Research from Iceland on how employees value improved knowledge management

I was waiting for Sandy and was going round the University Library tonight and found a box which had some KM papers from last year that were about to be archived. A bit late at night this posting but wanted to put it down on the blog as an aide memoire.

One of the articles highlighted some research carried out last year in SME's in Iceland which highlighted what people felt were the benefits of KM in their organisation.

Details below

• 70% Improved employees skills
• 67% Better ability to handle customers requirements
• 62% Better decision making
• 58% Better staff attraction/retention
• 41% Faster response to key business issues
• 40% New ways of working
• 37% Reduced costs
• 31% Improved productivity
• 26% Increased profits
• 21% Additional Business opportunities
• 18% Increased market share
• 12% Improved New Product development.

We are always looking at what KM does for our organisations and it would be interesting to know if the figures altered if the economy was in a downturn and people started to hoard knowledge because of fears that they might lose their job. Anyway I thought that the information was useful to write down for other KM practitioners who were struggling to find the benefits.