Knowledge is power. But what if you don’t get the right knowledge at the right time?
Let’s say you’re meeting with a high-ticket prospect, and they request you to show your five-year sales reports. If you search the reports across files and folders, cracking the deal would be tough.
Enter knowledge management tool—you can access all your reports in seconds.
Also, your sales team will always be ready to handle any user request.
Knowledge management tools help you manage a lot of information without getting overwhelmed. But before you make a purchase, let’s better understand these tools.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the types of knowledge management tools (with examples) to help you decide which tool is the best for your organization.
What are Knowledge Management Tools?
Knowledge management tools centralize information and facilitate knowledge sharing. They capture information and enable retrieval and application to increase efficiency.
Let’s say you’re working on a product launch campaign with tight deadlines. If your content assets are scattered across apps, searching them manually would take eons. But, with knowledge management tools like Findr, you can find what you need within seconds.
Findr’s universal search allows you to search for information across apps, emails, docs, and messages. It helps you locate links, chats, and more within seconds. Also, with Findr, you can gather your topic references in one place for easy access.
Now that you know what knowledge management tools are, let’s look into their benefits.
Benefits of Implementing Knowledge Management Tools
Knowledge management tools serve as your knowledge repository. They help you:
Faster decision-making
Knowledge management tools make it easier for employees to access relevant information. These tools allow users to access the right information at the right time, resulting in quick and informed decision-making.
For example, suppose a customer inquires about how your product can be used for their specific use cases. Your team can quickly gather information on the customer’s needs from previous interactions and tailor the responses accordingly.
Improved productivity
With knowledge management tools, you can save 50% of the time spent on searches and focus on things that matter. You can streamline processes, automate tasks like content creation, and get access to updated information within seconds.
Suppose you missed a project kick-off meeting where the manager explained and shared project documentation. You can use AI knowledge management tools to generate project summaries so you don’t have to read through the entire doc. Plus, you can use AI to create meeting notes for later use.
Fosters continuous learning
Knowledge management tools provide you with 24/7 uninterrupted access to company information. Your teams and new employees can access information about company policies, training materials, courses, etc., continuously learning as they work. This easy access to information also makes onboarding easier.
Enhanced collaboration
Knowledge management tools centralize company information and enhance collaboration and communication with internal and external stakeholders. They allow teams to work together, share ideas, and make informed decisions quickly. For instance, employees working on a product launch campaign can brainstorm launch themes, share ideas, and track progress to ensure successful outcomes.
Maintains consistent workflows
Knowledge management tools ensure that processes, policies, and other critical company information are documented and organized. This helps define standard workflows and processes so employees know which approach to take to complete their tasks.
Helps implement best practices
With knowledge management tools, you can document company best practices so employees can reuse them during specific scenarios. For instance, suppose your product and development teams miss out on implementing certain feature requests. To avoid repeating this error, they document user feedback in a separate repository. Other employees can use this repository for different purposes.
Types of Knowledge Management Tools
Different enterprise knowledge management tools deal with varying types of knowledge. They improve specific aspects of your business.
For instance, we found a Reddit user looking for a customer-facing knowledge management tool to guide customers. Here, Zendesk can help build a get-started guide for users to find answers to their queries.
Similarly, if you use many work apps, Findr can be your go-to tool to aggregate all information and apps in one place.
Implementing the right knowledge management tools significantly impacts your company's performance. Here’s a list of different types of knowledge management tools:
Knowledge base
A knowledge base is a repository of searchable information. The single source of truth stores and organizes content so you can access relevant information.
An example of a knowledge base would be a customer support knowledge base. It comprises FAQs and customer-facing information that support teams can use to resolve user queries faster.
If you’re planning to create a knowledge base for your support team, enterprise search software like Findr can help. It can generate real-time knowledge base FAQs and articles so your team finds specific information faster.
Learning Management System (LMS)
An LMS simplifies the storing, tracking, and delivery of educational content. These tools help companies manage educational courses, recruiting, and employee training materials.
Findr enhances learning management systems by enabling you to create custom AI assistants. This capability allows you to train bots on selected content and get accurate answers drafted from the LMS.
Document management software
Document Management Software (DMS) centralizes and manages digital documents, including scanned doc images. These systems make it easier for teams to access and share documents and maintain a records repository for audit.
Tools like SharePoint, Google Drive, and Document360 help in document management. Let’s take Google Drive as an example.
You can use Google Drive as a simple DMS for starters. With Google Drive, you get the following features:
- Doc creation: Create new docs in Google Drive. You can use the new doc AI to summarize and generate content
- File storage: Store and organize your projects in files and folders and use the search functionality to look for specific docs
- Real-time collaboration: Add comments with @mentions, make suggestions, edit docs, and share them with others
- Access permissions: Limit who can see your docs when sharing them and what they can do with the shared doc—view, edit, or comment
- Version control: View the changes made on the doc over time. You can also restore a specific version you like
AI knowledge management
AI knowledge management tools store, organize, and make collective company information available. These tools allow users to quickly find information across apps, emails, docs, Slack messages, and chat histories. With AI knowledge management tools, users can chat with AI to get answers to work-related queries with source references.
An AI-powered knowledge management tool captures and unifies scattered information. Features like universal search and AI assistants help you find and locate information across your third-party apps, emails, docs, conversations, and messages.
Project management
Project management and collaboration tools let you create and manage internal knowledge repositories. These tools enhance teamwork by helping you collaborate with teams on documents, projects, wikis, and more.
ClickUp and Notion are ideal project management tools. They help you create and collaborate on internal knowledge bases.
For instance, ClickUp lets you prioritize and track tasks and manage timelines to ensure on-time deliveries. It offers features like custom views and fields, docs, and whiteboards for teams to collaborate on projects.
Similarly, Notion is a great tool for creating internal knowledge bases. It offers features like wikis and knowledge base templates to help you create a centralized workspace with all company information.
Content management
A Content Management System (CMS) enables you to manage and distribute content across online platforms. An effective CMS enables collaborative content editing, offers universal search, auto-generates AI content, and makes content easily accessible to users.
WordPress is a popular CMS that helps you create and publish content. You can classify the content using tags for better searchability. The tool lets you manage images, videos, and other multi-media files. Also, WordPress has a version control feature to restore deleted content pages. All in all, the CMS lets you create, edit, manage, and publish content at scheduled times.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRMs help marketers, customer success, and sales teams to store customer information. With CRMs, you can track the customer lifecycle—from first contact to sales and repeated purchases. CRMs store all these data for teams to access whenever required.
A good example here would be HubSpot. HubSpot combines CRM and knowledge management. It centralizes and stores customer data, tracks interactions, provides visibility into the sales pipeline, maintains detailed customer records, and captures data from social channels and websites.
Additionally, HubSpot offers knowledge management capabilities. It lets you create knowledge bases and integrate them with chats, emails, and other reps-to-customer interaction channels.
Identifying the type of knowledge management tool you need isn’t enough. Certain other factors are also important. This brings us to the next section.
Factors to Look for When Choosing a Knowledge Management Tool
Here are a few factors to consider when buying a knowledge management tool:
Business needs
Clarify what knowledge management techniques you want to use. Assess your needs, use cases, goals, and the purpose of buying a knowledge management tool. This will ensure you get the right tool that meets your specific needs.
Ease of use
Check if the tool is beginner-friendly. An intuitive tool ensures all users, techies and non-techies alike, can make the most of the tool's capabilities. This makes it easier to adopt the knowledge management tool org-wide quickly.
Scalability and customization
A knowledge management tool that works for a 15-person team might now work for a 100-employee workforce. So, look for a tool that can handle growing volumes of data without slowing down or compromising search quality. Also, ensure it can be tailored to fit your processes and workflows. Security
Choose a knowledge management tool that provides granular access controls. Plus, if you’re looking for an AI-powered knowledge management tool, ensure it uses real-time APIs and does not store sensitive data.
Customer support
Excellent customer support is a must for building a sustainable knowledge management system. Choose software with 24/5 or 24/7 customer support so you can get instant support for training, troubleshooting, or any tech support when needed.
Hassle-free setup
Knowledge management software that takes weeks to set up can be frustrating. So, pick a tool that’s easy to install and requires little to no tech knowledge. The tool must also be ready to use within minutes of implementation.
Powerful search capabilities
Knowledge management systems streamline how you manage company information. They significantly improve how you find the right information at the right time. So, look for tools that fetch personalized and relevant search results in seconds.
Value for money
Look for tools that offer the best features at an affordable price. Check for hidden costs and whether or not the vendor maintains pricing transparency. Also, look for tools with a free trial option so you can try before buying.
Integration capabilities
Look for knowledge management tools that seamlessly collaborate with your existing tech stack. This ensures easy information search across every tool you use. Solid integration capabilities create a unified system that supports easy knowledge sharing and streamlined workflows, whether it is a communication, CRM, or project management platform.
Boost Productivity with the Right Knowledge Management Tool
Drop the plan to get the most popular knowledge management tools. It might not fit your purpose. Instead, consider your company’s goals and knowledge management strategy to find the best tool.
However, if you’re looking for a knowledge management tool that
- centralizes siloed information,
- offers powerful AI search,
- integrates with your tech stack,
- generates AI content, and
- makes knowledge sharing easy,
Try Findr.
Findr AI’s workplace search tool finds relevant information based on keywords and considers user roles and search histories to fetch personalized results.
Findr integrates with your favorite platforms, plus you can request integrations for additional tools. The platform also helps you generate AI-led blogs, summaries, meeting notes, and more so you can focus on more creative tasks.
So, what are you waiting for?
Try Findr and find out if the tool fits your bill.
