Integrating knowledge management (KM) and business intelligence (BI) processes for empowering businesses in fashion industry.

Integrating knowledge management and Business intelligence processes for empowering businesses in fashion industry.
Take me to the closet

We all know the most important centre of the Fashion is the Europe. Paris, Milan, and London are the most recognised fashion hubs in the world. Small and medium sized enterprises rule the fashion industry in Europe, so it is vital for them to have well established systems to store data and extract the knowledge whenever needed in a quick and efficient manner.

Fashion enterprises need strategies to solve business processes issues to make the overall process more efficient eventually to generate more revenue. To formulate successful strategies availability of consumer behaviour, their shopping patterns, trends and both current and historical data will be of great help. That’s when knowledge management and Business intelligence comes in the play.

This blog will serve as an introduction to both Knowledge management and business intelligence and is the tip of the iceberg.


What is knowledge management?

In the words of Tom Davenport, world’s renowned thought leader and author, “Knowledge Management is the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge”.

The main purpose of the Knowledge management process is to improve efficiency in an organisation by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge by retaining the ideas, experience, and information in the right place at the right time to help us make more informed, faster, and eventually more profitable decisions.


types of knowledge management by Tanishq Nagpal


How can Knowledge management system benefit your business?

By reusing information and resources across your organisation. This allows you to:

1.    Form better strategies

2.    Create better products & services

3.    Increase profits

4.    Cut down on the costs

5.    Create benchmarks

6.    Develop a knowledge sharing culture

It’s cleared that we can use KM system to achieve tasks efficiently within an organisation or team, but it can also be used for your customers by providing them a knowledge base to help them with their queries and challenges in real time which eventually leads to happy customers and better ROI (Knowledge Management Systems: The Ultimate Guide, 2021).

Few of the knowledge management systems that you can use for your customers are: 

  1. Tableau’s knowledge base
  2. R studio
  3. Optimizely
  4. Microsoft and, 
  5. Survey Monkey (Knowledge Management Systems: The Ultimate Guide, 2021).

“Knowledge management will never work until corporations realize it’s not about how you capture knowledge but how you create and leverage it.” Etienne Wenger


How to improve Knowledge Management?

To improve knowledge management, you should consider the following:

  1. Flow of Knowledge- It is essential to understand the flow of knowledge within an organisation to have a successful knowledge management.
  2. Goals and KPIs- Goals and KPIs should be clearly defined before implementing KM.
  3. Socialization- A culture of knowledge sharing should be encouraged. Allow team members to share their views and ideas which will eventually create a learning environment.
  4. Generate new knowledge- Knowledge management is not only about retaining the existing knowledge but also to establish processes to manage the stream of new incoming information.
  5. Bring new technologies into play- Technologies can play a huge role in enhancing the KM.

 

What is Business Intelligence (BI) & how you can use it to strengthen your fashion business?

Business Intelligence combines data warehouse, data visualization, business analytics, data mining and data tools to help businesses take more data-driven decisions.

BI is about providing the right data at the right time to the right people so that they can take the right decisions. (Nic Smith)


How it helps you take data driven decisions to run your fashion business smoother and more efficiently?

1.    You can analyse and understand the past data which will allow you to learn a great deal from it and form better strategies

2.    A well implemented business intelligence solution can provide you an overview of the orders volume which you will use to optimize the sales process

3.    By accumulating the data, you can get a great insight about your consumers & their behaviours like What they tend to shop together, their average order size, frequency of their order, which you can leverage to design your marketing strategy

4.     By utilising your consumers data, you can increase your cross selling

5.     Analysts can utilize that data to assess kpis, spot market trends and increase sales.

 

How does BI works?

 

Modern analytics workflow- Take me to the closet

                                                                                  Source

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At first, raw data is collected then it is processes and then stored in data warehouses. After storing that data users can access that data, analyse it to answer vital business questions.

Business intelligence tools and platforms

Dashboards

Reporting is one of the most useful tools of BI. Dashboards applications automatically merges the available data into graphs and charts so that it’s easy to read and analyse, this allows a person from non-technical background to understand trends and derive insights.

Data Visualisations

It’s the most common way to exhibit BI. We tend to absorb data easily when it’s been presented in numbers, patterns and colors variants.

This allows everyone in an organisation to understand data quickly which leads to more conversation around that data, more questions and a knowledge sharing culture.

Few of the top BI service providers include:

  1. Tableau
  2. Microsoft power BI
  3. Google data studio
  4. Einstein Analytics
  5. Birst
  6. Qlik

 

Conclusion

To sum up everything that has been stated so far It is vital to establish knowledge management systems in your organisation to retain the existing knowledge make it available whenever needed with less efforts to both team members and customers.

Haimila (2001) sees Knowledge management as the “Helping of Business Intelligence”

On the other hand, Business intelligence combines business analytics, data visualization, data mining and data warehouses and allows us to take more data driven decisions eventually to make business processes efficient and increase sales.

The need to set up Knowledge management and Business Intelligence is essential for any organisation.

 

Be sure to check out our Amazing blogs that will help you stay updated with the trends & boost your clothing business.

Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook to get our blogs and industry updates. See you there :)


Keywords:

"Knowledge Management"

"Business Intelligence"

"Knowledge management system"

"Business intelligence tools"

Tags:

#knowledgemanagement #businessintelligence #BI #KM #businessintelligencetools #knowledgemanagementsystems


Tanishq Nagpal
                     
Author: Tanishq Nagpal                                                          

                             Publishing Date: 23rd June, 2021

 

 



References:

Frederik (no date) ‘Business Intelligence for the fashion industry – 6 ways you can strengthen your fashion business through Business Intelligence’, InfoSuite. Available at: https://infosuite.com/blog/bi-for-fashion-6-benefits/ (Accessed: 15 June 2021).

HubSpot (no date) Knowledge Management Systems: The Ultimate Guide. Available at: https://www.hubspot.com/knowledge-management-systems (Accessed: 14 June 2021).

‘Do You Know How Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management Interact’ (2015) AlleyWatch, 16 December. Available at: https://www.alleywatch.com/2015/12/connection-business-intelligence-knowledge-management/ (Accessed: 15 June 2021).

7 business benefits of knowledge management | Easygenerator (2019) Create an online course easily | Easygenerator. Available at: https://www.easygenerator.com/en/blog/knowledge-sharing/7-business-benefits-of-knowledge-management/ (Accessed: 14 June 2021).

Advantages and disadvantages of knowledge management | nibusinessinfo.co.uk (no date). Available at: https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and-disadvantages-knowledge-management (Accessed: 14 June 2021).

Knowledge Management (no date). Available at: https://study.dbs.ie/2021/hdip-dm/dataanalytics/da.u1/story.html (Accessed: 14 June 2021).

Our Blog | KMInstitute (no date). Available at: https://www.kminstitute.org/blog (Accessed: 13 June 2021).

What is business intelligence? Your guide to BI and why it matters (no date) Tableau. Available at: https://www.tableau.com/learn/articles/business-intelligence (Accessed: 15 June 2021).

What is KM? Knowledge Management Explained (no date). Available at: https://www.kmworld.com/About/What_is_Knowledge_Management (Accessed: 13 June 2021).

Herschel, R. T. (no date) ‘KM & Business Intelligence: The importance of integration’, p. 21.


Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. It fascinates me how much data driven knowledge can help fashion brands improve business returns. The new age business keeps customer at the center of marketing strategies which has made customer engagement/experience as a vital part of performance indicators.

    Fashion marketers have acknowledged the importance of data, now they need to enhance business decisions by learning how to use that data for optimum performance. The business intelligence and analytics tools is a 17.5k million dollar industry (BI & analytics software market value worldwide 2019-2024 | Statista, 2021), which alone speaks for its importance.

    Data mining, collection, categorization, visualization and interpretation is made easier using Knowledge Management & Business Intelligence tactics. Fashion brands can now make holistic reports leading to informed marketing strategies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well Explained, Fashion businesses require methods to address business process challenges in order to improve overall efficiency and, ultimately, earn more income. The availability of customer behaviour, buying habits, trends, and both recent and future data will be extremely beneficial in developing effective tactics. This is where strategic planning and data analytics come in.
    The fundamental goal of the knowledge management process is to enhance organizational efficiency to reduce the need to equipment needed by storing ideas, knowledge, and information in the right spot at the right time to help us make better informed, quicker, and ultimately more lucrative decisions.
    Business intelligence (BI) integrates database system, visual analytics, business intelligence, data gathering, and data tools to assist organizations in making more information choices.

    ReplyDelete

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