One of the biggest challenges for organizations is to have accurate and timely information on their consumers, which is actionable and serves as support for decision making on different fronts. Companies are increasingly allocating more and more resources to obtain information, turning to multiple data sources from different suppliers, both primary and secondary information, which generally leads to an abundance of information that in many cases generates paralysis due to the excessive amount of data, which even provide contradictory answers to the same objective. Given the above, it is imperative that companies have a robust knowledge management system that allows them to identify specific information needs, efficiently obtain such information, organize it, analyze it, understand it and apply it in such a way that it provides a basis for the required decision making. Now I expose the key aspects that must be taken into account for the development of a knowledge management system in companies:
1. Take an inventory of available information: often organizations conduct studies that are very similar to some that have already been done recently, leading to a waste of time that can be critical in a highly competitive environment. This is common in organizations with several business units.
2. Identify the "suitable" sources of information depending on the decision to be made: if it is very clear what actions are to be taken based on the information gathered, the type of information, methodology, and timing should be identified, and based on this, the correct source(s) of information should be identified.
3. Organize and file the information in a systematic way. Generate a clear procedure for classifying information according to its characteristics, origin, date of collection, among others.
4. Structure the consumer knowledge/research team by target groups/targets served by the organization and not by business units or product lines.
Written by:
Andres Esguerra
BrandStrat Analyst