Knowledge Management

Whether in customer relationship management or innovation management, in personnel or organizational development, in software or product development, knowledge is increasingly coming to the fore in everyday business. Competitiveness increasingly stands and falls with the edge in knowledge that employees in one's own company have over other companies.

Management is therefore shifting from the traditional management of material and financial assets to the management of human skills, knowledge resources and the intellectual assets of the organization. Systematic coordination of knowledge is therefore necessary.

Knowledge management encompasses four major areas:

•     Knowledge communication
•     Knowledge representation
•     Knowledge utilization and
•     knowledge generation.

Knowledge management is a cross-disciplinary theory and cross-departmental practice. People, organization and technology must be understood and considered in their interaction in order to practice successful knowledge management.