Mercadeo global y local

It is very important to understand the relationship between talent management and knowledge management in an organisation. One could ask whether talent management is more than knowledge management and the answer to this is a definite no. Talent management is one of the functions of human resource management and can be considered as one of the subsets of knowledge management. Much as talent management is a way of life in an organisation, knowledge management is basically a culture that is all encompassing. Talent management complements knowledge management in organisations.

Knowledge management is defined as a process of enhancing organisational performance by devising and implementing tools, processes, systems, structures and cultures, to improve the creation, sharing and use of knowledge for the benefit of the employees and the company. Also, knowledge management is referred to as the strategic effort by an organisation to gain and utilise knowledge within the organisation to achieve the organisation’s intended mission. 191 This definition explains it all as knowledge management looks across an organisation to make

better decisions.

While talent management only looks at the process of attracting, motivating and developing the employees within an organisation so that they will become more productive and contribute effectively to meeting the current and future needs of the organisation192_{. Talent management} is a human resource management concept but knowledge management cuts across functions in an organisation. The contribution of knowledge management to an organisation is influenced by the successful management of the people who have vital knowledge in that particular organisation.193

Knowledge management is a broad approach that applies to every area of an enterprise and by its nature talent management coexists with it. In essence talent management is part of knowledge management because the systems, procedures and people fall within the ambit of knowledge management. For example, when the attraction of talent through the recruitment process uses the system which is part of knowledge management, then the online application and assessment will form part of the knowledge management system in an organisation. All these HR information systems form part of the HR data analytics decision-making systems that support the organisation in terms decision-making. The management of talent is just one of the HR management functions. There are other HR functions that fall within knowledge management. These are performance management, reward management, employee engagement and HR operations. All these HR streams form part of the organisation information systems that feed into knowledge management systems for decision-making in an organisation. Apart from the support of Knowledge management in the HR space, it also looks at the organisation in general with regards to procedures, processes and systems in order to meet the strategic agenda of the organisation. This cuts across the organisation, ranging from the systems interfaces with the clients or customers to the internal systems which result in data mining for decision-making. An organisation can have a talent management system in place but if there is no knowledge management, the strategic initiatives of the organisation may not be met. However, meeting organisation strategic agenda is more than developing talent. For an organisation to have a competitive edge and build strategic capability in knowledge, at least four components are needed and that it is knowledge systems, networks, knowledge workers

192 _{Bano H, 2011. Schematising talent management, a core business issue.}

and a learning organisation. 194

Talent management in a number of organisations only focuses on a small group of people and the main culprits are human resource practioners who usually limit the programme only to the top talent or executive leadership talent. The main reason for a limited approach to talent management is that a good number of human resource practitioners do not understand what knowledge management is. For talent management to contribute fully to knowledge management, human resource practitioners need to have an appreciation of knowledge management.

As Tansley also mentioned, talent management schemes usually do not consider those in low skilled roles and they miss certain demographics, such as older workers who have organisational memory and expertise in their roles.195 _{To put things into better context, one of} the participants who participated in the focus group conducted by Whelan and Carcary, put it as follows:

“Every employee creates useful knowledge at one time or another. We don’t have a problem generating new ideas. I think if we mandated knowledge creation to a small number of employees who we think are talented [...] this could even have a negative impact. The rest of the workforce might think that creativity is not part of their job. OK, some people are better at coming up with innovative ideas [...] but our problem is not creating knowledge, it’s trying to figure out what ideas to go with at what times”

In this knowledge economy an organisation needs well integrated systems to be able to respond to the competition and make well informed decision using the available systems. For example, in the banking or telecommunications sectors there can be talented people but if the systems are not integrated, nothing can be achieved. Organisations are now investing in artificial intelligence and advanced data mining tools to manage businesses. Knowledge management is the only way for an organisation to survive. If the organisation understands talent and talent management and further applies the practices in an organisation, the benefits are huge. The creativity which might flow from the development of talent can only be realised and appreciated if there is a conducive environment which is supportive of functional knowledge

194 _{Prusak L, 1997. Knowledge in Organisation.}

management. 196