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Bye bye knowledge management, hello knowledge mobility: setting knowledge in motion

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Traditional knowledge management cannot keep pace with the world of work 4.0. The modern answer for companies is knowledge mobility.

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Knowledge Mobility: How to make your knowledge management fit for the future

Knowledge is a success factor. But how can companies structure their valuable know-how and make it usable for everyone? How can they link the knowledge they have with the knowledge they need? Knowledge management has become a complex task - and knowledge mobility is the modern solution. Knowledge mobility sets know-how in motion, bundles knowledge and unleashes potential.

What is Knowledge Mobility?

Something is happening in our working world. Innovation cycles are short, global knowledge is growing at a breathtaking pace and complexity is increasing. Technical innovations and disruptive business models demand enormous flexibility and innovative strength from companies. They need to find faster and more flexible ways to bring new knowledge into the organization and make it visible and usable in their own contexts.

Knowledge Mobility offers a solution to this. Knowledge mobility is the ability of a company to make knowledge usable in a value-adding way by setting existing know-how in motion. The key question here is: How can companies link the knowledge they have with the knowledge they need?

Knowledge Mobility makes know-how accessible and usable - and brings it into exchange. This gives companies the opportunity to identify and exploit the know-how relevant to their purposes. In this way, corporate knowledge can grow with a complex, changing working world.

What is knowledge?

Whether as part of the business process, as a factor for innovation or as a competitive advantage: knowledge is relevant in all industries and along the entire value chain. But what is knowledge anyway? Knowledge Mobility considers knowledge and know-how in the broadest possible sense.

Knowledge refers not only to explicit and codified knowledge, such as production processes or guidelines, but also to the implicit skills and abilities of all Employees in the organization. Knowledge includes both the company's internal know-how and the relevant external knowledge that the company and its Employees acquire and place in their own contexts.

Why knowledge mobility is overtaking traditional knowledge management

Conventional knowledge management focuses on the structure and storage of the company's internal know-how. At first glance, this makes sense, as the diverse and often complex corporate knowledge must be recorded so that it is not lost. According to calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, around 15 million employees will leave the workforce by 2036. If know-how leaves the company with Employees , this can jeopardize the position and possibly even the existence of the company.

All too often, however, knowledge documentation degenerates into an elaborate end in itself. Although the knowledge is recorded, it remains largely unused on a server or buried in the depths of the intranet. It is often inconvenient to use, and in a rapidly changing world of work, knowledge can quickly become outdated.

This means that knowledge cannot be used to create value within the company. Those who manage know-how rather than setting it in motion are missing out on potential. Because knowledge does not grow in the archive, but through exchange.

This is why Knowledge Mobility relies on knowledge transfer. External knowledge is combined with existing know-how and adapted to internal circumstances. Know-how is brought together - centrally, networked and accessible. In the moment of need, Employees can access all available knowledge and learning opportunities. At the same time, they can share their own know-how quickly and easily. In this way, knowledge is put into practice and can be transformed into measurable success.

Conclusion: Growing with the world's knowledge

Knowledge mobility makes knowledge management agile. Calculations assume that global knowledge doubles approximately every eight years. Companies should therefore find ways to keep pace with this development. Knowledge Mobility offers them a solution for bringing the know-how relevant to them into the organization.

Knowledge mobility is a contemporary approach that enables companies to react flexibly to dynamic developments and the increasing complexity of the world. Knowledge and learning are considered together. Sharing and exchanging instead of filing and storing - this is how the joint and collaborative development of corporate knowledge succeeds.