basic concept of knowledge

Knowledge Hierarchy:

types of knowledge:



• Tacit knowledge: That type of knowledge which people carry in their mind, and is, therefore, difficult to access.

• Explicit knowledge: That type of knowledge which has been or can be articulated, codified, and stored in certain media.

Features:

Why KM:

• To share the knowledge, a company creates exponential benefits from the knowledge as people learn from it.
• to build better sensitivity to "brain drain".
• to reacting to new business opportunities.

posted by
sudeep majumdar




 

four pillars of knowledge management

Here’s is a brief summary of the four pillars as they apply to the reality of KM implementation:

• Leadership

 Leadership develops business and operational strategies to survive and position for success in today’s dynamic environment. Those strategies determine vision, and must align knowledge management with business tactics to drive the value of KM throughout the enterprise. Focus must be placed on building executive support and KM champions. A successful implementation of a knowledge management system requires a champion or leader at or near the top of an organization who can provide the strong and dedicated leadership needed for cultural change.

• Organization

 The value of knowledge creation and collaboration should be intertwined throughout an enterprise. operational processes must align with the KM framework and strategy, including all performance metrics and objectives. while operational needs dictate organizational alignment, a KM system must be designed to facilitate KM throughout the organization. Operational processes must be aligned with the new vision while redesigning the organization and identifying key levers of change, including roles and responsibilities. Introducing knowledge management requires organizational change, and KM inevitably acts as a catalyst to transform the organization’s culture. The increasing value placed on highly capable people, rising job complexity and the universal availability of information on the Internet are fundamental changes contributing to the move by organizations to leverage KM solutions. In order to begin changing the organization, knowledge management must be integrated into business processes.

• Technology

 Technology enables and provides all of the infrastructure and tools to support KM within an enterprise. While cultural and organizational changes are vital to achieving a KM strategy, a lack of the proper tools and technology infrastructure can lead to failure. Any technical solution must add value to the process and achieve measurable improvements. Properly assessing and defining IT capabilities is essential, as is identifying and deploying best-of breed KM software and IT tools to match and align with the organization’s requirements. The Gartner Group defines 10technologies that collectively make up full-function KM. The functional requirements that enterprises can select and use to build a KM solution include:

• capture and store,;• search and retrieve,;• send critical information to individuals or groups,;• structure and navigate,;• share and collaborate,;• synthesize,;• profile and personalize,;• solve or recommend,;• integrate with business applications, and;• maintenance.; No technology product meets every requirement, and before selecting a solution, enterprises need to clearly define their KM strategy, scope and requirements, and perform product evaluations to identify technology products that effectively meet their needs.

• Learning

 The best tools and processes alone will not achieve a KM strategy. Ultimately, people are responsible for using the tools and performing the operations. Creating organizational behavior that supports a KM strategy will continue long after the system is established. Organizational learning must be addressed with approaches such as increasing internal communications, promoting cross-functional teams and creating a learning community. Learning is an integral part of knowledge management. In this context, learning can be described as the acquisition of knowledge or a skill through study, experience or instruction. Enterprises must recognize that people operate and communicate through learning that includes the social processes of collaborating, sharing knowledge and building on each other’s ideas. Managers must recognize that knowledge resides in people, and knowledge creation occurs in the process of social interaction and learning. It is evident that the need for knowledge management translates throughout the entire enterprise. It is not a separate function characterized by a separate KM department or a KM process; it must be embedded into all of the organization's business processes. Knowledge management is crucial to achieving permanent performance improvements and innovation. Efficient knowledge-intensive core processes and a fundamental architecture must be established to effectively initiate and implement KM. The four pillars clearly provide that necessary architecture.



posted by
vivek rajput

Differences between Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management

Differences between Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management

 

  Both KM and BI are used to support decision making .

 

 Both KM and BI use data to develop knowledge and this knowledge is applied to decision making. However, BI systems primarily use data to generate information which can be applied to generate knowledge and this knowledge is primarily developed as explicit knowledge. KM on the other hand, uses both data and information to develop knowledge and this knowledge is further developed to create new knowledge. The knowledge developed in KM applications consists of both tacit and explicit knowledge.

 

there also argued that BI is a component of KM. Looking at the knowledge management lifecycle of knowledge capture/creation, sharing, and application, we can consider BI applications used primarily in knowledge capture/creation activities. This means that we apply BI applications to capture or create information leading to knowledge but the knowledge sharing and application is outside of the scope of these systems. Whereas a KM system addresses the entire knowledge management lifecycle.

So, while both KM and BI systems are used to capture or create knowledge, KM systems address the entire lifecycle and result in tacit and explicit knowledge while BI systems are primarily used for knowledge capture and result in explicit knowledge.

  BY Deepak Kumar Rohal

Examples of Knowledge Application Systems

Knowledge Application Systems support the process through which some individuals utilize knowledge possessed by other individuals without actually acquiring, or learning, that knowledge.

Knowledge application technologies, which support direction and routines includes:

• expert systems
• decision support systems
• adviser systems
• fault diagnosis (or troubleshooting) systems
• help desk systems.

An expert system is software that attempts to provide an answer to a problem, or clarify uncertainties where normally one or more human experts would need to be consulted. Expert systems are most common in a specific problem domain, and is a traditional application and/or subfield of artificial intelligence. A wide variety of methods can be used to simulate the performance of the expert however common to most or all are 1) the creation of a knowledge base which uses some knowledge representation formalism to capture the subject matter expert's knowledge and 2) a process of gathering that knowledge from the subject matter expert's and codifying it according to the formalism, which is called knowledge engineering. Expert systems may or may not have learning components but a third common element is that once the system is developed it is proven by being placed in the same real world problem solving situation as the human subject matter expert, typically as an aid to human workers or a supplement to some information system.

A Decision Support System (DSS) is a class of information systems (including but not limited to computerized systems) that support business and organizational decision-making activities. A properly designed DSS is an interactive software-based system intended to help decision makers compile useful information from a combination of raw data, documents, personal knowledge, or business models to identify and solve problems and make decisions.Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present are:

• inventories of all of your current information assets (including legacy and relational data sources, cubes, data warehouses, and data marts),
• comparative sales figures between one week and the next,
• projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions.

Typical case-based knowledge application system will consist of the following processes: 

• Search the case library for similar cases.
• Select and retrieve the most similar case(s).
• Adapt the solution for the most similar case.
• Apply the generated solution and obtain feedback.
• Add the newly solved problem to the case library.

STOCK MARKET

A stock market, equity market or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers (a loose network of economic transactions, not a physical facility or discrete entity) of stocks (also called shares); these may include securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.

SIZE OF THE MARKET:-

Stocks can also be categorized in various ways. One common way is by the country where the company is domiciled. For example, Nestle and Novartis are domiciled in Switzerland, so they may be considered as part of the swiss stock market, although their stock may also be traded at exchanges in other countries.

At the close of 2012, the size of the world stock market (total market capitalization) was about US$55 trillion. By country, the largest market was the United States (about 34%), followed by Japan (about 6%) and the United Kingdom (about 6%). This went up more in 2013.

There are a total of 60 stock exchanges in the world with a total market capitalization of $69 trillion. Of these there are 16 exchanges that have a market capitalization of $1 trillion each and they account for 87% of global market capitalization. Apart from the Australian Securities Exchange, all of these 16 exchanges are divided between three continents: North America, Europe and Asia.

Overview of the Industry

In general, the financial market divided into two parts, Money market and capital market.

Introduction to the Money & Capital Market:-

The money market is used by participants as a means for borrowing and lending in the short term, from several days to just under a year. There a several money market instruments including treasury bills, Bills of exchanges, deposits, Certificates of Deposit, federal funds.

The capital market is the market for securities, where Companies & governments can raise long-term funds. It is a market in which money is lent for periods longer than a year. A nation's capital market includes such financial institutions as banks, insurance companies, & stock exchanges that channel long-term investment funds to commercial & industrial borrowers. Unlike the money market, on which lending is ordinarily short term, the capital market typically finances fixed investments like those in buildings & machinery.

The capital market consists of number of individuals & institutions (including the government) that canalize the supply & demand for long term capital & claims on capital. The stock exchange, commercial banks, co-operative banks, saving banks, development banks, insurance companies, investment trust or companies, etc., are important constituents of the capital markets.

The capital market, like the money market, has three important Components, namely the suppliers of loan able funds, the borrowers & the Intermediaries who deal with the leaders on the one hand & the Borrowers on the other.

Introduction to the Stock Market:-

The stock market is one of the most important sources for companies to raise money. This allows businesses to be publicly traded, or raise additional capital for expansion by selling shares of ownership of the company in a public market. The liquidity that an exchange provides affords investors the ability to quickly & easily sell securities. This is an attractive feature of investing in stocks, compared to other less liquid investments such as real estate, Fixed Deposit (FD), Saving A/c.

History has shown that the price of shares & other assets is an important part of the dynamics of economic activity. An economy where the stock market is on the rise is considered to be an up-and-coming economy. In fact, the stock market is often considered the primary indicator of a country's economic strength & development. Rising share prices, for instance, tend to be associated with increased business investment & vice versa. Share prices also affect the wealth of households & their consumption. Therefore, central banks tend to keep an eye on the control & behaviour of the stock market &, in general, on the smooth operation of financial system functions.

Do you know that the world's foremost marketplace New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), started its trading under a tree (now known as 68 Wall Street) over 200 years ago?

Similarly, India's premier stock exchange Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) can also trace back its origin to as far as 130 years when it started as a voluntary non-profit making association.

Shares in the stock market are either traded through:-

Stock Exchange:-

A stock exchange is a place or organization by which stock traders (people and companies) can trade stocks. Companies may want to get their stock listed on a stock exchange. Other stocks may be traded "over the counter" (otc), that is, through a dealer. A large company will usually have its stock listed on many exchanges across the world.

Exchanges may also cover other types of security such as fixed interest securities or interest derivatives.

Over the Counter (OTC):- these are not centralized exchanges & the trade take place through a network dealers.

Two Major Stock Exchanges are:-

·         NSE (National Stock Exchange)

·         BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange)

1) The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is an Indian stock exchange located at Dalal Street, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Established in 1875, the BSE is Asia’s first stock exchange and the world's fastest stock exchange with a median trade speed of 6 microseconds.

2) India's other major stock exchange National Stock Exchange (NSE), promoted by leading financial institutions, and was established in April 1992. NSE was the first exchange in the country to provide a modern, fully automated screen-based electronic trading system which offered easy trading facility to the investors spread across the length and breadth of the country.

Securities market is an important, organized capital market where transaction of capital is facilitated by means of direct financing using securities as a commodity. Securities market can be divided into a primary market and secondary market.

The primary market deals with newly issued securities & is responsible for generating new long-term capital. The secondary market handles the trading of previously-issued securities, & must remain highly liquid in nature because most of the securities are sold by investors.

Panic button in mobile phones from January 1

A division bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Ashutosh Kumar was informed by the Delhi Police that it has also planned to do away with all existing emergency number such as 100, 101, 102 and 108 and introduce a single emergency number 112.

For a period of one year, all existing emergency numbers will be treated as secondary numbers and will be re-routed to 100, till the 112 number is implemented.

Delhi Police, in its affidavit, also said that they were carrying out a comparative study of response time of other police forces in major metropolitan cities across the world to evolve a strategy to deal with the situation.

During the hearing, Delhi State Legal Service Authority Member Secretary Dharmesh Sharma termed as "unsavoury" the manner in which police stored the biological or chemical samples from crime scenes in the police station`s malkhanas.

The court had asked Sharma to carry out an inspection across the police stations in Delhi to check the ground reality with regard to the manner and procedure adopted by police during the crime investigation process.

BY SANJAY KHAN

Delhi Faces Worst Smog In 17 year

Delhi Faces Worst Smog In 17 years

Delhi is slowly choking herself into a grave, risking the lives of 17 million people to several chronic diseases. On Wednesday, the capital witnessed the worst smog in 17 years with the pollution levels soaring to 62.7% higher than on Diwali night. This comes as a presage to what lies ahead during the winter that is on its way.

Visibility remained poor as a thick layer of haze blanketed the city, forcing severals schools to shut down. No measures have been taken so far to bring the present situation under control.

What is Smog?

Smog is a mixture of air pollutants—nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. Smog is a kind of air pollution, originally named for the mixture of smoke and fog in the air. It is a problem in a number of cities and continues to harm human health.

What can smog lead to?

Smog can cause or aggravate health problems such as asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory problems as well as eye irritation and reduced resistance to colds and lung infections. Children bear the highest risks from exposure to smog. They are more prone to respiratory ailments than adults.

 Smog also inhibits plant growth and can cause widespread damage to crops and forests.

What have been cited as reasons for the Delhi smog?

Enough scientific proof has been cited that shows air pollution in Delhi has aggravated due to the increase in the number of vehicles plying on the roads. The number of vehicles has tripled in the last five years to 8.9 million, and this is one of the biggest contributors to toxicity in Delhi’s air. In 1975,  vehicular air pollution was just at 2.35%, and in next 40 years, it rose to about 60%.

Burning of crackers during Diwali has however overtaken vehicular pollution. Not only Delhi, but the entire country’s pollution level was alarmingly high during the Diwali weekend. This is certainly because of a combination of adverse factors like slow wind speed and moisture in the air, a major hindrance in the dispersion of suspended pollutants.

However, a recent image by NASA has revealed that more than vehicular pollution and Diwali celebration, burning of crop stubble is considerably impacting the pollution levels. Farmers in neighbouring Punjab and Haryana have been setting fire to paddy stubble in their fields after cultivating the crop as part of the slash and burn process. As per The New York Times report, farmers are burning around 32 million tons of leftover straw

By Manmeet Kaur

KM tools available on the market today and to understand their role in the KM process

The scope of this section is to provide the reader with an overview of the types of KM tools available on the market today and to gain an understanding of what their role is in the KM process. This is the most important step, since there are literally thousands of options to choose from.

IT based tools fall into one of the following categories 

  Groupware systems & KM 2.0

  The intranet and extranet

  Data warehousing,data mining, & OLAP

  Decision Support Systems

  Content management systems

  Document management systems

  Artificial intelligence tools

  Simulation tools

  Semantic networks

Groupware Systems & KM 2.0

Groupware is a term that refers to technology designed to help people collaborate and includes a wide range of applications. Wikipedia defines three handy categories for groupware:

• Communication tools: Tools for sending messages and files, including email, webpublishing, wikis, filesharing, etc.
• Conferencing tools: e.g. video/audio conferencing, chat, forums, etc.
• Collaborative management tools: Tools for managing group activities, e.g. project management systems, workflow systems, information management systems, etc.

The best known groupware system is Lotus Notes.

Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, & KM 2.0

In recent years, the term web 2.0 has appeared to describe the increasingly popular tools that promote two way communication on the internet. These social tools include blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, commenting, shared workspaces, micro blogging and polling (Bebensee et al. 2010). They differ from traditional publishing in that they “put the knowledge sharing power in the hands of the users themselves” (Gurteen, 2012).

The web 2.0 tools that have been applied within organizations have been called enterprise 2.0 (Bebensee et al., 2010), and even more recently, the mapping of these principles to KM has been dubbed KM 2.0 (Gurteen, 2012).

It is fair to say that KM 2.0 is very much in its early stages. For this reason, I will discuss it separately from the very general groupware subsections below.

The value of KM 2.0: According to Cronk (2011, p. 84), web 2.0 tools “facilitate the development of social capital through knowledge sharing, which in turn increases the potential to create intellectual capital.” The author defines social capital as the total resources existing across social networks. Wright et al. (2010) find that the adoption of social media is not being championed by KM to the extent that one might expect, representing a missed opportunity.

Limitations of KM 2.0: Enterprise & KM 2.0 systems can suffer from the same failure factors as other KMS (more on this in the sections below). A failure example is presented by Garcia-Perez & Ayres (2009), who outlined the failure of an enterprise wiki. The study found that time needed to access & contribute to the wiki as well as the achievement of critical mass (i.e. having an adequate ratio of contributors) were failure factors. Furthermore, the authors warn that just because when asked employees claim that they will share knowledge, that does not actually mean they will do so when the system is implemented.

The Intranet & Extranet

The intranet is essentially a small-scale version of the internet, operating with similar functionality, but existing solely within the firm. Like the internet, the intranet uses network technologies such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). It allows for the creation of internal networks with common internet applications that can allow them to communicate with different operating systems (Newell et al 2000).

Although it need not be, the intranet is usually linked to the internet, where broader searches are implemented. However, outsiders are excluded through security measures such as firewalls.

The Role of the Intranet

The intranet can be a very useful tool in the knowledge management process. It allows for the integration of multimedia communication and can act as a platform for groupware applications and publishing. It is intended to enhance collaboration, productivity, and socialization, but also to influence organizational culture and to act as a repository for embedded knowledge.

  news

  navigation

  key tools

  key information

  community and culture

  internal marketing

  collaboration

The Extranet

The extranet is an extension of the intranet to the firm's external network, including partners, suppliers and so on. The term is sometimes used to refer to a supplementary system working alongside the intranet or to a part of the intranet that is made available to certain external users.

The extranet provides a shared network with limited, controlled access to organizational information and knowledge resources, and uses security protocols, such as authentification, to limit access. An extranet can enhance collaboration and information transfer with partners in the external network.

Warehousing Data: The Data Warehouse, Data Mining, and OLAP

Warehousing Data

Tanler (1997) identifies three stages in the design and implementation of the data warehouse. The first stage is largely concerned with identifying the critical success factors of the enterprise, so as to determine the focus of the systems applied to the warehouse. The next step is to identify the information needs of the decision makers. This involves the specification of current information lacks and the stages of the decision-making process (i.e. the time taken to analyze data and arrive at a decision). Finally, warehousing data should be implemented in a way that ensures that users understand the benefit early on. The size of the database and the complexity of the analytical requirements must be determined. Deployment issues, such as how users will receive the information, how routine decisions must be automated, and how users with varying technical skills can access the data, must be addressed.

OLAP

OLAP allows three functions to be carried out.

• Query and reporting: Ability to formulate queries without having to use the database programming language.
• Multidimensional analysis: The ability to carry out analyses from multiple perspectives. Tanler (1997) provides an example of a product analysis that can be then repeated for each market segment. This allows for quick comparison of data relationships from different areas (e.g. by location, time, etc.). This analysis can include customers, markets, products, and so on,
• Statistical analysis: This function attempts to reduce the large quantities of data into formulas that capture the answer to the query.

OLAP is basically responsible for telling the user what happened to the organization (Theirauf 1999). It thus enhances understanding reactively, using summarization of data and information.

What is Data Mining?

This is another process used to try to create useable knowledge or information from data warehousing. Data mining, unlike statistical analysis, does not start with a preconceived hypothesis about the data, and the technique is more suited for heterogeneous databases and date sets (Bali et al 2009). Karahoca and Ponce (2009) describe data mining as "an important tool for the mission critical applications to minimize, filter, extract or transform large databases or datasets into summarized information and exploring hidden patterns in knowledge discovery (KD)." The knowledge discovery aspect is emphasized by Bali et al (2009), since the management of this new knowledge falls within the KM discipline.

Decision Support Systems

The role of these systems is to access and manipulate data. They usually work with a data warehouse, use an online analytical processing system (OLAP), and employ data mining techniques. The goal is to enhance decision-making and solve problems by working with the manager rather than replacing him.

Content Management Systems

Content management systems are very relevant to knowledge management (KM) since they are responsible for the creation, management, and distribution of content on the intranet, extranet, or a website.
A content management system may have the following functions:

• Provide templates for publishing: Making publishing easier and more consistent with existing structure/design.
• Tag content with metadata: I.e. Allowing the input of data that classifies content (e.g. keywords) so that it can be searched for and retrieved.
• Make it easy to edit content
• Version control: Tracking changes to pages and, if necessary, allowing previous versions to be accessed
• Allow for collaborative work on content
• Integrated document management systems
• Workflow management: Allowing for parallel content development
• Provide extensions and plug-ins for increased functionality

Document Management Systems

Document management systems, as the name implies, are systems that aid in the publishing, storage, indexing, and retrieval of documents. Although such systems deal almost exclusively with explicit knowledge, the sheer volume of documents that an organization has to deal with makes them useful and in some cases even mandatory.
Usually, a document management system will include the following functions:

1.      Capturing:

2.      Classification using metadata

3.      Indexing

4.      Searching & retrieval

5.      Versioning

6.      Administration & security


BY ANSHU PANWAR

Why Knowledge Managemengt Is Important For An Organisation

Managers are bombarded with an almost constant stream of data every day. According to David Derbyshire, “Scientists have worked out exactly how much data is sent to a typical person in the course of a year – the equivalent of every person in the world reading 174 newspapers every single day” (Derbyshire, 2011, p. 1).

This overload of data is making knowledge management increasingly more important. Three key reasons why actively managing knowledge is important to a company’s success are: 1.) Facilitates decision-making capabilities, 2.) Builds learning organizations by making learning routine, and, 3.) Stimulates cultural change and innovation.

Facilitates Decision-Making Capabilities

Data can offer managers a wealth of information but processing overwhelming amounts can get in the way of achieving high-quality decisions. GE’s Corporate Executive Council (CEC) is an example of how one company put a knowledge management system in place to help executives cut through the noise, share information, and improve their decision-making. The CEC is composed of the heads of GE’s fourteen major businesses and the two-day sessions are forums for sharing best practices, accelerating progress, and discussing successes, failures, and experiences (Garvin, 2000, p. 195). While information overload or needing knowledge from people in other parts of the company for decision-making can handicap managers, putting in place knowledge management systems can facilitate better, more informed decisions.

Builds Learning Organizations by Making Learning Routine

In his book, Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work, author David Garvin (2000) notes, “To move ahead, one must often first look behind” (p. 106). The U.S. Army’s After Action Reviews (AARs) are an example of a knowledge management system that has helped build the Army into a learning organization by making learning routine. This has created a culture where everyone continuously assesses themselves, their units, and their organization, looking for ways to improve. After every important activity or event, Army teams review assignments, identify successes and failures, and seek ways to perform better the next time (Garvin, 2000, p. 106). This approach to capturing learning from experience builds knowledge that can then be used to streamline operations and improve processes.

Stimulates Cultural Change and Innovation

Actively managing organizational knowledge can also stimulate cultural change and innovation by encouraging the free flow of ideas. For example, GE’s Change Acceleration Process (CAP) program includes management development, business-unit leadership, and focused workshops. CAP was created to not only “convey the latest knowledge to up-and-coming managers” but also “open up dialogue, instill corporate values, and stimulate cultural change” (Garvin, 2000, p. 125). In this complex, global business environment, these types of knowledge management programs can help managers embrace change and encourage ideas and insight, which often lead to innovation, even for local mom and pop business owners