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Top KM Priorities and Challenges in 2023

Top KM Priorities and Challenges in 2023

In APQC’s 2023 Knowledge Management Priorities and Predictions Survey Report, we learned that knowledge management experts and practitioners who responded to our survey are optimistic about KM’s outlook. Sixty-six percent say KM is gaining ground, up from 50 percent last year. As knowledge management shows signs of gaining traction, leaders have every reason to pursue emerging opportunities to pitch KM as a strategic asset in the business.

Priorities to Support

Our survey asked KM leaders about their priorities for their teams and for their organization as a whole. Boosting KM participation and identifying critical knowledge were cited as top priorities for KM teams.

The following top seven business drivers emerged as opportunities for KM to support within the organization:

  1. Continuous learning,
  2. Strategic integration,
  3. Organizational agility,
  4. Productivity, 
  5. Employee experience, 
  6. Data-driven decision making, and 
  7. Digital transformation/intelligent enterprise.


Technology and User Experience

When asked to name the most important user experience priority moving forward, about three-quarters said it is essential for KM to provide a simplified and integrated user experience. Embedding KM directly into the flow of work processes promotes knowledge sharing and makes KM more intuitive. 

As organizations move towards more digital and remote work, it has become imperative for KM to integrate with team collaboration and digital workplace apps. And as companies amass data at exponential rates, AI-fueled search and discovery tools become increasingly vital in helping employees find information and tap into organizational expertise.

Opportunities and Threats

The following five factors were identified as opportunities for KM to demonstrate value within the organization:

  1. Employees are frustrated with chaotic, disorganized information,  
  2. Employee retirements and churn make it critical to capture/transfer knowledge,  
  3. KM is essential as organizations embrace more remote/hybrid work,
  4. Leaders are recognizing the risk of knowledge gaps and silos, and
  5. KM is essential as organizations strive to reskill and upskill employees.


Respondents identified disorganized and inaccessible information as a leading pain point for KM to address. By proposing insight into effective content management, KM teams can ensure employees have access to organizational expertise, which can in turn increase productivity.

The top five factors cited as threats to KM right now:

  1. Leaders are focused on (what they see as) more urgent problems or opportunities, 
  2. Employees are overworked and don’t think they have time for KM, 
  3. Organizational culture does not incentivize knowledge sharing and reuse, 
  4. KM’s impact is hard to measure, which complicates funding and buy-in, and 
  5. Organizations have too many disconnected technologies in place to support KM.


These barriers to widespread adoption of knowledge management initiatives are not new but may be accelerating, particularly if KM has not been clearly articulated as a tool to support the current business strategy.

Moving Forward in 2023

When asked about the top skillsets for KM professionals, change management and design thinking remain at the top of the list of skills to develop—not surprising given the changing and often chaotic landscape of the past few years. Although analytics remain a valuable skill set, the 16 percent decline since last year's survey indicates that KM is moving from being seen solely as a support function to a more  strategic asset.

By leveraging this shifting view, KM leaders can capitalize on emerging opportunities to grow their influence and provide value to their organizations in 2023 and beyond.