| How to handle knowledge is one of the major challenges for today's management. In fact, the success of one enterprise mainly depends on how well they master this challenge. Knowledge Management is rapidly becoming a core business - a factor that plays a decisive role throughout the value chain. Individuals and companies that manage knowledge effectively - whether it is knowledge about customers, processes, markets or structures - will be the main actors on the global stage. Where people work and what they have in assets no longer are decisive. Traditionally, three production factors - property, capital and labor - determined the entrepreneurial potential of every company.With increasing globalization, breathtaking advances in information and communication technologies, and the spread of services and E-Business, property has faded into the background as a critical success factor. It no longer matters where a company has its headquarters or where its people work.Today, business goes where the know-how is and where there are favorable conditions. Knowledge Management opens up infinite opportunities to companies that can quickly adapt their strategies, processes, products and systems. Those that don't or can't quickly focus on Knowledge Management will ultimately fail in an increasingly brutal competitive arena. The fact is, tailored customer solutions can be created only by people who know their customer's specific problems and needs. And by people who know what resources are available in their company, and where they are. Given the growing complexity of many projects, cross-operation, cross-border, and totally networked teamwork is becoming the key success factor.We can assume that in future more and more companies will commit more and more human and financial resources to the management of knowledge. Capturing, locating and transferring knowledge - and thisusually means factual knowledge will become essential practice in companies of all sizes. The greatest challenge will be to create new knowledge, and this process is not only the most important, it is also the most demanding. Employees can only unfold their creative and intellectual potential within our division-of-labor-based organizational models in an environment that is characterized by openness, freedom of action, cooperation and two-way communication. Without doubt, professional Knowledge Management cannot succeed without proper technical infrastructures. In the past, underestimating the speed with which the culture, values and behavior of employees can change has often led to Knowledge Management strategies that went only part of the way toward meeting expectations. To support the creation of new knowledge, corporate management must show an awareness of their responsibilities, put their trust in the employees and cut them sufficient slack. By becoming actively involved in the development of knowledge in the company, employees can improve their job security as they make themselves indispensable for the future. To encourage them to reveal their know-how, they need to be inspired and supported. Bones systems and assessments, the working environment and further training courses have to be reviewed and new organizational forms need to be implemented in the company to allow employees to give full rein to their powers of innovation. The greatest potential in Knowledge Management lies in the creation of new knowledge. And it is the people in the company who, through their knowledge, create added value. In this respect, the ability to generate new knowledge is a major long-term benefit for the company.The systematic handling of knowledge means sharing existing knowledge, quickly generating new knowledge, and seamlessly exchanging - and using - this knowledge throughout the company. The generation, exchange and management of knowledge have equal ranking. Knowledge Management is not a new fad that will quickly fade. It has fundamental consequences for an organization, its culture and its people. |
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