Knowledge Management and Business Strategies

KM is a newly emerging, interdisciplinary business model dealing with all aspects of knowledge within the context of the firm, including knowledge creation, codification, sharing, and how these activities promote learning and innovation. In today's information-driven economy, companies uncover the most opportunities, and ultimately derive the most value, from intellectual rather than physical assets. To get the most value from a company's intellectual assets, KM practitioners maintain that knowledge must be shared and serve as the foundation for collaboration. The ideal organization is one where people exchange knowledge across functional areas of the business by using technology and established processes. The exchange may be for policy formulation and strategy, for training and development, or for problem solving in teams. KM is the process of capturing and making use of a company's collective expertise anywhere in the business. In contrast, intellectual capital is a company's collective brainpower, a composite of experience, knowledge, information, and intellectual property. Knowledge management is not one single discipline, but an integration of numerous methods, practices, and technologies. The pace of change in the business world has accelerated dramatically during the past decade. Globalization and geographic dispersion changed the organization's scope while downsizing and reengineering resulted in staff attrition and knowledge drain from companies. Networking and data communications made it easier and faster to share knowledge and the increasing dominance of knowledge as a basis for improving efficiency and effectiveness triggered many companies to find the means for utilizing the knowledge they have gained from previous experience.