Chandan Banerjee

Los Angeles, 19th June 2008.

Why would it be not only important but crucial for the datacenter manager to have some kind of a central knowledge management in place.

When we look at things from the management perspective we do count for three factors People, Process and Technology. As a industry practice enterprises have requirements to have processes documented and published. Technology is changing frequently hence it comes with documentation mostly of the people try to keep up with it which it changes again. A never ending loop there. Between these three important factors there is another silent factor which is counted as the competency for the people factor is the skill set and the knowledge factor. Out of the people factor we can fairly quickly replace the skill factor but not the knowledge factor. Replacing knowledge factor as another variable which is time. PMOs do record the knowledge as lesson learned and history.

Out Operation side of the floor in the enterprise lacks this piece some groups may be found recording those knowledge for their ease of operation management but then that information is isolated in their own silos. A central knowledge management tool is not only good to capture the knowledge for the fear of losing people but it will reduce the support time exponentially.

Most of the companies want to share the information among their customers and the employees so that it can enhance the experience of both of its customers and employees by giving them access to the important information related to their interests. Knowledge base software offers a wide range of solutions to this problem. The benefits of knowledge base software are many but its benefits to you and your business are limited only by the use you make of knowledge management. Knowledge Base system provides you with the opportunity to maximize these benefits. Some of the general benefits that you or business can get from this knowledge base software can be enlisted as follows;

Around the Clock Online Support

Knowledge base software can answer the questions of the customers even if the support officers are not there to answer, a professionally administered knowledge base can cater the needs of the customer on 24/7 basis. Since the knowledge base software is a collection of information and frequently asked questions about your organization’s products and services so it can replace the traditional FAQs method provided you have established a very nice set of FAQ-answers in your knowledge base Software and your web site is up and running.

Reduce Support Time

A professionally managed Knowledge base software system helps to reduce response time in customer support and quickly provide answers to the frequently asked questions by your customer, with the most time-saving facility.

Improve Customer Service

A good customer support service is like a life line for any organization. You can bring a lot of people to your business but if the previous customer do not return to give you business due to your bad customer services, it means that your business will not be profitable for the long. Knowledge base software provides you with an excellent alternative of tradition customer support system. Knowledge base software is an intelligent system which can instantly and accurately answer repetitive customer questions on a 24/7 basis. Knowledge base software can be designed to learn and grow your customer services and sales experiences. In cases where a question cannot be answered, Knowledge Base Software will make it easy for the customer to contact you by email and will also record the question so you can use the information to improve the system.

Increased Customers Trust

When a professionally maintain knowledge base satisfactorily answers to the questions of the customers, they becomes more confident about your services and trust you more. This also develops a sense of satisfaction in the customers and there are high chances of them to return to give you more business.

Save Time and Money

Knowledge base software systems help in cutting down the support cost of any organization. Knowledge base software saves an organization’s time and money as more visitors can find the answer to their questions quickly on company’s web site. All major hosting and large corporations like Microsoft, Yahoo and Google use Knowledge base for providing support.

Benefits for Customer Support Help Desks

Knowledge base CRM system also contributes to enhance capacity of IT Help Desk fulfills customer’s and staff requests on 24/7 basis and make use of knowledge base to avert the inbound calls and emails. Proactively communicate requests, system changes and instructions via multiple channels within the automated Knowledge base Campaign workflow, including email, SMS text messaging, phone and print.

Benefits for Call Centers

Call centers are also rapidly adopting knowledge Base systems. By implementing self-help to customers and a search engine on a call center the typical call center can expect to gain significant efficiency and cost savings. Knowledge Base software helps in improving the rate of first call contact resolution, accuracy of provided information, reduced call durations, decreased training time for new comers and dynamic FAQs for fast access to the common solution.

Benefits for Enterprises

Most of the enterprises use the Knowledge Base Software for management the information and data related to their employees and their customers. Most of the enterprises emphasize on the importance of a Knowledge Base Software which really helps them enhancing the customer experience and satisfaction level. By using Knowledge Base Software they can set sophisticated privilege levels for data access. Users can access Knowledge Base Administrators to get answers to their queries.

The lifecycle of project can be broken down into five distinct phases or process groups. These five PMBOK Process Groups describe and organize the project from start to finish. In this article, we will take a high level look at each of these process groups and how they relate and depend on each other to guide the project to a successful end. It is important to note that these process groups are not the sub-components that make up the project but of the project lifecycle.
Initiating
The Initiating phase of the project lifecycle is where the project gets defined and authorized by management. The inputs to this phase are usually a statement of work or a contract given to you by the project sponsor. Other inputs are the environmental factors of your organization such as policies, procedures, and cultures to name a few. The output of the Initiating process is a Project Charter and a Preliminary Project Scope Statement.
Planning
As you’ve probably guessed, the inputs to the Planning Process is the Project Charter and the Preliminary Project Scope Statement that were the outputs of the Initiating Process. The purpose of the Planning Process is to refine the project objectives and then plan the steps necessary to achieve those objectives within the project scope that was given. The output of the Planning Process is the Project Management Plan.
Executing
The Executing Process Group takes the Project Management Plan as input. It is here that people and other resources are combined with the Project Management Plan to carry out, or execute, the plan for the project. As you can imagine, the outputs of this process are the project deliverables, any changes such as change requests, preventive actions, defect repairs, and performance information about how the project plan performed.
Monitoring and Controlling
Throughout the project there is a need to control change and monitor that the project is on time and on budget while still producing a quality deliverable. The Monitoring and Controlling Process group is where these actions take place. It is here that project change requests get approved or rejected, that defect repairs are approved, and that any updates to the Project Scope and Project Management Plan are reviewed and approved. This is the process group that is ultimately responsible for approving the final deliverables of the project.
Closing
After all the deliverables of the project are created, the closing process group still has to close the overall project and provide the deliverables to the customer. The inputs to this process group are the administrative and contract closeout procedures. You may have had an internal or external vendor that supplied part of the deliverables that needs to get paid. You may have a asset management systems that you now need to update with the new product. You may have other procedures and accounts that need to be updated. It is here that formal acceptance of the product or service is obtained from the customer and a orderly close to the project occurs.