Effective knowledge management (KM) practices are vital for business capture, including winning new business opportunities and driving organizational growth. In Panopto’s 2018 Workplace Knowledge and Productivity Report, inefficient knowledge sharing was found to cost businesses with approximately 18,000 employees a loss of $47 million.
KM approaches often focus on systems, databases, and technology rather than the human element, which drives innovation and strategic success. A study published in 2024 in the Journal of the Knowledge Economy found that KM has a positive relationship on the financial performance of an organization. A human-centric approach to KM enhances business capture efforts while strengthening your reputation as a leader, positioning you for career advancement.
Human-centric KM prioritizes the people within an organization over technology like artificial intelligence, but it doesn’t ignore how technology can use their expertise, collaboration, and ability to share knowledge effectively. Unlike rigid, technology-heavy KM systems, a human-centric approach focuses on:
- Creating an environment where employees willingly share insights, lessons learned, and best practices.
- Building a culture of learning: Emphasizing continuous education, mentorship, and professional development.
- Strengthening relationships across teams and departments to leverage collective intelligence.
- Seeking the experience-based knowledge employees hold but may not document.
When done correctly, these practices improve decision-making, enhance agility in business capture efforts, and reinforce leadership capabilities. Business capture requires a deep understanding of client needs, competitive intelligence, and strategic positioning. Human-centric KM supports these objectives by:
Inspiring Cross-Functional Collaboration
Knowledge sharing across departments is essential for successful business capture since no single person or team knows everything. Collaboration with those not directly doing the work can open venues for innovative thinking. The various departmental teams must collaborate to develop winning proposals, ensuring everyone is working with the same knowledge and information. Leaders who promote open communication channels and knowledge exchange across functions create an environment where:
- Subject-matter experts provide critical insights through the capture phases leading to proposal development.
- Lessons learned from past events enlighten teams on better processes for doing business.
Demonstrating these leadership capabilities and strategic foresight strengthens your credibility and visibility within the organization.
Develop a Knowledge Sharing Culture
Many business capture efforts fail due to siloed information and limited access to experiences discovered outside of resume reviews. When you establish a culture that values knowledge sharing while showing disdain for knowledge hoarding:
- Business development teams can quickly access organizational winning and losing previous proposals, learning from customer feedback and winning strategies.
- Documenting lessons learned from past successes and failures supports process improvement efforts.
- Team members learn from one another’s expertise, decreasing unnecessary efforts and increasing efficiency.
As a leader, supporting this positive knowledge sharing culture positions you as a team player who drives innovation and efficiency.
Use Tacit Knowledge for Competitive Advantage
Using your tacit knowledge, or knowledge gained through lived experiences, is necessary for business capture. You show that you are trustworthy to both the organization and the team. Encouraging knowledge-sharing sessions allows organizations to:
- Tap into the wisdom of experienced employees who understand client pain points.
- Share lessons learned, both positive and negative, so others can understand what you learned and how to use your experiences to mitigate risks.
- Identify personnel in your organization who may have prior experience on similar work or with the organizations you may be able to team with to win bids.
- Identify personnel in your organization who may have worked in the organizations you are trying to win business from and who can provide insight into how work gets completed at that competition’s organization.
By recognizing and resourcing tacit knowledge, you reinforce your leadership skills and readiness for promotion by not limiting your thinking to written documentation.
Recognizing the Importance of Mentorship
A human-centric KM strategy includes mentorship programs that facilitate knowledge transfer between employees, which will not only benefit the organization but also increase your leadership standing by:
- Demonstrating your commitment to professionally developing others.
- Expanding your influence and experience across teams and functions.
- Positioning yourself as a thought leader, trusted advisor, and mentor.
By actively participating in or leading mentorship initiatives, you increase your visibility as a champion of knowledge-driven success, which puts you in the running for future promotions.
Strengthening Your Leadership Profile
Business capture requires a group effort with a confident leader at the helm to ensure success. A human-centric approach to KM helps you gain visibility of strong leadership by showing:
- Leaders prioritize knowledge sharing and collaboration by supporting problem-solving, decision-making, and innovation.
- Enhanced credibility by building strong professional relationships through mentorship, coaching, and active listening of everyone they interact with rather than just a chosen few.
- Proactive problem-solving leverages insights from diverse perspectives to mitigate risks and identify effective strategies.
- Being seen as a knowledge sharer within your organization increases your authority, reliability, and trust as a leader.
To make human-centric KM a core part of your business capture strategy, consider:
- Encouraging storytelling by having personnel share their experiences and insights informally through lunch and learn events, employee resource groups, or communities of practice.
- Teaming experienced employees with newer team members to facilitate real-time knowledge exchange.
- Developing an internal knowledge repository centralized and accessible to personnel doing the work.
- Encouraging participation by publicly acknowledging those who share their expertise and contribute to business capture success.
Whether aiming for a promotion or seeking a lasting impact in your organization, prioritizing human-centric KM when conducting business capture will set you apart as a leader who drives business success and professional growth.