UK firms neglect knowledge management at their peril

UK firms need to realise the importance of efficient knowledge management strategies as ecommerce changes the traditional corporate culture.

Scott Cooper, vice president of Lotus knowledge management products said that online trading reduces the cost of transactions for consumers. As information becomes more easily and widely accessible, companies are losing their traditional place postion of control over the point of sale therefore managing their resources becomes a must.

Cooper said firms need to re-address their focus from purely profit driven transactions and harness a more creative spirit to innovate new business models.

According to Malcolm Mitchell, marketing and operation manager with Xerox, only 12 per cent of a company's collective knowledge was available on a shared network, at any one time.

In his view companies with poor knowledge management skills were losing out in terms of revenue and time to market.

Cooper said UK companies fail to realise what knowledge management entails. "It is not just knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and it is not just about a database of profiles. It is about innovation and application," he said.

He said that many companies were not aware of the wealth of knowledge they already hold, and were constantly "reinventing the wheel" when it came to crisis management.