In garnering the best return from your knowledge management initiatives, you need to understand that knowledge and its applicability can change within an organization and that the content and relevance of the knowledge needs to be addressed and updated to always reflect the best possible knowledge asset.

Britton Manasco of Market Intelligence Group LLP, and editor of Customer Intelligence for Corante gives us some very practical tips and techniques to managing your KM base. One thing that he notes as important to building your knowledge management is to make sure that “all stakeholders are involved.”

There are many different areas where the investment in a knowledge management system will reap strong returns long-term. But Manasco cautions that knowledge cannot be completely based upon concern with ROI, because it is often hard to measure the true impact of a completely integrated system.

In terms of metaphor, you might want to think of your gathered knowledge base as the central motor for your business vehicle. If the knowledge has been gathered and is accessed and protected in the right way, then your motor runs very smoothly and your business vehicle can travel very far. If the knowledge is knocked around and left out in the open, with bits and pieces not updated (like changing the oil in your motor), then your motor will run less smoothly and probably not travel as far.

For Manasco the value of knowledge management and getting good return on your investment often lies in all things related to the customer. “The customer place is the place I would gravitate to as far as always looking for ways to improve my knowledge base. For example, ask yourself, ‘are there ways to develop more knowledge about the customer, their profile, their preference, their needs? Should I collaborate with the CRM managers, marketers on our team to garner their perspective on our customer base.’ The customer profile is central and needs very diligent effort and must be acted upon with great skill.”

Another tip is to look at knowledge management from different perspectives, even if the bottom line is your customer. What about the product development angle or the supply chain angle? Those also impact the customer and your ROI.

There are several very good books to use as resources for best practice stories and real world examples of successful use of knowledge management. Here is a short list of some of the best ones:

1. Complete Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management, Melissa Clemmons Rumizen.
2. Capitalizing on Knowledge: From e-business to k-business, Butterworth-Heinemann (2001).
3. Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management (Harvard Business Review Series) by Peter F. Drucker, David Garvin, Leonard Dorothy, Straus Susan, John Seely Brown
4. Working Knowledge by Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak
5. Enabling Knowledge Creation: New Tools for Unlocking the Mysteries of Tacit Understanding by Ikujiro Nonaka, Georg Von Krogh, and Kazuo Ichijo, Oxford University Press, 2000, hardcover, 304 pages, ISBN 0195126165