KnoKnowledge Management, Business Intelligence, and Employee Retention (Essay Sample)

Review Paper 1 Knowledge Management, Business Intelligence, and Employee Retention The first paper titled ‘Improving Employees Retention Rate Through Knowledge Management and Business Intelligence Components’ discusses the important relationship between Knowledge Management and Business Intelligence to Employee Retention. It gives an overall picture of this link and then goes on to present various research and studies conducted in this field. The link between Knowledge Management, Business Intelligence, and Employee Retention The motivation of project teams is often accomplished by using such tools as Knowledge Management (KM). The turnover of employees is of major concern to many business organizations these days and it has been proven by researchers that retention is a function of motivation as well as orientation that the employees have regarding his work. The expertise of employees is crucial to organizational success and it is here that KM comes into play as it strategically supports decision making regarding employees, processes, and technology. Leadership integrity, as well as the justification behind decisions, is directly linked to satisfaction at the job. The human capital is required to be managed intelligently and this relates to the intelligence of all types related to markets, customers, technology and the environment CITATION Sur15 \l 1033 (Surbakti, 2015). Decision Support Systems (DSS) are facilitated by Business Intelligence (BI). Other techniques like Big Data Analytics and data mining also serve the same purpose. Information is thus converted to a form in which it has a high value for managers. Data gets converted to actionable intelligence through knowledge management with the help of business intelligence. This stabilizes the working environment in an organization CITATION Pir07 \l 1033 (Pirttimäki, 2007). BI is a very effective tool for managers who would be analyzing the human resource capital available to an organization. The competitive nature of any organization is boosted up using work practices that involve a high degree of association CITATION Ran15 \l 1033 (Ranjbar, 2015). Companies aim to achieve competitive advantage based on the quality of their employees. However, boosting employee skills is no easy task. It takes a while before these skills cross a certain required threshold where tangible benefit can be obtained. BI, Big Data, and associated Analytics form the major part of software utilized at enterprises CITATION Che12 \l 1033 (Chen, 2012). WhatsApp purchase by Facebook is a typical example. The app had close to 1 billion active users worldwide but employs roughly just 57 engineers in 2016. Such is the quality of their output that there was just one engineer at the company for roughly 17.5 million users in 2016. The app supported nearly 42 billion messages per day in that year with just over 1.6 billion photos shared daily. 250 million videos were shared per day as well. CITATION Tec16 \l 1033 (Desk, 2016). The use of WhatsApp is a typical example of Bid Data creation and accumulation and upon which Big Data Analytics can be run. The accumulated data is so massive that it is hard for a human being to even conceive its massive nature. Firms use Knowledge Management to ensure that business related information pervades the organization even when old employees are replaced by younger ones. Most of the Big Data streams from social media and New media platforms and quantity is so massive that it is hard to analyze. BI is at the core of the complex, fast-changing, globally inclined, and networked world where proactivity seems to be the right strategy to succeed. Competitive advantage has become synonymous with an organization's ability to be proactive and predictive and it can do both by using Big Data and its associated Analytics. Literature Review Knowledge Management and Business Intelligence The existing literature shows that to strategically manage Business Intelligence, Knowledge Management would classify as to be the most influential factor CITATION Fle11 \l 1033 (Fleig-Palmer, 2011). Knowledge management would also be very closely linked to whether employee suggestions and thinking are valued by the organization and thus this affects their attitudes towards the jobs they have. Teamwork is highly encouraged along with modernizing and enhancement of efficiency to be highly competitive and Knowledge Management based strategies and techniques are at the core of sustaining this competitive advantage CITATION Iqb12 \l 1033 (Iqbal, 2012). BI, on the other hand, is a tool used by managers for creating latest information that helps decision making strategically. Business Intelligence is thus the coming together of both data and knowledge relating to how the company conducts its operations with the aim of creating a competitive advantage CITATION Kan13 \l 1033 (Kanaan, 2013). BI is the backbone in terms of provision of actionable information and data to support the managerial decision-making process. it is a talent in that it allows to collect data from diverse sources so that modern and enhanced analytical techniques can be implemented and it is also a skill in that it is instrumental in supporting a multiuser demand CITATION Ran09 \l 1033 (Ranjan, 2009). Employee Retention Companies intentionally build strategies in the operations that tend to retain employees. Thus, Retention is basically an intentional move CITATION Sam09 \l 1033 (Samuel, 2009). Whenever these employees make a career move to some other organization, the knowledge, intellect, and skills all get transferred as well CITATION Cur07 \l 1033 (Curado, 2007). Human Resource Management has thus come a long way in not just attracting good and well-accomplished workers and employees but also has developed strategies to retain them CITATION Yar16 \l 1033 (Yarbrough, 2016). The inability of an organization to retain employees would increase the turnover rate and this has a burdening effect on the employees who stay with the company CITATION Guh15 \l 1033 (Guha, 2015). Conclusions of the paper It then puts forward a research methodology to conduct empirical research on the topic as well as question sessions to get first-hand data. From the data collected, it confirmed the link as stated in the title and while finding BI too technical and expensive especially its data mining component, it nonetheless reinforced its importance for any successful organization. Finally, it concludes that in the competitive world of today, the competitive advantage is through professional employees and their retention needs to ensure a high level of motivation. It recommends that as employees are hard to replace, the intellectual assets of a firm need to be codified using Knowledge Management techniques. This way, knowledge erosion would be avoided. Review Paper 2 Organizations build Intellectual Capital (IC) using Knowledge Management (KM). The employees are converted to valuable assets. Managers thus, require timely and accurate information to achieve this. Business Intelligence applied properly is the key to success here as it is linked to Knowledge Management. The implementation might be problematical even in the presence of a massive amount of information. Business Intelligence helps manage this huge amount of information CITATION THD93 \l 1033 (Davenport, 1993). BI is instrumental in making KM useful to get the competitive edge. Employees become competitive as they become more efficient, perform batter and manage customer relationship better CITATION GMu14 \l 1033 (G. Muhammad, 2014). OLAP, Data Mining and DSS are the BI technologies that relate to KM. Basically, these are strategic. BI needs to be fully aligned with strategies of the concerned organization. Two-way relationship between employees is possible as this information pervades throughout the enterprise. Employees would be more loyal and committed to their work if they feel they have been a part of every decision-making process in the organization. Paper 2 Literature Review covered Knowledge Management The science and art of searching, acquiring and then communicating the information in an organized manner with the idea of motivating company employees is Knowledge Management CITATION THD93 \l 1033 (Davenport, 1993). Leadership, efforts made as groups, the psyche of the employees in the organization as well as their individual efforts; all relate to Knowledge Management CITATION GMu14 \l 1033 (G. Muhammad, 2014). The organizational ability to identify and acquire the required information related to the goals is called acquisition CITATION LAr00 \l 1033 (Ingram, 2000). The KM process has a second step as well which relates to the retrieval of the information. Multiple sources are tapped by the organization to take out the required information CITATION SWi07 \l 1033 (Williams, 2007). Business Intelligence BI is the core process supporting DSS by collecting and analyzing information. Business tools are emphasized by BI to boost business performance. All the processes, technologies and the subsequent implications that are related to the acquisition, analysis, storage, retrieval, and data analysis comprise Business Intelligence (BI) CITATION Wix10 \l 1033 (Wixom, 2010). OLAP (online Analytical Processing) being a tool of BI searches and tests data and then computes and identifies the relationships CITATION GMu14 \l 1033 (G. Muhammad, 2014). The trends, relationships and patterns within the massive data in the Data warehouse are identified by Data Mining CITATION Wix10 \l 1033 (Wixom, 2010). Mathematical techniques and statistics are employed by it. The managerial DSS is a man and machine-based system that makes a decision based on the authentic information. One of the most vital components of BI is OLAP. Many traditional forms of OLAP are there like regression, sequential patterns, link analysis, and classificat...