A Knowledge Strategy

This will only happen if:
• individuals are motivated to contribute to organisational knowledge creation
and sharing through a rewards system;
• support and learning are provided by senior management;
• the individual and organisation recognises the benefits.
Knowledge has not merely assumed greater influence. It plays a central role in the
future success of the DBSA. The incremental and pragmatic approach that has
been formulated will ensure that knowledge management contributes to achieving
the goals set by the Bank.
1.2 Knowledge and the Bank
A strong linkage exists between knowledge management and business
performance. The DBSA has always recognised that socio-economic development
is as much about imparting knowledge as it is about the application of resources
committed to ensuring sustainable development outcomes. In the recent past,
however, the Bank’s operating environment has become significantly more
competitive and challenging, and the role of knowledge increasingly critical to its
effectiveness, if not its continued survival. In theory, critical organisational success
has depended on the focused application of knowledge to two areas: innovation of
customer-orientated processes, products and services; and, the promotion of
organisational efficiency and effectiveness.
To achieve innovation the Bank must be a learning organisation, accumulating
knowledge and deploying it into products, services and processes. The Bank also
has to be a knowledge-sharing organisation, which will enable it to increase internal
synergy and enhance partnerships with its clients, stakeholders and other external
role-players. Increasing success at pursuing these goals in future will be a key
determinant of the DBSA’s impact as development financier, facilitator and catalyst.
1.3 Knowledge in practice
Knowledge is an acquired human or institutional capacity derived from
experience and learning. It is formed and shared by individuals or by groups
assembled in formal or informal structures having a shared purpose such as
clusters, units, teams or discussion groups. Knowledge is internalised learning,
whether it is internalised in individuals or institutionalised in organisations. It is
deployed in various forms, such as in decision-making processes, in operating
processes that facilitate organisational goals, or in products that meet client needs.
Knowledge in itself is worthless. It requires a willingness and capacity to put
it to effective use. An organisational culture must emerge that provides incentives
for generating and using knowledge and must be combined with appropriate
institutional architecture and processes.
Knowledge management consists of three component processes:
• the creation of knowledge – the assembly, analysis and synthesis of all types of
information and data, and the development of new insights that can
strengthen the organisation’s activities, processes or outputs;
2 Development Bank of Southern Africa