How To Build Effective Knowledge Management Solutions With Office 365

We live in a digitized knowledge economy! This makes knowledge one of the most important business assets for any modern organization.

Creating a culture that focuses on knowledge management is vital! Ineffective knowledge sharing practices can have a negative impact on your revenues; hence it is the need of the hour to manage your intellectual capital resources responsibly.

Did you know that 74% of organizations estimate that effective knowledge management practices can increase company productivity by 10-40%?

Intrigued and want to know more?

Let’s delve deeper to know more about knowledge management and understand how dynamic tools such as Office 365 can help you build effective knowledge management solutions.

What Is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge management solutions (KM) came into play around the late 1980s when business consultants prompted companies to realize that their knowledge – both tacit and explicit – was among their major assets. Collecting, sharing, and preserving it became part of the business strategies to increase productivity and bring down operational costs.  

Checklists and excel sheets are not enough to manage the vast repositories of knowledge that exist in organizations!

Peter Drucker coined the word ‘Knowledge Worker’ in the 1960s to emphasize how every employee can empower themselves by enhancing function knowledge. Some powerful modern solutions for knowledge management include:

• Cross Training Programs: Employees can capture essential job knowledge through cross-training techniques such as shadowing, mentoring, and coaching.
• Document Management Systems: Advanced document management systems such as Google Drive and Box enable organizations to store data on the cloud for quick and easy access.
• Content Management Systems: Most organizations implement automated content management tools such as SharePoint or Bloomfire to empower employees to share, publish and access information on organizational intranets.
• Social Networking Tools: Utilize social networking platforms to communicate, brainstorm, and collaborate on work projects and exchange data in a shared virtual space.
• Chatbots: Manage critical knowledge databases to enable chatbots to respond to customer queries through artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

Using Office 365 To Facilitate Knowledge Management

The main aim of the knowledge management system is to provide a solution that unifies organizational data related to the major functional domains. It is a set of tools that help companies organize documents, frequently asked questions, and other information. 

Knowledge management platforms make real-time information accessible to both internal and external stakeholders of the organization. Organizations need to invest in the latest tools and technologies to implement competitive knowledge management solutions for daily operations. Office 365 is one such solution that fosters knowledge exchange within organizational communities.

Tons of companies across the globe are using Office 365 or are in the process of migrating to the platform. So, what’s so great about this solution? How is it different from other variants in the market?

What differentiates Office 365 is that it has a host of knowledge management tools that break down silos of content, people, and conversations. It enables customers to find the answers on their own by giving them access to the knowledge database. Besides, the system helps keep documentation up-to-date.

Are you interested? Do you think Office 365 may be a holistic solution for your organization to implement knowledge management solutions? Below is the list of Office 365 collaboration tools, each adding its capabilities to make up a complete cycle of KM processes.

• SharePoint: SharePoint is a go-to solution for content management! It allows everyone to contribute documented knowledge to a centralized knowledge base in a way that’s easy to discover, update, share, and, what’s more important, re-use information. This can be done using dedicated wikis, sites, communities of practice (CoP), and more.
• Yammer: It is Microsoft’s private social networking tool under Office 365.  It features the discovery feed, content search, conversations, and groups that help all employees to stay in the loop, as well as identify and reach out to knowledge holders. In addition to the web version, it comes as a mobile app, too, taking knowledge exchange wherever the users are. 
• Delve: Delve is aimed at collecting and curating content from anywhere within Office 365 applications. It’s a revolutionary app that highlights employees’ profiles company-wide and shares skills and expertise to showcases who is in the organizational chart, and so on. It allows both personalization and aggregation of relevant content within the platform.
• Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace. It supports private discussions and conversations across departments that are easy to create and access. It is a handy business application that facilitates remote teams worldwide to collaborate virtually and increase operational efficiency. Skype for Business is deeply integrated into the solution for added convenience. 

With various KM-stimulating apps, Office 365 is poised to bridge the gap between knowledge owners and knowledge seekers. A thoroughly designed KM portal supported by Office 365 will encompass more than one of the listed tools. For example, by using both Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, it becomes easy to combine both formal and informal knowledge transfer and make corporate knowledge available right where it’s needed.

Why Choose Office 365 To Implement Knowledge Management Solutions?

If your organization is transitioning to Office 365, you may be figuring out how to use it to boost internal and external knowledge management. Here are some great ways Office 365 can be used to develop customized knowledge management solutions:

• Streamline The Flow Of Information: Office 365 breaks down the existing silos between various organizational departments, teams, and divisions. It increases real-time collaboration between teams and facilitates seamless two-way communication for complete visibility in business processes.
• Save Time: You can reduce the time spent looking for information with Office 365 knowledge management tools. It consolidates data and facilitates integration with vital business applications to ensure you find just the information you are looking for without wasting precious time!
• Develop A Knowledge-Intensive Environment: Investing in tools such as Office 365 can help your organization develop an environment that thrives on knowledge enhancement. It helps in nurturing knowledge exchange continuously as a critical part of the internal culture.
• Seamless Document Sharing: With Office 365, you can facilitate document sharing with internal and external partners in a safe and auditable environment. It improves inter-departmental collaboration and helps remote teams communicate across geographical locations.
• Improve Process Capabilities: Office 365 solutions can help you identify the pain points of existing knowledge management practices. It empowers decision-makers to set up objectives for a customized knowledge management program in line with the identified challenges.
• Improve Productivity: By investing in Office 365, you can reduce the amount of time spent downloading attachments and sending emails. Its comprehensive business suite has many productivity applications that automatically sync data and provide fast access to organizational information.

The Final Word

Knowledge management is all about making tasks easier and faster for people by providing them with any kind of information that they need! Office 365 is the perfect tool to help organizations foster a knowledge-enriched environment and implement the best intellectual capital practices in the industry.

Office 365 is one of the most versatile collaboration software technologies that can handle various knowledge management challenges successfully. It’s difficult, though, to benefit from it without understanding its toolset and outlining a thorough KM strategy first. That’s why preliminary KM planning is a must. Once implemented right, Office 365 can empower your employees with advanced capabilities to process data and increase bottom-line results!