain. It could take the form of a redefinition of a business plan to leverage a knowledge asset that is better understood. The knowledge profile will indicate possible lines of development and potential outcomes that can be fully explored in subsequent stages of a knowledge management project. Whatever route is taken in moving on from a knowledge profile, the desired outcome will be to turn knowledge resources into an enabling factor for continuing business competitiveness.