Fortune 500 firms lose $31.5 billion annually due to poor knowledge-sharing policies. Workers spend 30% of their time looking for or recreating existing data. When knowledge isn’t shared and available, employees waste time replicating solutions and making the same mistakes again that others have made. This leads to not getting the insights they need to be productive and answering the same questions repeatedly. [1]
One of the ways to rectify this situation is to use a knowledge management (KM) system. According to 74% of firms, KM software boosts productivity by 10% to 40%. This type of software contains various other features that specialize in collecting, storing, and accessing data for end users. KM is used by individuals, businesses, or large corporations to create, identify, represent, and redistribute data for multiple purposes. KM software focuses on the knowledge process during a complete lifecycle, from formation to saving and retirement. [1]
KM platforms allow individuals, groups, or businesses to innovate, collectively build new knowledge, and improve customer experience (CX). KM software includes different techniques for collecting and containing data to create knowledge that can be searched via specialized tools, such as concept-building and visual search tools. These tools present data in a connected manner not made by those collecting or maintaining the original database.
The Growth of KM Platforms
In 2020, the global knowledge management market was at $381.5 billion and was projected to reach $1.4 trillion by 2027 at a rate of 19.8%. China, one of the largest economies, is forecasted to reach a projected KM market size of $252.4 billion by 2027 at a rate of 21.6%. Canada is predicted to grow at a rate of 12.8%, Japan at a rate of 15.5%, and Germany at a rate of 14.3%. [2]
Auto Industry Challenges
The auto industry is facing tough competition internally. In 2022, the global auto market will be $3.7 trillion, and the market size for this industry is expected to decline by 3.3%. Between 2017 and 2022, the average market size declined by 1.9% per year. [3]
Several reasons for this global auto industry decline include needing to create knowledge for learning, meet client expectations, provide 24x7 support availability, enable self-service for clients, and work with multiple dealerships. Auto companies have trouble with call center management without sharing knowledge, such as mismanaging various support tickets and not creating a knowledge base from support tickets.
The auto industry also deals with a need for more collaboration amongst dealerships. Dealers typically cultivate only local clients and need help communicating across multiple locations. They must promote their products and services to a larger audience to increase revenue. They also need to have their employees at different locales collaborate across dealer networks to improve sales and prevent tedious errors that increase costs and lower benefits.
KM for Auto Industry
To gain more business, auto companies should regularly adopt new technologies and become more flexible. One of the technologies these companies should implement is knowledge management. KM platforms or solutions store and control data access for part search, inventory management, order dispatching, etc. KM optimizes customer service cycles, enabling superior services with minimal costs. This platform allows users to access workflows and receive real-time updates.
A fully integrated KM platform is necessary for providing the following:
- Superior service while reducing costs to a minimum
- Easier to organize and store data using a single platform that support staff can utilize for after-sales services and agent training.
- KM provides manufacturers with an integrated process for achieving their goals through effective team collaboration.
Software support ushers a smooth data flow within a company without interrupting its work process, especially when an employee leaves the company. KM platforms save all company knowledge in a database that other employees can access. It resolves workflow issues and provides instant data to employees and clients.
Auto Industry - KM Examples
Example #1
KM in the auto industry is helpful for dealerships, but more importantly, the systems provide robust capabilities that standardize data across all locations. If someone owns multiple car dealerships, they need a standardized procedure to streamline training staff on translating and managing data to save time and improve CX. KM software allows them to meet such needs and fulfill client expectations with reliable services. If client satisfaction is improved and services are coordinated, dealers are prepared and equipped with all the essentials for business transactions.
Example #2
Many auto companies have developed in-house database software to manage inventories and sales orders. However, they need to collaborate with different software used within an auto company to garnish better CX and more efficient results. KM software integrates the knowledge gained from front-line auto dealership employees with the capabilities of database specialists. By implementing KM, auto companies improve client tracking, inventory management, product ordering, and supplier networking. This leads to higher efficiency in providing an excellent CX and greater client loyalty to a particular brand.
Auto Industry & KM – The Future
The future of KM software for the auto industry will include language translations for knowledge creation, real-time indexing, and real-time crawling of data from external systems. Content search will consist of natural language search and image and video-based search. It’ll also provide integration to any plan.
Here are a few areas in KM that will thrive and expand in the future:
- Automatic knowledge base (KB) creation from support tickets – With NLP and Machine Learning, support tickets are gleaned to create a knowledge base automatically and can be used for knowledge.
- Image & video-based search – searching the knowledge base with natural search via text or voice on pictures and videos.
- Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) based solutions – AR/VR/MR based solutions connect to the KM platform for being used for real-time problem solving and answers.
- Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) – AI/ML can be used in knowledge platforms in multiple areas, including language translation, machine learning of usage of KB, etc.,
- Personalization/hyper-individualization – people using the KM platforms and accessing KBs will be provided with a much more intuitive and personalized interface based on who/what they are and where they are accessing the systems.
- Proactive/predictive & pre-emptive solutions – data will play a significant role in KM and will help services companies with use cases for proactive solutions.
Kapture for Auto Industry – An Intro
One of the best KM platforms for auto companies is Kapture. It’s an innovative and powerful API-driven platform with advanced analytics, content management, search engine, and security. Kapture provides users with a simple and more accessible content creation experience with a seamless web-based editor and dynamic workflows. This platform offers lifecycle management, an adjustable content structure, user groups, tags/categories, dynamic workflows, role-based content security, and task notifications by email and SMS.
Kapture is easily customizable with any development environment and has a simple integration with other 3rd party applications. Admins access and control users with enhanced role-based management, personalized themes, and settings. Users have single sign-on across modules, enhanced user experience with personalized themes and settings, and centralized access and control. Kapture supports multiple users and imports bulk users via API.
Users easily configure their knowledge base using Kapture. It’s easy to deploy Kapture based on the user’s need for on-premises, cloud, or hybrid storage. Import tools are customizable for external index system(s) to improve workflow. Single-tenant or multi-tenant options are available, auto-scaling with high-quality service and user experience. There’s no need to wait for automatic and instant indexing and multilingual support.
Using the Kapture platform, users can create content once in any language and have it automatically translated into other available languages. Custom and sophisticated natural language search allow a robust, consumer-grade search experience: out-of-the-box widgets and business, advanced search across documents and attachments. Kapture’s natural language search is an innovative technology that provides search with image recognition/OC and phonetic search.
KM should support the instant availability of generated knowledge, and the significant features included in Kapture are:
- Natural Language Search: Improves search context and relevancy while simplifying search procedures by recognizing the nature of the query automatically.
- Federated Search: Searches for relevant information stored everywhere, including authored knowledge and information from outside the knowledge base.
- Deep Search: Indexes an entire page and analyzes its structure to direct visitors to the precise answer to their query.
- Faceted Navigation: – Groups internal and external content into a unified hierarchy, allowing users to filter and fine-tune their search results.
My Thoughts
The auto industry requires an excellent KM system to manage data better and decrease process redundancies. This industry needs a platform that’s easily integrable across different software systems. Powerful search, collaboration, and integration with other systems are the essential elements of KM software. If this software is accessible at any time and location, it might be more valuable to auto companies and save them time.
Kapture is an exceptional KM platform for auto companies. With Kapture, users can migrate documents, attachments, and user-related details and index them quickly, efficiently, and accurately from their existing platforms. This software indexes content in the repository in real-time on creation without delays, allowing for quick searches.
Kapture’s flexible data visualization solution also helps users to monitor their knowledge base, article usage, publishing timelines, article aging, user feedback, search queries, and reports. Users customize their reports and analytics using Kapture.