A business strategy approach to managing experiences

Abstract

The benefits of implementing knowledge management (KM) applications have been touted in both the research and practitioner literature: leverage core business competences, accelerate innovation and time-to-market, improve cycle times, improve descision-making, strenghten organizational commitement, and build sustainable differentiation. Although the literature is filled with such claims very little has been explicated in terms of developing clear roadmaps for KM implementations that are aligned with the organization's business strategy. In general, many organizations' KM strategy is a result of the efforts of a "champion" who seeks to gain support for flag-bearing KM applications, with the hope that the successful acceptance of such initiatives, will lead to continuing efforts in that area. The purpose of this paper is to postulate a concepptual framework that could be used to align an organization's knowledge management strategy with its business strategy, and thus offer guidance to all type of organizations as to which is an adequate KM strategy to follow. Once organizations understand their knowledge resources and capabillities, they can design a KM strategy that will help them exploit their competitive edge.