In EK CEO Zach Wahl's presentation from KMWorld Connect 2020, he discusses the importance of putting KM in terms of business value and ROI. The presentation details EK's Proprietary KM Maturity Benchmark, a process to understand your organization's current, and target state, and specific metrics regarding KM ROI and Business Value.

1. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT BY THE NUMBERS
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2. SESSION OVERVIEW
Discuss how to benchmark KM.
Define KM business cases and ROI.
Q&A.
Establish the challenge of KM.

3. ZACH WAHL
FOUNDER AND CEO, ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

4. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
10AREAS OF
EXPERTISE
KM STRATEGY & DESIGN TAXONOMY & ONTOLOGY DESIGN
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AGILE, DESIGN THINKING & FACILITATION
CONTENT & BRAND STRATEGY KNOWLEDGE GRAPHS, DATA MODELING, & AI
ENTERPRISE SEARCH INTEGRATED CHANGE MANAGEMENT
ENTERPRISE LEARNING CONTENT MANAGEMENT
60+ EXPERT
CONSULTANTS
HEADQUARTERED IN ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, USA
ESTABLISHED 2013 – OUR FOUNDERS AND PRINCIPALS HAVE BEEN PROVIDING KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT CONSULTING TO GLOBAL CLIENTS FOR OVER 25 YEARS
AWARD-WINNING
CONSULTANCY
KMWORLD’S
100 COMPANIES THAT MATTER IN KM
(2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
CIO REVIEW’S
20 MOST PROMISING KM SOLUTION PROVIDERS (2016)
INC MAGAZINE
5000 FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES (2018, 2019, 2020)
INC MAGAZINE
BEST WORKPLACES (2018, 2019)
WASHINGTONIAN MAGAZINE’S
TOP 50 GREAT PLACES TO WORK (2017)
WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL’S
BEST PLACES TO WORK (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
ARLINGTON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT’S
FAST FOUR AWARD – FASTEST GROWING COMPANY (2016)
VIRGINIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE’S
FANTASTIC 50 AWARD – FASTEST GROWING COMPANY (2019,
2020)
KMWORLD’S
AI 50 – TRAILBLAZERS IN ARTIFICUAL INTELLIGENCE (2020)

5. 4
THE CHALLENGE

6. CHALLENGES IN
DEFINING THE
VALUE OF KM
TOO MANY KM PRACTITIONERS ARE
APPROACHING THE TOPIC FROM AN
ACADEMIC PERSPECTIVE, RATHER
THAN A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE.
THE INTANGIBLES OF KM
(EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION,
IMPROVED LEARNING, CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION) ARE OFTEN
DIFFICULT TO MEASURE.
A SINGLE, COMPLETE, AND
COHESIVE DEFINITION OF KM IS
LACKING IN MOST ORGANIZATIONS.
KM OFTEN COMES AS PART OF A
LARGER “PACKAGE” OF CHANGE.
KM IS TYPICALLY DISCUSSED IN
TERMS OF “KM OUTCOMES,” NOT
“BUSINESS OUTCOMES.”
TIME SAVINGS, QUALITY, AND
EFFICIENCY ARE NOTORIOUSLY
DIFFICULT TO TRANSLATE TO HARD
RETURN ON INVESTMENT.

7. QUOTES FROM THE C SUITE…
“We’ve tried KM before. It always starts with some good
ideas but never yields anything tangible.”
“Search and AI will fix our issues. That’s all we need.”
“This is a nice-to-have, but I’m not going to put our resources
into it in the midst of a pandemic and global recession.”
“We can’t even agree on what KM is, let alone do
anything about it.”

8. 7
BENCHMARKING KM

9. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INVOLVES THE PEOPLE,
CULTURE, PROCESSES, AND ENABLING
TECHNOLOGIES NECESSARY TO CAPTURE, MANAGE,
SHARE, AND FIND INFORMATION.

10. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT LIFECYCLE
CREATE
The point at which knowledge or
information is first exposed, either
in written or verbal form.
CAPTURE
The collection of information in a
tool or repository (from tacit to
explicit) so that it can be managed.
MANAGE
Tools, technologies, and processes
required to secure, organize,
control, and expose the right
information to the right people.
ENHANCE
Processes to evolve and prime
the information.
FIND
Tools and technologies to help
people find the content they
need, when they need it.
CONNECT
Creating links between knowledge
and information, between the holders
of knowledge (experts), and between
repositories.
Decisions, activities or
processes where information
could be streamlined to
ensure success.
The KM Lifecycle is comprised of the core processes
that content undergoes during its lifetime.

11. FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE
Tacit Explicit
Structured
Unstructured
Highly internalized
knowledge has not yet
been recorded or
captured.
Knowledge that has been
made visible by capturing,
recording, or embedding it in
databases, documents and
processes.
Organized and categorized in a consistent way that
makes it easy for systems and machines to read
and process. More difficult for human users to
understand without underlying context.
Follows no consistent format for its organization
and categorization. Generally easy for human
users to read and understand, but more difficult
for machines to use and process.

12. DECONSTRUCTING KM
PEOPLE PROCESS CONTENT CULTURE TECHNOLOGY
• Flow of knowledge
through the
organization.
• Knowledge holders
and knowledge
consumers.
• Understanding of state
and disposition of
experts.
• Existence and
consistency of
processes.
• Awareness of and
adherence to
processes.
• Quality of processes.
• State and location of
content.
• Consistency of
structure and
architecture.
• Dynamism of content.
• Understanding of
usage (analytics).
• Senior support and
comprehension.
• Willingness to share,
collaborate, and
support.
• Maturity of “KM Suite.”
• Integration with and
between systems.
• Usability and user-
centricity.

13. BENCHMARK FACTORS DETAILED
PEOPLE
Engagement • Organizational Awareness • Cross-Silo Communication • Knowledge Management
Leadership • Individual Roles • Trust • Access to Expertise
PROCESS
Knowledge Retention • Explicit Knowledge Capture & Sharing • Tacit Knowledge Capture & Sharing •
Embedded Processes • Support for Processes • Content Governance • Content Controls • Learning,
Training, & Development • Usage of Learning, Training, & Development Tools • Taxonomy Governance
CONTENT
Content Creation & Contribution • Duplicate Content • Outdated or Obsolete Content • Defined Content
Types & Templates • Taxonomy • Content Deconstruction • Data Integration • Data Awareness
CULTURE Incentives • Innovation • Sharing & Collaboration • Openness to Change • Measurable Success Criteria
TECHNOLOGY
Auto-tagging / Text Mining • Content / Document Repository • Technical Metadata Strategy • Search •
Ontologies & Knowledge Graphs • Machine Learning (ML) & Artificial Intelligence (AI) • Social &
Collaboration Tools • Adoption • KM Innovation • Systems Analytics
The KM Maturity Benchmark scores each of the
following 40 factors on a five-point Likert scale.

14. THE BENCHMARK FACTORS –
OBSERVATIONAL SCALE
The EK KM Benchmark evaluates
organizations across 40 KM factors within
the five categories of People, Process,
Content, Culture, and Technology.
Furthermore, the Benchmark is:
• Based on real-world observations of
several hundred organizations.
• Focused on measurable elements,
allowing an organization to score where
they are and understand the business
value of improving (based on a five-
point Likert scale).
• Recognizes that no two organizations
are the same.
• Is translatable into business
value/returns.

15. KM BENCHMARK SCORING OVERVIEW
Below Industry Average Average Industry Leading
Most organizations fall
somewhere within this
range on a majority of
KM factors.
EK's KM Maturity
Benchmark is based on
our experience with
hundreds of organizations
across industries and
around the world on similar
efforts. It is used to score
organizations and
determine where they
currently stand in terms of
the maturity of critical
knowledge management
efforts.
Top 5-10%
1 2 3 4 5

16. CURRENT STATE - TARGET STATE
Information should be collected and validated through a variety of approaches:Methodology
Target State
KM
Benchmark
This Knowledge Management (KM) assessment is broken down into five KM categories: People, Process, Content, Culture, and Technology.
The target state creates a shared vision of what a KM transformation looks like, including:
1. Iterative and measurable changes to each of these five factors.
2. Benefits to individuals and the organization that can be “felt” and measured at each stage.
3. Outcomes and benefits that can be realized as a result of these efforts.
Higher
maturity
Lower
maturity
Demonstrate how an organization’s current
benchmark score can progress over the course of
the engagement, obtaining greater maturity (and
thereby greater results and competitive advantage).
Workshops and Interviews System Demonstrations Documents & Diagrams
2.4 4.6Current Target

17. ITERATIVE ROADMAP
Month One Month Two Month Three Month Four
Workstream #2
Workstream #3
Workstream #1
Workstream #4
1 Customized, practical, and detailed
baseline for context-based
recommendations within KM workstreams.
2
DEFINE TARGET STATE
Comprehensive consideration of all
factors (strengths and weaknesses)
during the assessment phase.
3
Agile delivery approach with incremental
tasks that can be built upon in future
efforts. Discrete tasks include actionable
detail and measurable success criteria.
OUTCOMES:
BASELINE (CURRENT STATE)
ROADMAP AGILE APPROACH TO
DELIVERY▪ Fully customized to match the People, Process, Content, Culture, and Technology of
the organization and build on the best of what you already have.
▪ Iterative, task-based plans that will show value quickly and provide measurable
success criteria to help drive change and build momentum.
▪ Specific enough to identify gateways and develop ROI calculations.

18. BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR KM

19. BUSINESS OUTCOMESKM OUTCOMES
▪ Improved content findability and
discoverability, and therefore less time
waiting, searching, and recreating
knowledge.
▪ Increased use and reuse of information.
▪ Decreased knowledge loss.
▪ Improved organizational awareness and
alignment.
▪ Enhanced quality, availability, and speed
of learning.
▪ Improved productivity.
▪ Decreased costs and cost avoidance due
to regulatory fines and lawsuits.
▪ Increased employee satisfaction and
retention.
▪ Faster and better up-scaling of employees.
▪ Improved customer satisfaction and
retention.
▪ Improved delivery and sales.
▪ Increased collaboration and innovation.
▪ Future readiness.

20. DECREASED COST/COST AVOIDANCEIMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY
▪ Twenty to forty percent of staff time is spent
looking for information, waiting for answer, or
recreating/reworking information that existed
within the enterprise but of which they were
unaware.
▪ Highest for low- to mid-level staff and lowest
for high-level staff.
▪ Hard ROI only exists when a KM
transformation is accompanied by a reduction
in force.
▪ Decreased license/software costs due to
redundancy (in large organizations, we
typically identify 2.5x redundancy in
competing software (i.e. content
management, document management,
records management, search, etc).
▪ The administrative cost of maintenance can
result in additional 20% savings in IT costs
(labor, infrastructure).
▪ Regulatory risk can justify a KM initiative
without any other factors (for heavily
regulated industries).

21. FASTER AND BETTER UP-SKILLING OF
EMPLOYEES
INCREASED EMPLOYEE
SATISFACTION AND RETENTION
▪ SHRM estimates that direct replacement
costs for a lost employee can reach as high
as 50%-60% of the employee’s annual salary.
▪ The Work Institute estimates (conservatively)
that the average cost of turnover is $15,000
per employee.
▪ Gallup says that Millennials rank the
opportunity to learn and grow in a job above
all other considerations, and 69% of non-
millennials say it is important to them.
▪ O.C. Tanner finds that 60% of employees are
more likely to stay at a job for three years or
more if they have a good onboarding
experience.
▪ An Enterprise KM initiative can reduce staff
attrition by 3-5% over the first three years.
▪ Training Magazine says in 2019, the average
cost of training an employee was $1,286,
with over 40 hours per year spent on training
by each employee. Regulatory risk can justify
a KM initiative without any other factors (for
heavily regulated industries).
▪ Enterprise Learning (learning at the point of
need in small increments) can improve
learning retention from 20% to 80%, and
reduce costs by over 75% (travel, time off the
job).

22. Leverage Work
from
Overlapping
Disciplines
Leverage Pilots
to Obtain
Metrics, and
Surveys to
Develop
Benchmarks
Best Practices to
Quantify the Value
of KM
Find Your KM
and ______
When Selecting
Pilots/Early
Adopters, Go
Where the
Money Is
Prioritize Clear
Measurables
(retention, RIFs)
Rather than
Intangibles
Focus on
Business
Outcomes, Not
KM Outcomes
Don’t Be Afraid
of Technology as
the Way that KM
Becomes Real

23. CONTACT US