By Hadar Sharon, Director of Product Management
We can all agree that past methods in which information was shared between colleagues was slow and inefficient.
Certain factors, however, have made us change the way we think about information sharing and its importance:
- Dynamics and uncertainty – the business world has become even more competitive. Interactions and processes have become very dynamic due to rapid technological development and employees require the ability to make quick decisions under uncertain conditions. Therefore, information gathering in real-time is absolutely critical for presenting the best possible solution to management.
- Specialization – because of the increasing complexity of the business world, there is a tendency to specialize in specific subjects. Take a look at the field of marketing. It is split between many areas, e.g., social media marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), or even mobile marketing. Since knowledge of one specific field is unique, information must be shared with other colleagues in order for day-to-day operations to function smoothly and for project completion.
- Globalization – to save costs and to sell in different parts of the world, organizations are dividing up functions across the globe. For example, a company’s headquarters are located in Australia, but logistics are handled in the Philippines; the management and R&D is located in Israel, but its marketing department is in the USA, and the manufacturing is done in India. If departments are split across different continents, then there needs to be knowledge transfer between those departments.
- Automation – an increasing amount of processes are becoming automated to minimize costs, but in order for those processes to function accordingly, new information has to be shared.
In order to allow for successful knowledge sharing, the following aspects should be taken into consideration:
- Information should be available to users no matter where they are located in a timely fashion.
- Users should have the ability to categorize information in the most convenient way.
- Users should have the ability to share any type of information to anyone in real time.
- Users should have the ability to determine who else is permitted to access the information.
- The information should be accessible in any format: laptop, mobile and tablet.
- The system should have open APIs to be exposed for farther integration and processes automation.
In the past six months, TeleMessage has been developing an application for smartphones and tablet devices that will progress knowledge sharing within organizations, for better collaboration amongst colleagues, process automation, and business growth.