Are you looking forward to centralising your company’s information, making it accessible to a dispersed workforce and fostering better collaboration? If your answer to these questions is a yes, then SharePoint is your answer. Businesses can create a safe, compliant, feature-rich and fully-functional knowledge base in SharePoint that enables users to gain access to information in a fast and reliable manner.
In this article, we will examine the advantages and disadvantages of SharePoint as a knowledge management system and what you can do to improve and broaden the platform’s usability.
What is a Knowledge Management System?
A knowledge management system is a collection of IT technologies to implement, organise and analyse a company’s collective data internally and externally. In a nutshell, a knowledge base in SharePoint helps optimise the flow of information throughout the company and processes it clearly to all stakeholders.
An organisation must process a significant volume of data from internal and external sources to design daily business plans. To make the best managerial judgments, it is also necessary to properly convey the decision as soon as possible across all functional units.
Business data may need to be more organised, easier to access, and secure with efficient data management or document systems. In such situations, the company can waste valuable time and resources trying to get the correct information immediately, leaving a gap for competitors to fill and because of this.
Putting in place an effective and trustworthy knowledge management system is crucial from the perspective of internal process efficiency as well as a competitive strategy.
Additionally, maintaining the hierarchy of information when it comes to communication is essential for creating a synergy across different organisational departments. You can significantly optimise the information flow among internal teams with an efficient knowledge management system established using a standardised and powerful document management and collaboration platform like SharePoint for quicker decision-making.
Advantages of building a Knowledge Base in SharePoint
SharePoint has come a long way since its data management and storage platform for organisations. Today, it can use a wide range of Microsoft products to build an extensive knowledge management system that businesses can customise to meet different objectives.
Because of how easy it is, more and more expanding organisations are adopting SharePoint as their data management system. It can analyse large amounts of dynamic data and display it in formats like flowcharts, spreadsheets, word documents, etc. The various business departments can exchange this data to facilitate group decision-making. Leadership teams can delegate specialised operations of the various departments.
Here are specific business processes where a knowledge base in SharePoint can improve the efficiency and productivity of your company.
1. Internal Knowledge Base
Businesses can utilise SharePoint as a shared organisational source for organising and storing internal data. It is a platform for collaboration where every employee within a company can save the information and use it as needed to complete tasks.
Such information is frequently accessible through websites and company-specific intranets, which may require a secure login. Employees can add to and edit essential data they can access at any moment for future use with the help of an internal data storage ecosystem built using SharePoint.
Internally generated data is a massive asset for the business and helps it make crucial decisions. Business knowledge involves sharing financial information with the leadership, reviewing company policies, organising the upcoming advertising or sales campaign, identifying systemic flaws and ways to fix them, and more.
2. Role-based access
The hierarchy of your organisational structure can play a vital part in establishing the groundwork for information flow. What kind of information reaches whatever management level depends on whether your organisation has a top-down or flat hierarchy within the various departments. Role-based access can help with this.
Assigning rules for access to data under the nature of the information and granting access to only those who require that data are possible when using SharePoint as the company’s knowledge management system. Enabling role-based access through a login ID, password, or other multi-factor authentication methods increases critical data protection.
3. Improved data sharing
As previously said, one of SharePoint’s greatest assets is its capacity to store effectively, organise, and manage a range of data and document formats while making it available to the appropriate individual or people inside an organisation as necessary. Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, and even multimedia files like films and podcasts are accessible and shareable with the help of SharePoint.
Using the appropriate keywords or assigning suitable tags to documents, SharePoint separates the data entered according to the file format and context, making it easy to access. Additionally, real-time user interaction with the data fosters collaboration at work. For example, multiple individuals can collaborate on a single item, such as a PDF or a slideshow, and provide real-time comments for quicker turnaround.
4. Adapting to changing business environment
The nature of work across the globe has fundamentally transformed in recent years. Many businesses throughout the world prioritise allowing their employees to work from home. Therefore, they must also give their employees access to an adequate digital infrastructure that enables a seamless and secure flow of information.
Additionally, SharePoint’s function becomes even more crucial because information flow throughout the organisation is rarely restricted to a single office location. The business process, streamlined by developing a global information management ecosystem, allows work to be effectively and efficiently completed from different device sources or locations.
A knowledge base in SharePoint lowers the cost of creating and maintaining intricate systems and processes and reduces the wasteful expenditures associated with repetitive operations and workflows that break down due to errors.
5. Additional benefits
In addition to being a perfect knowledge management system for modern-day organisations, SharePoint can help automate several business processes.
SharePoint can link several departments, including HR, marketing, finance, etc., to establish a strong communication and feedback loop that will speed up procedures and audits. And that’s not the end of it. By analysing previous client interactions and forecasting the subsequent purchase cycle, SharePoint also significantly helps with processes like customer relationship management.
Conclusion
To sum it up, a knowledge base in SharePoint has the potential to be a one-stop solution for various interconnected business processes. SharePoint can enable companies to make better, data-driven decisions and increase profitability when used efficiently and in conjunction with other Microsoft products like Power BI or Power Automate.
As a company with over two decades of experience in SharePoint, Neologix can help you create a robust and customised knowledge management system to help your organisation improve its workflow and productivity. All you need to do is reach out to us, and our team of expert developers and architects will build you a knowledge management system to help you make the most of your company’s knowledge assets.
