The Impact of Digital Transformation on Knowledge Management During COVID-19

Technology and digital transformations are increasingly important in today’s world. The COVID-19 pandemic that the entire world has been grappling with for the last year has made this even more so. The speed at which different organisations across various sectors have had to embrace digital transformations has been unprecedented. In some sectors this has been driven by the need to simply survive during this pandemic. However, beyond just responding to crisis, digital transformation, and the use of data to drive it has over the years brought about disruptions which have led to great innovations and progress. In many instances these innovations have not only been driven by digital transformations but by a merging of digital transformations and intelligent/adaptive knowledge management systems that have arisen from it.

Even before the emergence of the pandemic, digital transformations, AI, machine learning techniques and various innovative technologies had started to be used to design intelligent and adaptive knowledge management systems. COVID-19 has greatly accelerated the uptake of these technologies across a wide range of sectors. Organisations that would successfully navigate these times and be ready for the future need their knowledge management systems to be intelligent and highly adaptive. Digital transformations and innovative technologies are increasingly making this possible. In this work in progress paper, we start to explore the impact of digital transformation and innovative technologies on organisations’ knowledge management systems and the changes in the factors that contribute to whether organisations adopt these innovative technologies/digital transformations in times of crisis such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowledge management systems that can respond to inevitable changes that arise in crisis situations such as COVID-19 are invaluable. These systems are positioned to naturally produce actionable intelligence resulting in competitive advantage.