^The APQC Blog

Last month, I had the honor of recognizing 13 of the best KM programs in the world at APQC’s 2019 KM Conference. These organizations worked their way through APQC’s evidence-based assessment for KM and submitted their data to be benchmarked against the 12 categories of KM capabilities. There were nine organizations recognized for KM business unit achievement and four organizations recognized for KM enterprise achievement.

What is a Process?

Some people think branding is just “window dressing” for a KM program, but they’re wrong. A strong brand clearly conveys what KM is all about and why employees should care. An outstanding brand gets people excited and helps them feel personally connected to the KM effort. But as a quick Google search of “brand fails” will tell you, branding can be tricky. Big brands have made some major missteps in recent years. I won’t recount specific incidences here, but it’s easy to see the root cause behind most of them: not understanding the target audience.

Organizational silos are a pervasive challenge for most organizations and 73% of organizations feel that breaking down silos is vital to their success.

With a theme of Bridging High Touch and High Tech, APQC’s 2019 Knowledge Management Conference highlighted a key duality faced by modern KM. On one side, new technologies are improving knowledge discovery and altering the role that KM plays in connecting people to the information and expertise they need to do their work. But even as tech innovations reduce the administrative burden of KM, the implementation of these new tools requires more intense strategic planning and change management than ever.

According to artificial intelligence expert Kai-Fu Lee, 40 percent of today’s jobs will be replaced by robots by the year 2035. Will one of those jobs be knowledge manager?

The finance function (and the role of the CFO) is increasing in scope and complexity, moving out of the more traditional role of “scorekeeper” into the role of a trusted advisor in business decision making, and FP&A is an integral part of this transition.

Last month I interviewed the director of one of the longest-standing, most successful KM programs in the world. When I asked her what was new in her program, she mentioned adding a dedicated communications and marketing professional to her team. Despite her depth of experience, she was impressed by the difference this person had made in terms of crafting persuasive arguments and incorporating video and other visuals to get the message across. “We look so much better,” she said. “All the materials we put out look so professional, and we get positive feedback on everything we produce.”

Inevitably when I work on change management research, David Bowie’s “Changes” runs through my head.

“Still don't know what I was waitin' for
And my time was runnin' wild
A million dead end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet”

But what do song lyrics from 1971 have to do with business today?

Following is a guest post from Melissa Thompson, VP Talent Acquisition at McGraw-Hill. Thompson’s work at McGraw-Hill illustrates how to set the foundation for a successful transformation by focusing not just on technology, but also on people and processes. Learn more from the on-demand APQC webinar in which Thompson discusses How McGraw-Hill Is Transforming Talent Acquisition.