How does Knowledge Management improve the Service Industry?

Abstract: In twenty-first century, the industry competes heavily. Entrepreneurs try to use technology to develop their business. However, using technology generates high costs. So companies need to find a new way to survive by using the existing resources to gain maximum benefit. Knowledge management is one of interesting alternatives as it can deliver competitive advantage such as greater competencies and synergy, more balanced decisions and less errors, more creativity and innovation, broader collaboration and knowledge sharing, and easier links to expertise and deeper understanding. This paper deals with various aspects of knowledge management particularly concentrating on knowledge sharing in service industry. Issues in the context of different data sources and the research with qualitative methodology create the in-depth knowledge to understand how to do knowledge work for gaining competitive advantage. The emphasis is placed on analysis and evaluation of problems and barriers of both cases as applied from all data collection. In the paper, each chapter has the following set-up. Chapter 2 highlights methodology. The qualitative approach has been used to obtain information and provide data analysis. A complete analysis of knowledge management has been developed by using a case study method with secondary data to analyze how service industry uses knowledge management to manage in its sector. Chapter 3 gives theoretical frame of reference. The definitions of knowledge and culture are explained. Problems and barriers of knowledge sharing are also presented. Chapter 4 gives analysis. Conclusion is presented in the final chapter. The findings show that to improve service and customer satisfaction, the industry has to find out and use knowledge management appropriately. Knowledge management helps reducing time to find information and sharing decision making. For the last part, the discussion and recommendation from culture and knowledge affecting knowledge management in the companies has been reported. Because of the time limitation of the study, the paper focuses only on the section of service industry. An area for further study would be using other research methods such as interview to gain more in-depth understanding and survey to increase reliability and validity of this topic.