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...structure for their own circumstances. What is the initial investment for KM at other organizations? Does the creation of a business case impact investment? What are the yearly costs of KM per employee?
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APQC (apqc.org), a nonprofit organization that has researched KM for more than a decade at more than 350 organizations, is working to provide comprehensive answers to those questions in an ongoing benchmarking effort called the Open Standards Benchmarking Collaborative (OSBC) Research. By analyzing data from survey respondents (43 organizations to date), the OSBC research provides useful data pertaining to investment and ongoing costs associated with KM efforts.
This article details the initial results of the OSBC research, focusing on KM costs and the impact of developing a business case for KM within an organization. In addition, the article summarizes best-practice KM activities and methods across participating organizations.
The OSBC research
Open standards refers to people working with common standards to develop solutions that address common goals. The OSBC research is a global effort to standardize processes, measures and benchmarks that all organizations use to improve performance. With a universal process framework and standard performance metrics, organizations can make meaningful and valid comparisons with their peers.
The OSBC research uses an online data collection tool to obtain metrics across a variety of functions, including supply chain, finance and accounting, facilities management, human resources, information technology and KM. Benchmarking KM in particular is a major objective of the OSBC research; the survey collects data from six key areas:
* structure and roles,
* stages of implementation,
* costs and budgets,
* program measures and outcomes,
* knowledge-sharing processes, and
* content and technology.
In order to obtain relevant results from the responses, APQC normalizes the OSBC research data (i.e., breaks it down on a common basis such as per unit). That mitigates issues of organizational scale. For example, if an organization is benchmarking cost per knowledge worker, the number of knowledge workers is clearly linked to total KM expenditures. That enables an accurate comparison across organizations that vary in size. In addition, APQC validates and aggregates results. Validation ensures that responses are consistent with the scope and definitions contained in the survey. Data is...
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