The Complete Guide on Types of Knowledge Management Systems 2023

A knowledge management system is a tool that companies use in organizing documentation, frequently asked questions, and other miscellaneous information. Various types of knowledge management systems have robust features that lets you organize info in easily accessible formats for both external and internal users.  

Research shows that 47% of companies have reported an increase in sales after deploying a knowledge management system report.

Let’s have a look at the type and systems of knowledge management for you to use. 


What are the Three Main Types of Knowledge Management Systems?

Main Types of Knowledge Management Systems

With a knowledge management system, your users will gain access to knowledge bases that help them resolve their issues. Knowledge Management (KM) plays a vital role in efficiently organizing the content, and for such cases, content management systems come into action.

These knowledge management programs are responsible for creating, managing, and distributing the article, specifically for intranet, extranet, or website. In this advanced technological world, there exist three main knowledge management system types:

  1. Enterprise-wide systems

    An enterprise-wide system is a general-purpose system. It collects, stores, distributes and uses digitized information and its related knowledge. This information is regarding organizational knowledge.

    • Portals, Search Engines, Collaboration tools, and Learning Management systems (LMS) are the leading examples of technologies that maintain systems.  
    • These systems deliver tools, online directories, and other implementation details to locate knowledge workers with specialized or experienced professionals. They are essential tacit knowledge sources (Botha et al.).  

    The Enterprise-wide knowledge management system type is solely responsible for handling or searching the relevant information, performing data storage for the structured and unstructured format, and placing the knowledge individual within your types of enterprise.

  2. Knowledge Work Systems

    What is a knowledge work system? It is a specialized management system designed for engineers, scientists, and other knowledgeable individuals. Designs can be made using 3D visualization, virtual reality, or computer-aided design (CAD) systems. Such effective knowledge management programs contain an online directory to search for the company professionals that help the people and corporate workers with the specific information they need.

    • With the help of standardized expert systems, this knowledge management system benefits employees in finding accurate information from the available knowledge database using the best innovative business practices for future purposes
    • Although, there are certain things that people can only learn through experience. We call it Tacit knowledge
    • Typically, the system involves 
    • Unique knowledge management tools to perform group collaboration
    • Useful portal to reduce information access
    • Knowledge in management implementation
    • Search Engine
    • Interactive tool to categorize information related to the taxonomy

    To know more about this type of knowledge, we suggest checking out the blog: Tacit knowledge: Definition & Real examples for in-depth info.

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  3. Intelligent Techniques

    Intelligent Techniques, one of the best knowledge management systems types, involves collecting, storing, and managing knowledge with smart strategic things. 

    • Such knowledge network systems contain intelligent agents responsible for dealing with particular and predictable tasks for people, users, business processes, or everything related to knowledge-based software applications. 
    • People use Artificial Intelligence to synthesize raw data into valuable knowledge management systems to perform knowledge capture, knowledge transfer, knowledge storing, and knowledge acquisition.
    • These knowledge management systems use search tools like deep learning, machine learning, and big data techniques to focus on patterns and connections to provide a customized search experience.
    • Such information systems help the firm sieve through massive data sources to quickly retrieve the required information. 
    • It allows the firm to manage knowledgeability, optimize your knowledge management efforts and places a strong emphasis on its supplementary resources such as communities, groups, and webinars.

    Did you know that any knowledge which can get easily articulated, codified, stored, and accessed is called explicit knowledge? If you want to know more about this topic, check out the explicit knowledge definition and further explanation.

So, these were the three major types of knowledge management systems that enhance your business strength and organizational productivity. Moving ahead, let’s have a quick look at the top knowledge management software solutions that people can consider for their enterprise, startup, or company initiatives.


Top Knowledge Management Software to Consider

Compared to a traditional filing system, a knowledge-sharing system is a much better alternative. It can efficiently arrange massive amounts of documents for easy retrieval. You will be able to quickly update any part of your knowledge and remove any redundant data with ease. An efficient knowledge management system:

  • Supports the functionality of the IT system
  • Organizes the documents into an accessible format 
  • It consists of FAQ, tutorials, how-to articles, and forums
  • It improves daily operations in an organization
  • It creates a culture of collaboration among the employees in a company
  1. CloudTutorial

    CloudTutorial Logo

    CloudTutorial

    Best for setting up a knowledge base without any complex procedures

    Rating: 4.3/5

  2. Top Features

    • Supports full customization options
    • Best to maintain external and internal teams
    • Supports SSL integration
    • Impressive analytics and reporting functionality
    • Efficient content management system
    CloudTutorial

    CloudTutorial is a knowledge base platform that saves the company personnel hours from answering the same questions multiple times and allows your customers to find answers quickly. With this knowledge management system’s help, you can easily segregate your data by category and sub-category. Through this feature, you can seamlessly manage knowledge and general information. 

    This knowledge-sharing platform has an easy-to-use content management system, which helps in managing knowledge. CloudTutorial manages all the a to z data models with just a few simple clicks.

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  3. Tettra

    Tettra

    Tettra

    Best for organizing and sharing the knowledge to get the work done

    Rating: 4.5/5

  4. Top Features:

    • Slack integration and notification
    • Simple editor
    • Internal page linking
    • Page requests
    • Single sign-on
    • Automated table of content creation
    Terra

    Tettra is a knowledge management system that provides good workflows which work internally within your company. It helps the users by offering inspiring answers to repetitive questions.

    It allows you to easily document the relevant processes, essential policies, and procedures in one centralized platform, often known by the name knowledge repository. 

  5. Zendesk

    Zendesk

    Zendesk

    Best known for its ticketing system, messaging, and live chat

    Rating: 4.3/5

  6. Top Features

    • Faster to implement
    • Chat communication channels for better customer support and more customer satisfaction 
    • Responsive Zendesk guide for better understanding
    • ZenDesk Connect – support tickets’ transactions
    • Supports the feedback mechanism
    Zendesk

    Zendesk, one of the best Knowledge Management Systems, was designed explicitly for sales, support, and customer engagement. One of its crucial benefit is you can easily track, prioritize, and effectively solve the customer’s interaction. Such knowledge management platforms work explicitly to focus on all users.

    It is an ideal choice for every business, no matter the size of the company you own or related to SMB retailers, HR professionals, educators, and IT expert systems.

  7. Zoho Desk

    Zoho Desk

    Zoho Desk

    Best known for Email ticketing, call center support and live chat widget

    Rating: 4.4/5

  8. Top Features

    • Create and publish a support knowledge base article 
    • Analyze and enhance customer support team performance
    • Achieve the business goals quickly
    • Flexible, Cloud-based help desk support software 
    • Contextual AI to support the experience your customers deserve
    Zoho Desk

    It is a cloud-based help desk solution from Zoho Corporation. Zoho Desk caters to businesses of all sizes. With this knowledge base software, you can manage all your customer service activities very efficiently.

    Zoho Desk IT system lets you assign a task and set up alerts on help desk tickets with ease. This software’s customer support tools are excellent and it is their chief benefit. You will not be dissatisfied.

  9. Document360

    Document360

    Document360

    Best known for building a self-service knowledge base for internal users and customers

    Rating: 4.7/5

  10. Top Features

    • Ease to create, collaborate, and publish a self-service KMS
    • Supports SaaS platform for the management of multiple documents
    • Maintain multiple versions
    • Markdown editor
    • Advanced analytics and reporting
    Document 360

    Document360 is a KMS that allows your business to create a unique platform through an interactive end-user interface, minimizing support requests and various third-party integrations. 

    Document360’s basic notion includes appropriate planning, proper measurements of definite business value and benefits, and minimization of the new rollout. It enhances your knowledge management’s chances of becoming successful.

These are examples of the top knowledge management tools  (KM tools) or systems that help your business answer your employees & customers. These tools facilitate all the main types of KMS and manage data sharing internally or externally to enhance the business relationship to a great extent.

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FAQs

KWS initiates the designing of new effects of the knowledge management systems to integrate them into your organizational learning. It also provides easy access to people in managing knowledge to external knowledge bases, such as powerful computer hardware that supports intensive graphics software options, analysis, multiple forms of document management, communications capabilities, and a user-friendly interface.

Some advantages of having a knowledge management system:

  • Better and faster decision making
  • Increased rate of innovation
  • Enhanced communication
  • Improved knowledge management process
  • Quicker problem solving
  • Improved business processes
  • Better business decisions

KM systems’ primary role is to promote a knowledge culture and programs for knowledge management, including creating a chief knowledge officer. The systems help deal with the usage of documents and integrate easily with Google Analytics to perform various factors.


Conclusion

So, which type of knowledge management system will you opt for the current model of your business?

The best one is that suits your definite business needs, follows the best practices and norms, is a strategic asset in today’s information economy, possesses lower response time, lower customer support costs, and competitive advantage. Selecting the appropriate option from various types of knowledge management systems may vary depending on the business value and goals.

 If you have decided to opt for CloudTutorial that comes with advanced features, sign up at our website, and we will help you build an advanced online help center that your users will love to use.

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