The Benefit of Knowledge Management Programs

Effective knowledge management (KM) programs offer a triple win – they boost productivity, provide employees with easy access to company-wide collective knowledge, and give customers a better, more streamlined support experience. In this webinar sponsored by Coveo, TSIA’s John Ragsdale shares compelling industry data on the current state of knowledge management.

 

Joining him are Darragh Perrow, Business System Analyst, and Alex VanFosson, Knowledge Engineer, from OSIsoft — a market-leading data management platform provider. They discuss OSIsoft's recent KM transformation journey including best practices, results achieved, and lessons learned.

 

 

TSIA 2020 Annual Knowledge Management Survey

 

Ragsdale starts the webinar by walking attendees through key findings from TSIA's 2020 annual Knowledge Management Survey. The data highlights the immense potential of KM programs and the challenges many companies face in realizing that potential.

 

TSIA Knowledge Management Survey: Key Findings

 

Here's a sample of the most interesting results of the TSIA survey, be sure to watch the webinar for a more comprehensive overview of findings:

• About two-thirds of respondents believe that effective KM practices can boost employee productivity by at least 20%.
• There's significant room for improvement, with companies rating their existing KM programs at about 5.5 out of 10.
• The single biggest determinant for the success of a knowledge management program is the culture of a company, yet only 45% of companies have KM as a permanent part of their budget.
• Even fewer have executives regularly reviewing KM metrics.

 

Knowledge Management Maturity Model

 

Ragsdale’s presentation includes a helpful review of the TSIA's Knowledge Management Maturity Model. Helpful for benchmarking where your company stands, there are four distinct phases of KM maturity including:

1. Recognition: acknowledging the need for change and initial investment
2. Instantiation: starting to invest in people, processes, and technology, and seeing early results
3. Value realization: getting serious about the program and realizing significant ROI
4. Strategic: expanding KM into a company-wide initiative

 

 

From 2019 to 2020, many companies shifted from the instantiation phase into value realization. This suggests that initial KM investments had started to pay off, propelling companies into the value realization phase.

 

KM Determinants for Success

 

Ragsdale notes that company culture is the single biggest determinant of a KM program's success. TSIA survey data reveals a strong correlation between a company's knowledge sharing culture and the robustness of its KM program based on the following:

• Companies with high culture scores are more likely to have dedicated KM authors and program managers
• They also establish employee performance goals and tie compensation to KM participation
• KM is a permanent part of the budget and executives regularly review KM metrics in operational reviews
• Companies with lower knowledge sharing culture scores lack these crucial elements

 

OSIsoft's Transformation to KCS

 

OSIsoft, a market-leading data management platform for industrial operations, recently underwent a KM transformation. Their goal? enhance the customer support experience. Perrow and VanFosson share insights into OSIsoft's KM journey including the challenges they faced and the solutions they implemented to reach their program goals.

 

OSIsoft KM Challenges

 

Prior to their KM transformation, OSIsoft faced several challenges with their tools, processes, and knowledge sharing culture.

 

 

• Too many silos: OSIsoft had over 10 different knowledge repositories which made establishing a knowledge management initiative complex and cumbersome.
• Limited search functionality: They were using SharePoint as their primary internal knowledge base, which had some significant limitations including an inability to search for knowledge assets stored outside of the SharePoint environment. This required building custom connectors which needed constant tuning and maintenance. SharePoint also had issues handling certain search syntax, making it difficult for users to find relevant information.
• Security concerns: Concerns around security during testing required OSIsoft to maintain two separate production environments for search — one for external customer-facing users and another for internal support engineers. This created a huge overhead in maintaining multiple SharePoint server farms.
• No ownership of KM: Their knowledge management efforts lacked incentives for support engineers to create and review knowledge content. These factors led to inconsistencies in the knowledge base and frustration for both customers and support staff when assets weren’t available or up to date.

 

OSIsoft Digital Transformation Goals

 

OSIsoft wanted to streamline their KM processes and improve the overall customer support experience. Primary goals included:

• Consolidating knowledge repositories for easier management and access
• Implementing a more powerful and user-friendly search tool
• Creating a culture that supported knowledge sharing and collaboration
• Investing in self-service capabilities that would help customers find answers on their own

 

How OSIsoft Solved the Organizational Knowledge Problem

 

OSIsoft pivoted to a KCS approach, supported by Coveo's AI-powered search platform. Coveo uses ML and AI technologies to unify data and search across various knowledge repositories. This became a foundational technology to support OSIsoft’s new KCS-focused strategy, supporting knowledge transfer and assisting in knowledge gap analysis.

 

A powerful search engine is what enables easy access to company assets and connects users with relevant information based on the context of the search and the user. KCS gave OSIsoft a strong framework for capturing and sharing knowledge throughout the company, while Coveo was the technology that supported this capability, enabling assets to be retrieved within the flow of work.

 

OSIsoft Successful Knowledge Management Outcome & Benefits Realized

 

OSIsoft’s new knowledge-centered approach allowed them to achieve faster case resolution time, higher customer satisfaction, and more employee engagement. They saw their average time to resolution (TTR) lowered by 56% and had a 75% increase in cases resolved using existing knowledge articles.

 

 

KM Best Practices & Key Learnings

 

Throughout their transformation journey, the OSIsoft team gained valuable insights, identifying several KM best practices including:

• Drive cultural change around KM through executive sponsorship and leadership support
• Start with a pilot program that introduces and tests KCS methodology
• Invest in the right technology including a user-friendly KM platform with robust search capabilities
• Create a knowledge-focused culture supported by coaching, training, and incentives
• By focusing on these key areas, organizations can effectively overcome common challenges and realize the full potential of their knowledge management initiatives, ultimately delivering a superior customer support experience.

 

Check out the full webinar to get the full TSIA survey recap and learn from OSIsoft's KM transformation journey. You’ll gain actionable insights about KCS to help inform your KM approach.