Using knowledge management (KM) systems would help organizations create and share real-time data with employees for better customer support and service. Based on several studies, an estimated 75% of customers believe it takes too long to reach a live support agent, and 30% of employee time could be better spent searching for existing data. 74% of organizations also believe effective KM increases productivity by 10% to 40%. [1]
Global KM Market - Latest Status
In 2021, the US currently accounted for 35.39% of the global KM market share at $164.7 billion. The global KM market was $381.5 billion USD in 2020, and it’s expected to reach $1.1 trillion USD by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 19.8%. The USA, Canada, Japan, China, and Europe will drive global KM growth with a 22.9% CAGR. These regional markets accounted for a combined market size of $59.1 billion USD in 2020, which will reach a projected size of $249.9 billion USD.
China, the world`s second-largest economy, will remain among the fastest-growing market share. It's forecast to reach an estimated market size of $176.9 billion USD in 2026, trailing a CAGR of 27.1%. Led by countries such as Australia, India, and South Korea, the market in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach $38.1 billion USD by 2026. Japan and Canada are each forecast to grow at 15.6% and 17.7%. Germany is forecast to grow an estimated 17.7% CAGR within Europe, while other European countries will reach $219.1 billion USD. [2]
Global KM Market - Growth Factors
Many global enterprises are developing innovative approaches and strategies for competing successfully in a knowledge-based market. Such innovative practices, resulting in the development of knowledge-intensive products and services, are prevalent among North American and Europe enterprises. Additionally, increasing amounts of data being collected by organizations are expected to drive the demand for knowledge management solutions.
The objective is to provide a single source of truth so that the correct data/knowledge is available to all employees and customers. These application knowledge platforms equip employees who work in the contact center or other enterprise functions and self-service solutions to deliver a frictionless customer experience (CX) throughout the customer journey.
Knowledge-Centered Support – The Demand
There are different kinds of knowledge with varying levels of accuracy from individuals, business units, service systems, and call center data. It’s essential to collate data from multiple sources to ensure accuracy since there are often data gaps when using one source for knowledge. Solving a problem before gives us a head start when faced with the same problem or a similar problem. Likewise, relying on an organization’s collective problem-solving experience and familiarity with issues is an excellent place to start when building a knowledge base (KB).
This idea follows the knowledge-centered support (KCS) methodology of knowledge management, which has been proven effective in establishing an effective KB. The central tenet of KCS is to allow support agents to create knowledge as they’re handling a case, making problem-solving a starting point of knowledge generation. Many organizations have successfully adopted this approach and practiced it to bring their agents’ experience into their KB.
A well-constructed KB focuses on the essence of a problem and directs the reader toward the common denominators of a diagnostic process. It’s designed to capture knowledge and allows authors to come back and update the content to add or modify any data regarding an issue as needed. KB doesn’t particularly care about the history of specific cases where that issue was encountered.
Knowledge stems from our ability to filter out unnecessary details and reach the parts intrinsic to an issue. It’s possible in the KCS methodology to focus on the relevant aspects of a subject while delivering support. The main goals of KCS are to create helpful content to solve problems/issues; update data based on demand and usage; create KB by capturing, structuring, and reusing an organization’s collective experience; learn, collaborate, share and improve. [2]
COVID Spurred Explosive Growth
The global market is expected to grow due to the increased need to keep customers and improve customer experience (CX). This demand for remote working, caused by the pandemic, has boosted the need for global KM solutions. Even with the arrival of vaccinations, most companies are expected to continue with the work-from-home (WFH) model.
Hence, KM systems fit perfectly into the needs of most organizations that require employees to collaborate with employees from other departments. The pandemic also caused most organizations to use cloud-based software to improve their workflow. At the same time, those with cloud-based technologies already integrated/implemented would have an edge other those transitioning to a new platform later.
Knowledge Management - Use Cases
Use Case 1: Automotive
The client is an international automotive manufacturer conducting business in nearly 140+ countries and regions worldwide. They use KM to improve search functionality for dealers, integrate business intelligence, and support knowledge-based operational decisions. The client reduced call center costs due to knowledge integration. KM also enabled accurate and efficient search mechanisms.
Use Case 2: Financial
The client is a member-owned and full-service financial institution. They provide consumers and businesses with various convenient, flexible products and services and sound, timely advice. The client used KM to design an accurate and efficient search mechanism. They also used content management embedded in the customer portal to search and browse the content and see search results based on a search string.
Use Case 3: IT Services
The client is an American multinational corporation that provides a SaaS technology platform that offers intelligent and intuitive registration, secure payment processing, and insightful data and services. They used KM for dynamic management of the knowledge base and easy maintenance of articles. The client now has a highly interactive website for live support, easy-to-access resources, and a customer portal to access content with different assigned roles and access levels.
Future of KM Platforms
The new generation of KM solutions makes data available via different search modes, self-service portals, websites, and user communities. Data can also be pushed automatically to agent desktops or customer relationship management (CRM) applications based on the context identified. KM solutions are also increasingly being used to support enterprise-wide artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives that need an extensive repository of relevant, tagged, and targeted data to be effective.
Getting the correct data correctly formatted and loaded, and keeping it current, has been a time-consuming manual process for decades. However, this is changing due to greatly enhanced AI-enabled KM solutions that apply machine learning (ML) to self-identify knowledge gaps, redundant answers, and outdated or poor-performing content and recommend fixes to solve these issues. Employees are still needed to make final decisions about the content, but ML has already reduced the effort by as much as 50%.
There’s a strong need for KM platforms, and the rapid evolution of our intensely connected global economy means developing knowledge capabilities is a business imperative. Additional new developments include 360-degree view going mainstream; hyper-automation using AI; personalized search experiences; pragmatic analytics for impeccable experiences; VR-based how-to guides; and support that never sleeps.
My Thoughts
Powerful search, collaboration, and integration with other systems are the essential elements of KM software. Organizations receive many benefits from using a good KM platform, such as increasing revenue by reducing costs incurred to maintain data. This platform shortens resolution time; improves efficiency and productivity; increases client satisfaction; helps in product designing and marketing; reduces duplicate or outdated data.
Kapture is an excellent KM platform for organizations. With Kapture, users can migrate documents, attachments, and user-related details and index them quickly, efficiently, and accurately from their existing platforms. Kapture’s flexible data visualization solution also helps users to monitor their article usage, publishing timelines, user feedback, search queries, and reports.