What is Knowledge Management and why is important for Restaurants?

 

Welcome back, entrepreneurs!

Last weeks the topics were more technical, so we want you to have a break. We are happy to present you with an easy topic to understand; today’s topic is Knowledge Management (KM). This blog note shows how this value proposition applies to digital aspects of your business that we have already learned.

What is Knowledge Management, and why is it important?

The IBM cloud education blog refers to Knowledge Management definition as “the process of identifying, organizing, storing and disseminating information within an organization.” (IBM, 2020). In companies, the primary purpose is to facilitate the transfer of information from the person looking for specific information to the person/department that already has it. (Valamis, 2022).

As an example in the restaurant business, imagine that the Manager is the only person that knows some technicalities such as how the restaurant is IoT connected and how to interpret the payments from the Fintech service provided; that person one day will take a vacation so is their duty to pass the knowledge into the person who will take care charge during that period.

    

Source: The Seo Media Blog

Types of Knowledge Management

All organizations need to define what goals they want to achieve after having a clear idea of the purposes. It is essential to determine the objective to see what process can be applied:

Here are the three types of knowledge management:

TACTIC KNOWLEDGE

Is not the easiest to transfer. This type refers most to the natural abilities that each person has, such as leadership, empathy, innovative thinking, etc. No software can teach your team how to make it; whatsoever, you can always do some build team activities so all your staff can feel more comfortable working together and detect which abilities everyone owns so they can learn from the bes

IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

Exactly the opposite of tactic, tacit knowledge refers to all the things that one person can articulate and teach another person, such as mathematical operations how to use machinery or internal software.

EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE

This knowledge can be stored in digital documents such as reports or manuals. Here is where most of the digital platforms and skills can be applied, and as the other two, it is crucial that all the staff fully understand how it works perfectly and what the people involved must do.

(IBM, 2020)

Knowledge Management process in Value Chain

Source: toolshero.com

One of the most accurate models is Mathieu Weggeman’s. This Knowledge Management system  expresses how the transition can be applied most easily. The process is easy to understand! As I explained before, it is always essential to have a primary goal, and you can have different ones simultaneously. Before seeing it with an example, I’m going to explain step by step the model:

1.       KNOWLEDGE INVENTORY / AVAILABLE KNOWLEDGE:

Here at the start point, you need to evaluate your goals to determine if you are talking about tactical, implicit or explicit knowledge; then, based on the skills and tools you already have, you can structure the process

2.       DEVELOPMENT:

Here you evaluate what type of knowledge can be applied better based on the three types

3.       SHARING:

The modular part is when the knowledge is transferred to various persons. It is much better when the knowledge is not aside from the strategy and culture company values

4.       APPLYING KNOWLEDGE:

Here is when the knowledge acquired must be used under factual circumstances. The learner must be faced a phase when they can domain all the knowledge

5.       EVALUATING KNOWLEDGE:

This process must be checked constantly. It will be considered that the learner(s) fully understand the process when they can be the person who teach and can start the model from step 1

Knowledge management software

A KM software can easily organize the data collected and all types of information so each person can get access can make it with no problem! Software is one effective way to get into the looking data. This software, most of the types conduct the customers into a self-service experience, so they can find the solution to their current problems without involving human services. (Fontanella, 2021)

Here you can find a list of some of the best knowledge management software systems that you can get for restaurant companies according to a longer list provided by Hubspot I selected three with major impact for small and medium companies (Fontanella, 2021)

Hubspot Knowledge Base Software

Source

This system works perfectly fine in less time. There is no need to have a domain, which is good because if you already don’t have a website, you can start this process now.

Also, this software includes some SEO capabilities that, as we learned before, SEO is crucial for web positioning.

ProProf Knowledge Base

Source: https://www.proprofskb.com/

One of our favourites since it is super easy to understand and suits small businesses and enterprises better. The software includes templates that are ready to use and complete reports. You must want to take a look at it.

Tettra

Source: https://tettra.com/

For an excellent Knowledge management strategy, you should consider Tettra. One easy software. The difference between Tettra and the others is this is only for internal teams, however, it will be incredible for you to get familiarized with some KM software first to make a big step with others that maybe covers more than you need.

Knowledge management real-life examples for restaurants

Now let’s frame a typical situation at your restaurant:
During the same week, your restaurant needs new waitresses since you expand, so you will need an experienced person to teach the newies how to complete their tasks. (In this example, tactic and implicit knowledge can apply). So meanwhile, one person is passing the knowledge can also explain how to use the inventory system (software).
Hopefully, this article might help you more to expand your digital vision. With all the past information given you can start to commence your Smart Kitchen.
 
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Author: Karen Amezcua

Keywords use in this note:

#WhatisKnowledgeManagement

#KnowledgeManagementSystem

#KnowledgeManagementDefinition

#KnowledgeManagementStrategy

#KnowledgeManagementSoftware

#KnowledgeManagementProcess

#KnowledgeManagementRealLifeExamples

#TypesofKnowledgeManagement

References

Fontanella, C. (2021, December 21). Hubspot. Retrieved from Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/knowledge-managment-software

IBM. (2020, November 12). IBM. Retrieved from IBM: https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/knowledge-management

Valamis. (2022, February 22). Valamis. Retrieved from Valamis: https://www.valamis.com/hub/knowledge-management#what-is-knowledge-management