Know-how is one of the decisive competitive factors, especially in knowledge-intensive industries. However, there is often a lack of systematic handling of the resource "knowledge" in daily practice.
This makes it all the more important to have a clear answer as to which knowledge is relevant for the future and how it can be secured and utilized in the long term.
Contents
- The skills shortage affects companies directly
- Digital knowledge management is THE strategic cornerstone
The shortage of skilled workers affects companies directly
According to the German Economic Institute (IW), around 18,000 vacancies in mechanical engineering alone could not be filled in 2024.
This raises a key question for companies:
What happens when experienced employees leave, and their knowledge disappears with them?
Personal knowledge is lost through fluctuation or retirement. Companies that fail to digitize and harness expertise in good time only notice the gaps when it becomes critical.
Sharing knowledge is becoming increasingly complex
What used to work well via personal contact and the "short official channels" is coming to a standstill in modern, distributed organizations. Teams now work across different locations, shifts, countries and even systems. This leads to different levels of information, redundant data and a high coordination effort.
The consequences are measurable: longer lead times, higher error rates and slower innovation.
The lack of availability of knowledge is associated with excessive operational and strategic risks. At the same time, it is inefficient to generate knowledge again and again. As a result, companies waste time and resources that are already scarce in a tight personnel situation.
Digital knowledge management is THE strategic cornerstone
Companies should therefore develop a clear perspective on critical knowledge along their value chain and actively manage it. Professional, AI-based systems for knowledge management offer a scalable basis for this, providing the required information:
- Centralized
- Context-related
- Role-specific
This helps teams to act faster and more reliably. Modern knowledge management approaches such as Empolis Industrial Knowledge see companies as adaptive networks: existing knowledge is secured and actively integrated into service, production, engineering and sales.
This is achieved, for example, by
- Step-by-step instructions
- Structured knowledge articles with error-cause measures
- Interactive checklists for standardized processes
- Problem-related chats
In this way, knowledge becomes a productive resource that cushions the shortage of skilled workers, stabilizes processes and shortens innovation cycles.
Basic prerequisite: a sustainable knowledge cycle
In an ideally structured organization, knowledge flows in a cycle that is shared, captured, refined and reused. This creates a process with which companies secure their intellectual capital, make knowledge accessible and continuously improve it.
With the help of AI technologies, modern systems support a sustainable knowledge cycle by processing and saving knowledge that is created daily, e.g. in service tickets, emails or meeting notes, as knowledge articles, including duplicate and quality checks.
Companies that systematically record and refine their knowledge in this way and make it available in their day-to-day work transform empirical knowledge into measurable economic benefits, thereby gaining a competitive edge.
Find out how you can establish a sustainable knowledge cycle with the help of AI-based knowledge management in our free business guide "From knowledge to impact".
It contains FIVE best practices on how companies can successfully get started with modern knowledge management, activate the knowledge cycle and generate optimal interaction between people, processes and technology.
