A knowledge centre is a formalised division within the organisation that specialises in the collection, analysis and above all implementation of specific areas of operational performance. It is the practical application of knowledge management on a bottom up rather than top down methodology. Though all enterprises have informal knowledge centres, their formalisation has significant advantages:
It enables the the enterprise to decentralise, by passing authority and responsibility down to the knowledge centre for a specific part of operational performance;
It provides a central focus of key performance indicators and benchmarking, providing for improved business monitoring;
With increased knowledge should come increased productivity, especially when coupled with a programme to continually enhance the effectiveness of the knowledge centre (see below);
As it collects and uses information in decision making and implementation, the existence of the knowledge centre improves overall management information systems by ensuring that information is accurate, simple, useful, and timely;
It improves planning through a process of bottom up rather than top down analysis of each important component of the business;
It should improve competitive advantage as the focus of the unit should be to improve operational performance against external benchmarks in addition to internal targets;
It should improve overall skills development through the ease of identification of skills requirements, and the focus on skills development that the knowledge centre develops, thereby further enhancing core competences;
It should improve motivation as it enables the enterprise to create a balanced scorecard for each centre which can be linked with bonus systems.
Disadvantages obviously exist:
The decentralisation of information that is part of the knowledge centre concept tends to increase secrecy, even though it may improve security;
Decentralisation of critical information may significantly increase risk;
Certain specialist functions need to remain centralised because of economies of scale;
Ideas from outside the knowledge centre will often be hotly contested – a feature of the not invented here (NIH) syndrome;
Demands for increased investment from the centre may be difficult to control as the information on which to judge their effectiveness is held by the knowledge centre itself.
Creating a knowledge centre
Knowledge centres can be created using a step by step procedure:
Separating the organisation into operational areas. Any analysis of the way in which an enterprise works will quickly define operational requirements, which can be further formalised with some graphical representation such as an organogram.
Establishing KPI/ benchmarks for operational areas. This separates the enterprise into units based around functional responsibility for a specific set of tasks.
Creating a monitoring system. This defines how the operational area will present and manage its area of responsibility, and the way in which it will contribute to overall business planning.
Identifying information flows. An understanding of how data inflows, collection, analysis, storage and outflows are currently managed against best practice will highlight strengths and weaknesses in the operational area, and create an agenda for change. The use of an information flow map is a useful tool.
Defining skills requirements and measuring existing skills profiles. For a specific knowledge centre there will be an “ideal” skills set. Identifying what this is, will enable the existing skills profile within the existing team to be measured (five categories – expert, proficient, competent, advanced beginner, novice are useful) and skills gaps identified.
Creating new objectives will be necessary once existing systems have been reviewed, future requirements identified (where are we? where do we want to be – and when? how do we get there?) and gaps defined.
Reviewing authority and responsibility (this may mean a re-write of job descriptions) within the knowledge centre will then assist the group in the completion of the necessary
action planning and implementation that will take the existing system and build its core competence and competitive advantage.
Once these stages have been completed, the project plan can be implemented. Key elements of it are likely to be:
The collection of best practice into a series of standard operating
procedures, which can then be tested to ensure that they do improve operational efficiencies and provide the basis for an expert system;
Training to meet the skills gap;
The introduction and then integration of appropriate software alongside a smoothly functioning expert system;
The identification and introduction of any artificial intelligence approaches that deal with standard problems and enable the knowledge centre to move further up the value chain.
