In 1979, Karl-Erik Sveiby coined the term “knowledge management” while reviewing the books and records of his new company. He had been an accountant before resigning to start his own business,

to review the books and records of his new company.

As he reviewed his company’s books, accounting records, and other materials, he realized that some employees were underperforming and that the practice of documenting everything related to the company was being neglected.

He also noticed that the books did not include the number of desks and machines.

From this, Sveiby recognized the importance of managing intangible assets—a concept that would later evolve into knowledge management—and that they are no less important

than tangible assets: the physical things a company owns, such as equipment, tools, and so on.

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جدوى البيانات!

On their own, data are nothing more than jumbled building blocks. That’s why managing them is essential: it enables us to extract something meaningful from them, and every

An organization has a great deal of raw or unprocessed data.

To handle it effectively, some of it must be discarded. This shows that we are managing our knowledge properly.

Beyond this definition, some people see knowledge as falling into two categories: explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is everything we know and can express in words,

That is, everything that can be said, written, and communicated.

As for tacit knowledge, which is our focus here, it is what Michael Polanyi, author of *The Tacit Dimension*, described as follows:

 “نحن نعرف أكثر مما يمكننا التعبير عنه، ولكننا لا ندرك معرفتنا به إلا حين نحتاج إليه، ومن ثم يصعب التعبير عن هذه

knowledge, process it, or communicate it in an organized or logical way.”

Tacit knowledge, then, is closely related to intangible assets—perhaps even a branch of them or an asset in its own right. In any case, we should not forget that

knowledge is power and authority; those who own knowledge own both the present and the future.

Beyond these theoretical distinctions, what matters to us now is that not all the data we have is useful. Some data should be deleted and disregarded, while

other data deserves our full attention. This is at the heart of what Sveiby called “knowledge management.”

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Knowledge Management: What Is It?

We can define it as the systematic processing of the information an organization needs to succeed and achieve its goals.

This process consists of three stages: creating information, accessing it, and sharing it. These are the stages involved in what we call knowledge management.

According to the definition above, producing knowledge is the responsibility of the organization or a specialized team within it. This knowledge is produced by discarding data that is not

useful, retaining what is valuable, and putting it into context to inform decisions or the development of plans.

Overall strategy.

It’s not just about the production process—creating knowledge. We also need to build a system that makes it easier to access the vast amount of knowledge we’ve produced and now have at our disposal.

Now, finally, this information is being shared with the relevant teams across the company.

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Core Conclusion:

By knowledge management, we mean managing the information an organization possesses—its most important asset, even if it is unrecognized or intangible.

Working with this information can lead to significant gains, while also saving a great deal of time and effort.

Ultimately, it can be said that knowledge is power: all we need to accomplish our tasks is a set of information that, once put to use

The benefits were substantial.