Knowledge Management for Competitive Advantage

Abstract

Note: Our partner organization has requested to remain anonymous. Therefore, we have removed any identifying information and referred to them as “The Company.” The Company is a half a billion (2021) company focusing on customer and employee experiences through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) customer experience management (CEM) system. The Company collects and analyzes data across the economy, from healthcare, hospitality, government, and financial to retail services. A review of The Company’s state of knowledge management maturity revealed that while they have some processes for sharing knowledge, these are siloed and informal. We developed a Knowledge Management for Competitive Advantage (KMCA) model to assist The Company in maturing knowledge practices and seize the opportunity to use it for competitive advantage. The phenomenon of practice that guided this project is as follows: How can The Company improve its knowledge management processes to remain competitive? The study uses a mixed-methods research approach. It is a phenomenology study collecting lived experiences of The Company employees, quantitative data through Likert-scale surveys, and use additional information from published, internal, and external documents. The goal is to identify ways it acquires, represents, and makes knowledge available to deliver organizational value. The study also aims to provide insights into how individuals experience learning within the organization and how they use this knowledge to benefit their organization. To remain competitive in the knowledge economy, we found that The Company must (1) recognize and understand the value of a knowledge culture, (2) institutionalize a knowledge management practice, (3) formalize methods and mechanisms to support knowledge sharing and creation, and (4) innovate – via knowledge creation. Drawing on findings and extant literature, we recommend that The Company (1) appoints a Knowledge Management Officer (KMO), (2) pilot a knowledge management project in one of The Company’s smaller divisions, (3) build a culture supporting knowledge sharing and creation, and (4) innovate by embedding the KMCA framework into their artificial intelligence engine and offering it as a tool and product to customers.