Scaling Knowledge Management: IT’S TIME FOR A UNIFIED INFORMATION STRATEGY

Sponsored by Authored by Joe McKendrick, Lead Analyst Scaling Knowledge Management: It’s Time for a Unified Information Strategy Authored by Joe McKendrick, Lead Analyst

To succeed in today’s diverse digital economy, Real-World Challenges with enterprises need to proactively and effectively create, store and deliver content. Doing so means Knowledge Management superior customer experience, enhanced employee While a knowledgebase may exist in a digital productivity, and stronger partnerships. A format, its reach and relevance may be severely knowledge-driven enterprise needs to provide impeded if it cannot be scaled to meet new managers, knowledge workers and line employees requirements or grow with the organization. all the information they need, at the moment they Today’s enterprises are adding and expanding need it, to respond to customer and market digital channels and processes, reaching new needs—to support product design, product global markets, and innovating at a blinding maintenance, information systems management, pace. A knowledge management solution and software creation. However, much of this needs to be able to expand and meet this information—in the form of documentation, accelerating pace. messaging, graphics, video files, audio files, and Ongoing surveys by KMWorld find that transactional data—is locked away in silos and embedding knowledge management into the within diverse applications across organizations, day-to-day work at enterprises is top of mind. The requiring inordinate amounts of time and treatment of KM as a standalone function resources to locate. continues to be the issue that concerns respondents While information from all these sources is the most, along with a related concern, siloed critical to business success, the chaos continues to information systems. Currently, half indicate they grow within enterprises. Technology continues to have encountered challenges to their grow more sophisticated, yet knowledge is still implementation plans and goals. Finding the right scattered and disconnected across organizations— skills also continues to be an issue holding KM not only in enterprise content management efforts back, with one-third indicating they simply systems, but also databases, records management can’t find the right skills. Satisfaction with strategic systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) performance around KM continues to grow as an systems, and customer relationship management issue as well—fewer than half, 49%, report they are (CRM) systems. These are likely all managed by either “highly” or “somewhat” satisfied with their different units and teams across the enterprise. A organizations’ implementations. traditional content management approach is Only 22% of knowledge management executives not enough. responding to the most recent Technology Services In this thought leadership paper, we will explore Industry Association study have achieved some new avenues available to enterprises for sharing level of maturity in their knowledge management information, and how to enable seamless access to efforts—defined as achieving ROI, optimizing and information to users across the enterprise. automating processes, or leveraging analytics. Only

ADOBE 2 October 2020 8% report their knowledge management efforts key areas offered in today’s highly fragmented have attained strategic value to their organizations. market—many are bundled within solution sets, but Complicating this capability is the scattershot others are often addressed singularly by vendors in approach that characterizes knowledge management the space. There are nine broad categories of solutions efforts. Marketing departments maintain content that are brought together within knowledge management systems with sales content, engineering management environments, including advanced departments will maintain repositories for technical analytical tools, application development tools, documentation, IT maintains its own cache of content management systems, data management, documentation, and so on. Capabilities are spread input technologies, methodologies, service providers, across multiple solutions from multiple vendors across and user interfaces. the enterprise. To illustrate the wide diversity in this market, here are examples of the leading categories that make up Accidental Knowledge knowledge management as we know Management Architecture it today: The disadvantages today’s decentralized, • Advanced analytics: Artificial intelligence/ accidental knowledge management architectures machine learning, collaboration and project bring to enterprises include the following: management platforms, image-based analysis and classification, text analytics • High total cost of ownership from maintaining • Application management, development and separate systems and duplicate content delivery: APIs and software development toolkits, • Difficulty measuring ROI of content management compute platforms, low-code/no-code capabilities development tools • Reduced productivity from time spent searching • Content management: Advanced search and for content discovery; curation tools, document management, e-discovery, e-signature, content automation, • Lack of awareness of available content content collaboration, content creation, content • Documentation content may not be accessible management platforms when and where needed • Data management: Databases/data lakes, • Content may be inconsistent across business data visualization tools, file analytics and units and departments sharing, metadata management/master data • Lack of collaboration between business units and management departments • Input technology: Barcode recognition, • Customer dissatisfaction at inability to rapidly document and data capture solutions, document resolve product or system issues imaging, scanning solutions, OCR • Methodologies/Best practices: Business process Current Landscape of Knowledge management, campaign management, case Management Solutions management, information governance, risk and compliance, records management There is no single, definable category of “knowledge management”; rather, it is based on a wide range of • Services: Consulting and systems integration disciplines and capabilities. The following are some • User interfaces/user access management:

ADOBE 3 October 2020 Augmented reality/virtual reality, intranets, taxonomy, metadata, security and lifecycle mobile access, natural language processing/ management chatbots, self-service solutions • Structured and unstructured data formats: Knowledge management relies on both structured Gaps in Knowledge data such as relational database information, and unstructured data such as documents and video files. Management Solutions Knowledge management systems need to pull The wide array of technologies and capabilities information from systems supporting either format that are broadly applied to knowledge management points to the need for a more comprehensive Building a Robust, Scalable approach to the capture, organization, discovery Knowledge Management Solution and accessibility of knowledge assets. Currently, there is dysfunction in approaches to providing A scalable knowledge management architecture knowledge workers or technical staff the that delivers content and data from all sources, information they need as it is needed. and grows as the organization grows, requires a The gaps in today’s fragmented array of cohesive, enterprise-wide approach. Knowledge knowledge tools include the following: management capabilities and resources can be enabled through a unified information strategy, building on today’s platforms and • Complexity: Information tools are too complex, methodologies. and therefore out of reach for many employees. A unified knowledge management strategy will Extensive training may be needed bring together technical content from across the • Obsolescence: The technology in knowledge enterprise. Not only does such a strategy encourage management tools is often outdated, and the adoption of a “single pane of glass” for all content therefore lacking in needed functionality. It may resources; with content more searchable and be difficult to integrate data from obsolete accessible but also greater consistency across business solutions that may be used throughout the units and departments, with processes and rules enterprise aligned. In addition, a unified information strategy • Lack of transparency: Information may be enables intelligent tracking of usage and version difficult, if not impossible to locate. Again, control across all enterprise documents. As an added because information is maintained or stored bonus, the strategy enables greater collaboration across disparate systems, critical information or between business units and departments. data may be out of reach of those who require it to serve customers The following key elements form the foundation of a unified information strategy: • Fragmented solutions: As described in the previous section, knowledge management isn’t a single, definable category. Rather, it is often an Content assemblage of solutions drawn from a range of The KMWorld survey finds that cloud is disciplines. Often, these separate solutions becoming an increasingly dominant platform for require different skills sets, different data formats, hosting knowledge management systems. A total of and often may be challenging to interoperate. In 43% run their systems in the cloud, either in whole addition, this creates uncertainty about or partially in hybrid fashion, up from 38% two information ownership at a variety of levels— years previously. The percentage with all-cloud

ADOBE 4 October 2020 systems also increased, from 15% to 21%. More participation of teams to design and grow these than one-third, 36%, intended to move most of knowledge management services their KM activities to the cloud. A Content as a Service (CaaS) approach is built on Information Architecture and —a service layer that will provide resources required for technical documentation, as Governance well as the ability to easily create, contribute, and A unified information strategy needs to be categorize content. CaaS employs either public guided by a roadmap that aligns with business cloud, private cloud, or a combination of both—and requirements, as seen over the coming months and is similar in architecture to years. A unified information architecture addresses (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and integration between various systems and sources, (PaaS) models. It may be as well as provides guidance on future purchases delivered through subscription from a third-party and projects. With an architecture in place, vendor, or configured internally. information governance needs to be put in place to The components of a responsive CaaS ensure that solutions and processes meet ongoing architecture include the following: business requirements. Information governance also reduces risk by assuring that information • Ease of use and access: The user interface and reaches the right users, and is in compliance with user experience should be simple, intuitive and governmental, industry and company mandates, require no training and is as secure as possible. • Integration with existing solutions: As described above, knowledge management Data Lakes and “Big Data” technologies encompass a range of products Frameworks that exist across enterprises. A CaaS needs to Knowledge management systems have typically eventually integrate across these various silos been built upon content management systems that • Quality assurance: A process for assuring the store and manage documents and text files. Much relevance, timeliness and accuracy of assets of the information that supports knowledge • Search and discovery capabilities: The amount development needs to come from structured of content, data and other knowledge assets will databases, often accessible through separate continuously expand and grow as the enterprise systems via SQL-based queries. Broader-based grows. The ability to add new resources should be environments are emerging that bring both automated as much as possible structured and unstructured information into a • Enterprise-wide collaboration: A CaaS needs single environment, accessible by all applications. to be open and accessible to all employees and Data lakes enable the long-term management and partners across the enterprise, with tools and storage of data of all types. platforms that enable close collaboration • An executive champion—as well as active Richer User Access employee engagement: A CaaS architecture is A unified information strategy delivers more than a technical implementation, it is a information to end-users through a “single pain of transformative force that enable greater glass,” meaning users have access to the resources responsiveness to customers in a fast-paced they need, without the need to search across digital economy. This requires the active multiple systems or sources for what they need.

ADOBE 5 October 2020 • Visual dashboards: Data and content can be • Take a design approach, plan the architecture presented at the front end, providing easy-to- for ease of use: A “design approach” means the follow and navigable graphics, to show available user comes first in determining the interface and information and provide analysis ability to present requested data or content. The • Augmented reality: Augmented reality (AR) information should be delivered as intuitively brings content and data to life for many technical as possible and frontline workers. Product specifications, • Coordinate with IT and data teams: In many repair, maintenance, are visually rendered to organizations, knowledge teams (mainly end-users in real-time as they are physically concerned with content management) work present. AR visualizations can bring together data separately from IT teams. In today’s and content from a range of sources organizations, data and content (unstructured • Self-service: By enabling end-users to quickly data) all need to be integrated and brought assemble the data and content they require to forward. Assembling an infrastructure that sustains CaaS or depends on data lakes, for complete a process or educate customers, example, requires close coordination with IT information management teams can spend more developers time fulfilling higher-level business requirements, such as building information capabilities into • Demonstrate savings and revenue potential: business offerings Reducing costs is important, and a unified information strategy will help streamline many Recommendations of the tasks and resources that were separately maintained by either data or content management The following is advice on designing and teams. This is an important point for selling the deploying and making a unified information concept to decision-makers—at least initially. strategy a reality in your organization: More important than cost savings is the business value that will be delivered through such an • Work collaboratively with the business: A architecture. For example, by offering online, unified information strategy is for the business, real-time maintenance capabilities though about the business. It’s important to understand augmented reality, a machine producer can where end-users spend the most time and leverage a subscription-based model resources attempting to locate data and content. Start with the most severe pain points—such as Overview of Adobe’s CCMS: bringing together documentation from disparate XML Documentation for Adobe enterprise financials systems that may have been brought together as a result of a merger—and Experience Manager integrate these sources in a first instance of a XML documentation for Adobe Experience CaaS service. Start with pilot projects to deliver Manager is an enterprise-class CCMS (component quick wins content management system) to maximize returns • Identify information assets within the on enterprise content. The solution offers the enterprise: This is a long-term undertaking, as following benefits: important shreds of data and content may be • Web-based content creation: Hit the ground contained within a multitude of systems and running with the easy-to-use WYSIWYG repositories across the enterprise web editor to create granular, presentation-agnostic,

ADOBE 6 October 2020 variant-free content. Migrate content from Word, XHTML, IDML and more to DITA with the out-of-the- ingestion framework • Structured content management: Leverage best-in-class content management capabilities like advanced content reuse, version management, link management, search and tag management, translation workflows and content health reports to assume complete control of your content • Web-based review and collaboration: Save time and effort through a web-based review workflow. Allow multiple authors and reviewers to collaborate simultaneously. Use projects to About Adobe: assign roles and track progress Adobe’s mission is to unleash creativity for • Immersive, omnichannel content experiences: all, accelerate document productivity and Accelerate content velocity by easily delivering power digital businesses around the globe. XML and non-XML content to Adobe Adobe Technical Communication offers Experience Manager Sites, mobile apps, knowledgebases, CRM platforms, IoT apps, industry-leading solutions to manage chatbots, PDF, HTML5, EPUB, Kindle, end-to-end content workflows – from and more creation to delivery. Write to techcomm@ adobe.com to know how Adobe is changing Take the next step and the world through digital experiences. try the solution today. Write to [email protected] for a demo About Joe McKendrick: https://www.adobe.com/products/xml- Joe McKendrick is a contributing editor documentation-for-experience-manager/request- and writer to Database Trends and demo.html Applications and Big Data Quarterly magazines, as well as lead research analyst for Unisphere Research at Information Today, Inc.

ADOBE 7 October 2020