Business

Knowledge management software has played a very significant role in the development of global organizations. I'll identify the specific benefit, in my opinion, that knowledge management software has added to global organizations and identify a few key global organizations to further develop the benefit.

I believe the major benefit that knowledge management software has given to global organizations is that is has allowed the geographically dispersed businesses to tap into their employees knowledge and make it readily available through the use of information technology for the company to use. The specific ability of a company to take shared knowledge is not static but dynamic as humans are dynamic and often border on chaos and entropy. An organization which aligns its knowledge management practice with its business plan will continually learn and share that learning as it moves away from chaos toward informed, directed achievement of business goals. Moreover, knowledge management software fits in with the components of the newly defined global organization. Global organizations must focus on global efficiency, national responsive-ness, and the diffusion of technological innovations through learning. Thus, knowledge management software is a tool that has many benefits and will become key to preserving, analyzing, and spreading company knowledge in global companies of the future. Now I'll discuss a few specific companies and explain how knowledge management software has benefited their global organization.

First, I'll take a look at Xerox. Since Xerox had a culture of knowledge sharing its efforts at improving its knowledge management practices have not met with significant barriers. Xerox decided to seek to understand the social dynamics of the workforce and, due to their approach of tailoring the technology and processes of knowledge management to the workplace habits of the workers, knowledge management has been accepted and welcomed. In 1990, Xerox re-positioned itself as a "document company" and developed a 15 year strategic outlook along with it's Year 2005 plan. Xerox determined to gain strategic advantage by managing knowledge through the use of knowledge management software better than its competition and to evolve into a digital network solutions company. Xerox felt that knowledge management would be a natural extension of document management and decided to use knowledge management tools and technologies on the basis of its existing copier, printing, and scanning technologies and to expand its products and services. Xerox focused on sharing knowledge and best practices, capturing and reusing past experiences, and producing knowledge as both an enabler and a product. Knowledge management software allowed them to achieve their organizational goals and enabled their service representatives to become part of a worldwide global community. Establishing knowledge management at Xerox has changed over time from a concern that the effort might be a waste of time to community building and community sharing inside the company. By leveraging existing knowledge, accelerating the acquisition of knowledge through knowledge management software, and using this synergy to focus the organization on attaining the goals of the organization, Xerox was able to grow as a business, gain competitive advantage, and become more profitable.

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