A new strategy for harnessing knowledge management in e-commerce

Knowledge management has become increasingly critical for the success of companies in this emerging era of e-commerce. As business activities increasingly shift to the web, the challenge facing corporate management is maintaining competitive advantage by building strong relations with employees, customers, and upstream/downstream suppliers and partners. A good knowledge management strategy can help achieve this goal. Unfortunately, many companies use knowledge management technologies that do not suit today's new information era. Therefore, it is important to understand how companies can successfully implement knowledge management programs that will help them to gain competitive advantage. Most experts agree that the biggest challenges of knowledge management are not technological but human-based or behavioral challenges. This paper addresses these problems by tracing the evolution of knowledge management in e-commerce and identifying strategies that are currently in use. We will demonstrate how companies can benefit by adopting strategies that harness the potential of knowledge management technologies to transform their e-business activities. We define knowledge management; then provide an overview of the driving and impeding forces that help and hinder proper deployment of knowledge management strategies in e-commerce. Then we describe approaches and implementation architectures currently in use by companies who are integrating knowledge management into their e-commerce activities. Finally, we suggest a strategic approach that can overcome the limitations in systems presently in use as well as implications for future knowledge management development. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.