What’s an enterprise knowledge management system?

You’ve likely seen some version of this scenario: An employee needs details of the latest remote work policy, so they ping the IT team for answers. Between meetings, a teammate hunts down the document and drops it in Slack. Next week, another employee asks the same question.

When information lives in siloed and disorganized tools, institutional knowledge gets buried in team wikis, spreadsheets, and outdated Google Docs. In the worst cases, this knowledge is lost completely when the person who knows the system leaves the company.

An enterprise knowledge management system solves this problem by capturing, organizing, and maintaining data at scale in a centralized base.

Core components of enterprise knowledge management 

A successful knowledge management (KM) system helps teams define and document what they know, keeps it accurate over time, and makes it easy to find. Here are a few examples of knowledge management system components.

Knowledge capture

AI platforms often passively gather data, like how to troubleshoot a common issue or what the most common product bugs are. They collect it automatically through daily work channels, including:

• Ticket resolutions
• Runbooks
• Process documentation
• Recorded post-mortems

Experts estimate that 90% of a company’s knowledge isn’t in the cloud or a highly secured on-premise database. It’s in employees’ heads as tacit knowledge. AI captures this valuable information, letting companies close knowledge gaps without trying.

Knowledge organization

Proper organization ensures workers can find, use, and update captured information. When they can’t, it causes workday bottlenecks that harm productivity and profitability. An Adobe survey found that 47% of employees struggle to navigate their company’s files and almost 3 in 4 employees say this negatively impacts their ability to get work done.

KM systems provide a foundation for organization. Here are a few common practices:

• Using a structured format for file names
• Tagging content and adding relevant keywords for internal search
• Using proper categorization
• Choosing appropriate folders for files, such as organizing info by department 

Knowledge sharing

This makes individual and group knowledge accessible to everyone relevant, ideally from a centralized and searchable location. Sharing systems should be easy to parse but equally easy to add to. Employees can spread their skills to their teammates and surrounding departments with a few clicks. This ensures you never lose critical information if the worker moves teams or leaves the company.

The best types of knowledge management systems connect to the channels people already use to avoid tool switching. For instance, teammates could ask an AI Agent for help in Slack or Teams, and the AI could pull documents from the knowledge base.

Knowledge maintenance

Outdated information can be damaging and potentially noncompliant. A strong KM system has regular review cycles and flags relevant documents whenever organizational changes occur. For example, teams may need to update vacation policies after the company shifts to a hybrid work model. KM tools can find information like this and prompt owners to confirm the content still holds up.

Fresh data also builds trust. Employees won’t use an outdated knowledge base, but when you keep information current, it encourages people to rely on structured guides and policies.

Benefits of enterprise knowledge management for IT teams

When workers find knowledge easy to find and maintain, IT teams spend less time answering the same questions. Here are some of the biggest benefits of a well-implemented KM system:

• Increased productivity: When workers can use self-service options, IT teams spend less time on repeat tickets, so that they can focus on higher-priority work. 
• Faster onboarding: New hires can use knowledge bases to remember systems, workflows, and policies whenever they need a refresh.
• Reduce knowledge loss during turnover: When organizations formally document workflows, processes, and fixes, they retain knowledge even if core people leave.
• Better decision-making: When teams have centralized knowledge, they can avoid conflicting, siloed information and make confident progress.

Types of knowledge management platforms

There are plenty of knowledge management tools out there. The right type depends on your organization’s use cases and existing tech stack. Here are some to keep in mind:

• ITSM platforms with embedded knowledge bases: Platforms like Serval combine service delivery and KM. It syncs information natively across tools like Notion, Confluence, and Google Drive. When a user submits a request, the AI Help Desk Agent pulls an answer from the knowledge base and resolves the ticket end to end.
• Enterprise search tools: This type doesn’t host content. It indexes existing information across various repositories. Think of it like a third-party integration tool that makes data more organized and searchable. It’s a fast solution for teams that might not have the time to clean up their entire knowledge database just yet.
• AI-powered KM platform: These knowledge management technologies respond to complex user queries and surface relevant information based on context. They also learn from usage patterns and flag outdated content. Serval also falls under this category, notifying admins when documents may need an update.
• Community and Q&A platforms: These platforms provide a collective and collaborative space to ask questions and crowdsource answers. This helps fill knowledge gaps and allows a wider perspective.

How Serval turns knowledge into automated resolution

Serval’s knowledge base syncs natively with repositories and surfaces requested knowledge where teams already work. There’s no manual migration required. Teams can organize, clean, and manage documentation directly inside Serval.

When an employee asks a question, the Help Desk Agent searches the aggregated knowledge and automatically answers. If the request requires action, it can trigger workflows to complete the task without involving the IT team. 

But this AI can only share appropriate information. Serval respects user permissions on the knowledge source. If an employee doesn’t have access to a Sharepoint drive or Notion doc, the AI won’t surface information from that source.

This platform also learns and improves over time. When IT resolves a ticket, Serval’s AI Suggestions identifies opportunities, like updating documentation and creating new automations. 

Serval is a natural approach to self-service knowledge. Perplexity’s new hires lean on Serval for fast, accurate help, and they don’t even realize they’re interacting with AI. One Communications Manager even offered to buy Serval a coffee because it was so supportive.

Book a demo to see how Serval works, and keep your knowledge accurate and accessible. 

FAQ

What’s the purpose of a knowledge management system in a company?

The purpose of a knowledge management system is to make organizational information easy to find, share, and maintain. Companies create a centralized source of truth for authorized users to pull from. This helps people quickly get accurate, centralized answers.

Why is maintenance and governance important in a knowledge management system?

Maintenance keeps information current and accurate, while governance monitors and secures data. Both of these processes keep organizations compliant with various regulations. For example, a team may update documentation so employees know recent rules and instructions. Another team might encrypt data according to governance policies, helping the company align with SOC 2 requirements.