Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 4(48)/2008 87

Document Management vs. Knowledge Management

Sergiu JECAN Cluj-Napoca, România [email protected]

Most large organizations have been investing in various disconnected management technologies during the past few years. Efforts to improve management have been especially noticeable over the last 18-24 months, as organizations try to tame the chaos behind their public internet and internal intranet sites. More recently, regulatory concerns have reawakened interest in records management, archiv- ing and document management. In addition, organizations seeking to increase innovation and overall employee efficiency have initiated projects to improve collaborative capabilities. With business models constantly changing and organizations moving to outsourced solutions, the drive towards improving business processes has never been greater. Organizations expect outsourcing to streamline business processes efficiently and effectively if they are to achieve rapid payback and return on investment (ROI). This is where workflow, document management and knowledge management can support the in-house and outsourced business process improvements that help CEOs gain the business benefits they seek in order to remain competitive. We will show how processes can be improved through workflow, document management and knowledge management. Keywords: document management, knowledge management, designing process.

ocument Management be held electronically, useful information of- D Document management or EDMS – ten sits in documents, which cannot. electronic document management systems – The challenge is how to retrieve data to make have long been pushed aside by many IT pro- best use of the information. And this explains fessionals. why document management is at last being Traditionally, systems designers like to hold taken seriously, and why workflow solutions all corporate data electronically and to cap- are providing the productivity improvements ture that data at source. The internet allows that many earlier automated systems failed to customers to operate in self-service mode – achieve. and you can’t get nearer to ‘data capture at Of course there are a number of caveats that source’ than that. must be considered if organizations are to So why do we still need document manage- succeed. ment systems? For example, a workflow solution should In the real world, many people are not sitting connect all the people in different functional at workstations but are out and about where areas who undertake the activities that make paper is still, and always will be, the most up a process. On the technical side, compa- convenient way to hold information. nies also need to ensure that electronic doc- For many people who work for organizations uments can be migrated to new environments like the utilities industry, digging holes in the when a technology infrastructure upgrade ground, paper is the most sensible arrange- takes place. ment. Too many system architects focus on how to Research papers contain information held on automate activities where data retrieval is one or more databases. Minutes of meetings easy – such as sales data captured online and hold information that may subsequently held in a relational database. prove to be vitally important. Companies By using workflow and document manage- therefore recognize that while all data should ment packages, organizations can now 88 Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 4(48)/2008 streamline a whole process. it is appropriate and are reminded to under- Every company still wants to get rid of la- take the next activity in a process. bour-intensive activities such as photocopy- However, using a software package does not ing and distributing paper documents. If pa- mean ignoring good documentation design per has to be used, due to the physical nature principles, such as: of the business operation, then an electronic - version control, including document date document should be sent and printed locally. - retention times, so as to not clog up the Of course good system design remains im- system with out-of-date information portant and for an EDMS, using templates - categorization on a document – eg, meet- and/or document samples that others can eas- ing minutes or research papers ily access or make use of improves the sys- - author and other contact details tem. Also, the more that people are involved - audience, objective and/or key word in the detailed design, the more likely they summary, which will be of use to individuals are to use the new process/system. seeking information. “Involve people and they will understand” Data can also be captured using a variety of must be the most important focus for many hardware and software-based techniques companies - “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show such as: me and I may remember, but involve me and - numbered forms I will understand.” said Lao Tzu. - barcodes pre-printed on forms - mark sensing – ie, crosses in designated Designing processes boxes on a form Workflow and document management soft- - optical character readers (OCR). ware packages enable organizations to reen- gineer business processes and achieve sub- Knowledge management stantial returns on the investment in IT. I believe workflow and document manage- BPR (business process reengineering) has ment systems are now key components of a acquired a bad reputation as ‘big people re- whole new way of working. duction’, so it’s not surprising that many staff What sort of picture does the words ‘know- is still suspicious when organizations talk ledge management’ conjure up in the mind? about re-engineering a process. To some, knowledge management is all However, when people come to appreciate about that fuzzy term ‘networking’, where that they can access information held in doc- people get together in virtual ‘knowledge’ uments quickly and easily and share this in- groups and share experiences and informa- formation with others, the attitude tends to tion. The problem with this description is that change. there is too much reliance on individuals’ When people see they will benefit from a personal knowledge. change, they are willing to go along with it. On the other hand, software vendors believe Productivity improvement is achieved by that knowledge management is all about having everybody undertake the process ac- search engines and how best to structure and tivities in a consistent manner, and this is fa- hold information. In this type of scenario, cilitated by the workflow package. This is naming standards are a key feature; other- quality management in action or ‘getting it wise the ability to find useful information is right first time, every time’. impaired. One of the advantages of workflow and doc- Actually, neither of these approaches ad- ument management systems is that the sys- dresses the way that people actually work tem keeps track of events as they occur, so which is the sequence of activities that there is an audit trail as well as an easily un- people undertake in following a process. This derstood and operated set of controls. is where workflow comes into its own. Both of these features are important for secu- Knowledge management guru Karl Sveiby rity, since people only see information when say that: “Knowledge is the capacity to act, Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 4(48)/2008 89 not something stored in a database.” The diagram shows all the subject areas that In our view, without workflow present to come under the heading of knowledge man- structure business activity, knowledge work- agement. For example: ers are operating in an environment where - document management is important, as there is reduced productivity. Given that the much of an organization’s information ac- whole point of using technology is to im- tually sits in documents prove productivity, this is a huge wasted op- - collaboration and project management is a portunity that is costing businesses money. facility that enables people working in teams This can help company to improve their to share information in dynamic (real-time) business processes, and occasionally this has mode, and keep track of events within a involved changing the whole work environ- project team; the original Lotus Notes soft- ment. ware was an early version of this facility Nowadays the type of software tools that are - where there is a standard process for deal- available can offer vastly more than just ing with a situation, then an organization can workflow and document management. build this into a workflow module so that a For reference, as we can see in fig. 1, explicit consistent approach is used knowledge can be recorded and accessed by - this feature can be taken further – an or- others; tacit knowledge is what an individual ganization can set up the software so that knows instinctively from experience and/or when a certain type of ‘event’ has occurred, gut feel, plus the application of common an email will be generated and sent to an in- sense. dividual to alert them to the situation.

Fig.1. Knowledge management functionality

Maybe there is a toolset already out there that will be determined by knowledge, skills and provides this functionality, but if not, it will education.” In other words, the wealth of a not be long before one is introduced. nation no longer depends on its ability to As can be seen from the list of headings, convert raw materials into tangible goods, workflow and document management are but rather on its ability to develop and har- integral components within a knowledge ness the abilities and knowledge of its citi- management solution. zens. “Different types of organization need to use Many organizations have realized significant their corporate knowledge in distinctive benefits from developing a knowledge con- ways” said Nigel Oxbrow. scious style of management and from specif- The knowledge economy has become a reali- ic knowledge actions. ty for many organizations and countries. As Companies fully exploiting their knowledge Tony Blair said “The success of the economy potential are characterized by: excellent cus- 90 Revista Informatica Economică, nr. 4(48)/2008 tomer understanding; innovation and crea- to remain an important tool in the IT arsenal tivity; better informed decisions; continuous for some time to come. improvement to operational efficiency and Likewise all routine processes can now be effectiveness; clever risk management. All of better managed in a quality environment which results in improved business perfor- through the use of workflow software with mance and profitability. measurable gains in productivity and a better approach in knowledge management.

Bibliography • Jecan Sergiu, Document management, Pro- cedings of International Conference “Compe- titiveness and European Integration”, Riso- print, 2007 • Jecan Sergiu, Intranet, an assistant for managers – International Conference – Kno- leadge management projects, systems and Fig.2. Key factors in process improvement tehnologies – 9-10 November 2006, Bucures- ti INFORMATICA ECONOMICA/ ECON- In summary, knowledge conscious manage- OMY INFORMATICS, Categ CNCSIS B, ment aligns an organization’s expertise, in- volum 1, 2006 formation and ideas around the critical suc- • Jecan Sergiu , Intranet management. Inter- cess factors of the organization. It also em- net printing protocol, ANNALS OF THE ploys an appropriate mix of tools of interven- TIBERIU POPOVICIU SEMINAR OF tion – people, processes and technology. The FUNCTIONAL EQUATIONS, APPROXI- knowledge proposition outlined here sug- MATION AND CONVEXITY, Categ gests a knowledge framework that can help CNCSIS C, volum 4, 2006 organizations map knowledge-focused activi- • Mlesnita Radu Adrian - mKM - Mobile ties against their key performance indicators. Knowledge Management, 2003 • Muntean Bianca - Mobile Knowledge Conclusion Management for mobile business So where does all of this take us? • O’Leary Daniel E. – Enterprinse Resource Although IT impacts on all aspects of life, Planning Systems: sytems, life cycle, elec- organizations have accepted that some in- tronic commerce and risk, Cambridge Uni- formation will always need to be held in versity Press, Cambridge, 2002 documents or stay paper-based. This means document management is going