Knowledge Management (KM) can take many forms, but it is ultimately about achieving competitive advantage through better development of your firm’s existing expertise, and for increasing that expertise. When successful it leads to faster service, increased client satisfaction, lower costs, higher revenues, and a happier staff. KM involves a combination of people, process, and information technology (IT), and although it may be fashionable to claim that KM is about people more than technology, it is difficult to imagine KM without it. Most successful KM initiatives have been based on IT initiatives.
That said, technology can undermine KM initiatives when it is not implemented cohesively. In this case, your KM initiatives will not deliver the benefits on which they have been sold, a considerable waste of time and money, and a damaging effect on morale. There are a number of common pitfalls technology can lead to. In this article, I will discuss six that are particularly prevalent.
