Innovative Ways Companies Are Using Knowledge Management

Lately, companies are pouring loads of money into data, AI, and digital tools, yet employees still lose hours every week chasing down basic answers, duplicating work, and navigating conflicting information. The real drag on innovation isn’t a lack of technology, but rather the invisible cost of fragmented knowledge and siloed expertise. That’s where a knowledge management structure comes in.

An effective knowledge management system innovates companies by unifying documents, data, and expert insights into a single, governed backbone that everyone can trust. When knowledge is captured once, structured intelligently, and made instantly searchable, it becomes fuel for collaboration, experimentation, and AI-powered automation instead of a hidden liability.

The payoff is tangible: faster decisions, lower operational costs, stronger employee engagement, and consistently better customer experiences across every channel. As this blog explores, companies that harness knowledge management in innovative ways are not just fixing search; they are building a strategic capability for ongoing innovation. Now is the moment to follow their lead and turn your own organizational knowledge into a competitive advantage.

Benefits of Using a Knowledge Management System

Organizations often implement a knowledge management system to solve an immediate problem: they want to make information easier to find and use. But there are a lot of benefits of a knowledge management system that go beyond simply improving information access. They may include:

• Improved efficiency: Employees spend less time searching for information and more time focusing on meaningful work.
• Informed decision-making:Business leaders gain a holistic view of the data and insights they need to make smart decisions.
• Cost savings: Increasing efficiency in searching, reducing the number of systems needed to store knowledge, eliminating the risk of errors due to inaccurate information, and eliminating duplicate work can all translate to cost savings.
• Increased employee engagement: Employees feel more fulfilled when they have the resources and knowledge they need to do their best work.
• A better customer experience: When all employees have a holistic view of customer knowledge, they are able to deliver effortless, consistent customer experiences.
• New opportunities for innovation: Innovation occurs when people synthesize and build on existing knowledge in novel ways–and an effective knowledge management system facilitates this.

6 Ways Companies Use Knowledge Management Innovatively

Knowledge management has become a strategic engine for innovation, not just a way to store documents. By turning fragmented data, expertise, and insights into an accessible, governed knowledge backbone, your company will enable every employee to learn faster and act with confidence. The following six approaches show how modern organizations are using knowledge management to innovate their workflows, systematically turning experience into their competitive advantage.

1: Breaking down knowledge silos

Effective knowledge management removes information siloes by centralizing information, so teams are no longer trapped in department-specific tools, inboxes, or personal folders. When people can see and build on each other’s work, collaboration becomes the default, and duplication of effort drops dramatically. This cross-functional visibility accelerates innovation by bringing insights from sales, product, operations, and support together to address shared problems and opportunities. 

2: Enabling data-driven decision making

Knowledge management connects data, insights, and context so leaders are not making decisions on instinct alone. Curated repositories, clear taxonomies, and governed dashboards ensure teams operate from a single source of truth rather than competing versions of reality. As a result, decisions become faster, more defensible, and more aligned with both customer needs and organizational strategy.

3: Faster idea generation and knowledge search

By making information easy to find, knowledge management removes friction from everyday work and frees time for creative problem-solving. Powerful enterprise search, tagging, and recommendation capabilities help employees surface relevant lessons, experts, and resources in seconds instead of hours. When ideas can be rapidly discovered, combined, and tested, your organization will naturally generate more innovative solutions.

4: Reusing past learnings

Effective knowledge management turns one-off experiences like wins, failures, and experiments into reusable organizational assets. Structured lessons learned, playbooks, and case libraries prevent teams from repeating past mistakes and allow them to replicate proven approaches at scale. This systematic reuse of knowledge compounds over time, lowering risk while steadily improving quality, speed, and customer outcomes.

5: Capturing tacit knowledge with audio and video

Modern knowledge management systems use audio and video to capture subject matter expert (SME) know-how that is hard to express in documents alone. Short recordings, walkthroughs, and interviews preserve nuance such as decision rationales, trade-offs, and practical tips that often disappear when people change roles or leave. When rich tacit knowledge is indexed and searchable, it becomes a living mentorship layer that upskills the entire workforce.

6: Powering AI tools for success

AI-powered tools become truly effective when they are fueled by well-structured, high-quality organizational knowledge. Knowledge management provides the governance, metadata, and content standards that allow AI to deliver accurate answers, smart recommendations, and context-aware automation. For example, Bloomfire uses AI-powered tools to automatically surface the most relevant answers, summarize complex content, and keep knowledge continuously up to date so employees can move faster and make better decisions.

Together, these six practices show that knowledge management is not an internal support task, but a core capability for driving innovation, speed, and strategic clarity. By systematically capturing, connecting, and reusing what your organization knows, you create a durable advantage that compounds with every project, interaction, and decision. When this knowledge backbone is in place, technologies like AI, as well as human expertise, can deliver their full value and keep your company ahead of change, ultimately achieving Enterprise Intelligence.

Organizations Using Knowledge Management Successfully

Organizations across industries have adopted knowledge management to gain a competitive edge through speed, efficiency, and improved customer experiences. Examining how leading companies have integrated knowledge management into their operations reveals its transformative impact—from accelerating employee onboarding to optimizing search and support functions. The following case studies illustrate how centralized knowledge systems are driving innovation, reducing operational friction, and enabling scalable, high-quality service delivery.

How Asure Software Is Delivering Fast-Changing Knowledge

Asure Software uses Bloomfire as a unified internal knowledge hub and crowdsourced Q&A platform to centralize content for its Sales, Services, and Support teams across multiple products and divisions. Team members post questions directly in Bloomfire, allowing subject matter experts from across the organization to respond quickly without long email chains or one-off requests. Marketing and Product teams also publish content into the same system, ensuring that customer-facing staff always have access to the latest messaging, collateral, and product information.

By giving employees a single, searchable repository, Asure reduces repetitive questions to managers and makes staff more self-sufficient in finding answers. This self-guided learning model helps sales and service teams get information faster, improving their responsiveness to clients and prospects. Overall, knowledge management through Bloomfire enhances collaboration, speeds up access to expertise, and increases the effectiveness of revenue-generating and support functions.

How Oak Street Health Cuts Search Time and Boosts NPS

Oak Street Health uses Bloomfire as a centralized knowledge platform, branded “The Trunk,” to bring clinical protocols, training materials, and institutional knowledge into a single, governed repository instead of scattered links and chats. AI-powered search and flexible boards allow staff to find accurate, up-to-date answers in seconds, dramatically reducing time spent hunting through outdated or conflicting content. This ensures frontline teams have clear, consistent guidance, which is critical in a value-based care environment focused on patient outcomes.

The organization embeds governance workflows and cultural practices around contribution so that knowledge stays fresh, trusted, and integrated with daily work. As a result, search time dropped from two minutes to roughly 25 seconds per answer, search accuracy rose to 100%, internal NPS jumped by 116 points, and onboarding became faster and more consistent across locations. During rapid expansion and its acquisition by CVS Health, “The Trunk” scaled smoothly, providing a stable “knowledge north star” that preserved efficiency and quality of care across more than 200 centers.

How Jackson Hewitt’s Employee Onboarding is Overhauled

Jackson Hewitt utilizes a central knowledge hub, branded as “AskJH,” to manage the seasonal onboarding of thousands of tax preparers while keeping them aligned with constantly changing tax laws. The company builds intuitive custom homepages and role-based learning plans so new and experienced employees see targeted, regularly updated content that matches their responsibilities. Daily announcements and interactive widgets keep critical updates visible, encouraging continuous learning and sustained engagement with the knowledge base.

The organization relies on Bloomfire’s group and segmentation features to deliver different content to corporate and franchise offices, ensuring legal and procedural compliance across its distributed network. This structured approach to knowledge management speeds up onboarding, shortens the time to productivity, and helps tax preparers confidently reference “AskJH” in real time while serving clients. Looking ahead, Jackson Hewitt is extending its KM success by adding tools like “Ask AI” and using analytics on user behavior and support tickets to close information gaps and keep the knowledge system continuously improving.

How MGM Enhances Efficiency with Enterprise Search Capabilities

MGM Resorts International uses an enterprise knowledge management platform to unify information across 12 properties and their contact center operations. By replacing a less capable SharePoint site with a centralized, searchable corporate knowledge base, the company enables call center agents to quickly access current information on reservations, VIP services, and member services without pausing conversations or placing guests on hold. This streamlined access reduces pressure on staff and supports MGM’s broader mission of delivering consistent, high-quality guest experiences across all resorts.

The organization utilizes Bloomfire’s powerful enterprise search and intuitive navigation to streamline daily operations and improve workflow for more than 800 customer support agents. Enhanced search capabilities shorten call durations, improve control over handling times, and reduce dependence on supervisors and peers for answers. As a result, MGM reports productivity gains of over $481,000, demonstrating how effective knowledge management directly strengthens operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

How Lessen Streamlined Knowledge Management

Lessen partnered with Bloomfire to build a centralized knowledge hub called “The Source” to consolidate operational processes, client policies, and guides that had previously been scattered across the company. By consolidating content and adding strong enterprise search capabilities, employees can quickly access accurate, up-to-date information during high-pressure client interactions. This centralized, searchable repository streamlines version control, reduces confusion over access, and gives call center agents more confidence when responding to complex questions.

The company leverages Bloomfire’s curation workflows, embedded contact lists, and analytics to keep knowledge current and identify gaps proactively. These features support faster response times, higher customer satisfaction scores, and smoother initiatives such as rebranding and mergers because assets can be updated and aligned quickly across locations. Looking ahead, Lessen is expanding its knowledge management by integrating Bloomfire with other tools and exploring generative AI to anticipate and resolve customer queries in real time.

How Top Credit Unions Optimize Search Functions and Fill Knowledge Gaps

Credit Unions are using a knowledge management platform to dramatically improve how employees find and apply information in daily operations. By replacing a homegrown system with an enterprise-wide knowledge management system that offers robust AI-powered search and full-content indexing, they cut retrieval times that previously could exceed an hour and eliminated heavy reliance on exact document titles. This streamlined access to accurate, updated procedures and resources has improved both employee efficiency and the quality of service delivered to members.​

These organizations use Bloomfire to strengthen content authoring, curation, and visibility, enabling knowledge gaps to be actively identified and filled across the enterprise. Over time, they expanded the platform across dozens of locations and multiple business groups, making it the central repository for institutional knowledge rather than a set of disconnected local systems. As a result, they report yearly improvements in metrics such as call volumes, abandon rates, and annual time savings, indicating that knowledge management is directly contributing to better operational and customer outcomes.

How Dime Is Taking Knowledge Sharing Organization-Wide

Dime Community Bank uses a centralized, secure knowledge management platform to replace scattered, outdated systems for policies and procedures after its 2021 merger. The bank leverages Bloomfire’s powerful search engine, AI indexing, and group-based access controls to ensure employees can quickly find reliable information while maintaining least-privilege security standards essential in a highly regulated industry. Seamless implementation with features like SCIM integration and role-based training further embedded the platform into daily workflows with minimal IT burden.

As a result, employee engagement surged with over 12,000 views and 1,200 contributions in the first 90 days, showing that staff actively use and contribute to the knowledge base. Faster access to accurate information improved decision-making and job performance, yielding an estimated $250,000 in annual cost savings and motivating the bank to migrate its intranet to Bloomfire for even deeper centralization. The organization’s use of effective knowledge management strengthened operational efficiency, security, and collaboration across more than 60 locations and 900 employees.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can organizations overcome employee resistance to adopting a new KM platform?

Organizations overcome resistance to a new KM platform by treating it as a change-management initiative, instead of a software install, with clear leadership sponsorship and early involvement of frontline employees. Role-specific training, hands-on onboarding, and peer champions reduce anxiety and build confidence with the new workflows. Incentives and performance expectations tied to using the KM platform, along with retiring legacy tools on a realistic timeline, reinforce the new behaviors until they become the norm.

What are the best practices for designing a knowledge management taxonomy that remains intuitive and scalable as the organization grows?

​Designing an intuitive, scalable KM taxonomy starts with user research. Analyze real queries, content types, and business processes, then define clear, business-friendly categories and naming conventions that reflect how people actually think and work. Limit the number of top-level categories, use consistent metadata, and model relationships so content remains easy to browse and filter, even as volume grows. Establish taxonomy governance with defined owners, change processes, and review cycles so the structure evolves with new products, functions, and regulations without devolving into chaos.

What role does AI-powered search and discovery play in reducing information overload and improving knowledge retrieval in large organizations?

AI-powered search and discovery reduces information overload by using semantic understanding and natural language processing to interpret user intent, retrieve relevant content, and filter out noise. Features like federated search, personalization, and conversational Q&A help employees get direct answers rather than long result lists, dramatically reducing time spent hunting for information. Advanced approaches such as retrieval-augmented generation and knowledge graph integration synthesize insights from disparate sources, turning the KM system into an active decision-support layer rather than a passive document warehouse.

How can organizations foster a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration, especially in environments where knowledge hoarding is prevalent?

To foster a culture of knowledge sharing, organizations must explicitly reward sharing through recognition, career advancement signals, and performance metrics, while removing incentives that celebrate solo heroes and opaque expertise. Leaders and managers model the desired behavior by openly documenting their own knowledge, recognizing contributors publicly, and creating psychologically safe spaces where questions and mistakes are treated as learning opportunities. Structured mechanisms such as communities of practice, mentoring, onboarding programs, and easy-to-use KM tools make sharing the path of least resistance and gradually displace knowledge hoarding norms.

What are the key considerations for ensuring data security and compliance in a KM system?

Securing a KM system requires a layered approach that combines strong identity and access management, role-based permissions, encryption in transit and at rest, and centralized key management with robust logging. Organizations must align KM data handling with regulations and internal policies by classifying information, applying appropriate retention rules, and enforcing audit trails and review workflows for sensitive content. Clear security governance—defining ownership, incident response, monitoring, and continuous control review—ensures the KM platform supports compliance obligations without undermining usability or knowledge sharing.​

Innovate your Company with Knowledge Management

Knowledge management has evolved into a critical tool for any organization that wants to innovate continuously, scale efficiently, and deliver consistently excellent experiences to customers and employees alike. When knowledge is easy to find, trusted, and enriched with context, every team can move faster and spend more time solving meaningful problems instead of hunting for information.

At the same time, the most successful organizations pair their technology investments with intentional culture and governance, treating knowledge sharing as a core behavior rather than an optional extra. By combining robust platforms, AI-powered search, and clear security and taxonomy practices, they build a durable “knowledge backbone.” This supports compliance, accelerates change, and keeps innovation compounding year after year.  

For leaders ready to modernize how their organizations learn and operate, now is the moment for innovation and knowledge management from a support function to a strategic pillar of Enterprise Intelligence.

Innovate with Knowledge Management

Explore our demo to see how this knowledge management platform is right for you.

https://bloomfire.com/demo-bloomfire/

This post was first published in June 2017. It was most recently updated and expanded with new customer stories and fresh content in December 2025.

About the Author

Betsy Anderson

Betsy leads the customer success and implementation teams at Bloomfire and is a Certified Knowledge Manager (CKM) from KM Institute. Passionate about the people side of knowledge engagement and knowledge sharing, she brings real-world experience in tackling the challenges companies face with knowledge management.