Knowledge Management Software

Knowledge Management software or simply KM Software actually stems from the Enterprise Content Management software and which contains an array of software products that specializes in the way information is collected, stored, accessed, and such other activities. However, to fully appreciate its mammoth range of utilities, you need to go back a few years and check with the basic Enterprise Content Management or ECM which actually has given birth to the KM Software.

The ECM was intended to encompass the legacy problem domains that have traditionally been addressed by records management and document management. It also included most of the other problems involved while converting to and from digital content, to and from the traditional media of those problem domains like physical and computerized filing and retrieval systems, sometimes using paper and microforms. Eventually ECM itself became a new problem domain in its own right, employing the technologies and strategies of digital content management to address business process issues like records and auditing, knowledge sharing, personalization as well as standardization of content, etc.

Coming back to the original topic, the concept of knowledge management is based on an assortment of practices that are used by a business, an individual and often large corporations to create identify, represent and redistribute information for a wide range of purposes. In other words this means that when the company is trying to do certain activities that will document the knowledge base and make it available to all or the selected few in an organization, this act is referred to as ‘knowledge management’. Knowledge management is also often referred to as information management or information sciences.

The knowledge thus stored, documented and offered in the organization can be accessed at 3 stages and they are – during, before and after the knowledge management activity that is undertaken.
Here are some motivations for a company to opt for knowledge management…

Enabling the people in the organization to access knowledge and gain from this.
To reduce the product development cycle.
Promoting and managing innovation within the company.
Tapping the resource pool that is within the company.
Making both the external and the internal come together,
Allow employees to gain from the experience, knowledge and insights of senior pros.
To manage intellectual assets and intellectual capital within the company.

How can a software product help in knowledge management?

A software product that enables an information practice or a group of practices at any stage of the process of information management can be deemed to be called information management software. But a subset of such a software solution that accentuates an approach to build knowledge out of the information that is managed or contained is called Knowledge Management Software.

Knowledge Management Software provides individuals, small groups or mid-sized businesses with ideas to innovate, build new set of knowledge in the group and/or improve upon customer experience. Thus you see how useful such a software solution can really be for the business.

Knowledge management tools (also software) include a vast range of around 1,500 or more approaches to collect and contain information to build knowledge that can be searched using specialized search tools along with concept building tools. And not only that, there are also visual search tools, which are useful because these tools provide information in a connected manner that was not originally conceptualized by those who collected or maintained the information database.

Knowledge management software products have evolved much over time. And today they cater to various industry needs that include content management. The one described below proves promising in providing this service.

Effective knowledge management, as we are aware of, requires quality content. While this is true in all cases, it is often overlooked by businesses in their eagerness in cost cutting procedures, resulting in poor-quality, knowledge-stale, irrelevant or worse still, incorrect content creation and management. This obviously gives rise to customer dissatisfaction and poor agent adoption.

Knowledge management software products based on a collaborative knowledge management framework that permits distributed content creation and editorial workflow enables cost-effective management of quality content. This allows any user, based on roles set by the business, to easily hint content into the application. Since this content is routed through an efficient workflow, its consistency and quality are both assured to be most appropriate and suitable. By utilizing self-organizing techniques, the knowledge management software can provide relevant response to customer requirements, based on dynamic relevance ranking and appropriate user feedback.

Knowledge management software may also be used to improve call set up and wrap up process that includes out-of-the box integration with leading call tracking applications. IVR data can be captured during call set up to pre-populate questions so that the agent can be provided with a running start on the issue-resolution process. After the call, the resolution transcript can be automatically saved in the call tracking system along with the service request, hurrying the wrap up while at the same time preserving quality data for reporting and feedback.