Capitalising Knowledge: Corporate Knowledge Management Investments

Knowledge is increasingly recognized as the key resource of business. Digital networks provide access to vast amounts of data and information but knowledge management tools and systems are required to translate this in a meaningful way. Knowledge management initiatives are unlikely to be successful unless they are integrated with business strategy, and related to the development of the core capabilities of the organisation. Sharing the discovery and synthesis of intellectual activity involves the creation of knowledge communities of practice. There is much evidence of commercially inspired corporate initiatives in this direction across all industrial sectors: leveraging existing intellectual capital; sharing best practice across multiple locations; data mining to build customer relationships; and creating knowledge networks to allow state–of–the–art solutions in professional services.