Knowledge impacts on the bs and its processes: 1.

Increased emphasize of the know-how of creating value

In the new economy, the knowledge component of products and services has increased dramatically in importance and has become the dominant component of customer value. The shift to knowledge as the primary source of value, makes the new economy led by those who manage knowledge effectively - who create find, and combine knowledge into new products and services faster than their competitors. "Knowledge includes all the valuable concepts and vital know-how that shape a business to be wanted and needed by customers. Companies that are fast to market and demonstrated an ability to move with speed and sustain speed view time and knowledge as assets that are real money in the bank."

2. Transforming enterprises from industrial to knowledge ones which will lead to several changes as follow:
KNOWLEDGE VERSUS INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE
INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE ENTERPRISE

Economies of scale Standardization of work Standardization of workforce

Smaller business units Customization of work Flexible, multi-skilled workforce

Financial capital as scarce resource Human capital as scarce resource Corporate HQ as operational controller Hierarchical pyramid structure Employees seen as expense Internally focused top-down governance Individualistic functional orientation Information based on "need to know" Vertical decision making Emphasis on stability Corporate HQ as advisor & core competency guardian Flat or networked structure Employees seen as investment Both internal and external distributed governance Team orientation, emphasis on cross-functional teams Open & distributed information system Distributed decision making Emphasis on change

Emphasis on vertical leadership

Emphasis on empowered self-leadership

3. The sharing of best practices and the building of consistent processes Management teams often develop what are termed best practices - processes and standards that are to be the target for the work of their teams. In companies with multiple departments, multiple buildings, spread out over cities, states, and countries, there are potentially best practices that are developed for each location. This isn't a truly tragic occurrence and sometimes this type of development of practices work quite well. However, there is a cost associated with duplication of effort when best practices are not shared. This cost can be associated to the man power that is wasted when recreating what already exists. This cost can be associated with a lack of consistency in how decisions are made, how problems are handled, how employees are managed, etc. Companies that stress consistency in process and decision making are prime candidates for knowledge management. Companies that establish "the company way" require a means to share that way with new employees, employees in remote locations, ... Sharing best practices and building consistent processes are two of the major business impacts of knowledge management. 4. Leveraging lessons learned from past decisions and experiences Making a wrong decision can be costly in terms of dollars and cents. Making the wrong decision more than once compounds the cost and the problem; a cost that potentially could have been avoided if the person making the second decision was able to learn from the first person. The old adage learn from your mistakes is expected in individuals but not as expected within large groups or companies. The same holds true for making the right decision. Common sense tells us that companies want to repeat good business-decision making processes and decisions that have resulted in a positive business impact. The same can be said for experience. Knowledge comes from experience, having been there before, having solved that problem already. Learning from these experiences is expected within individuals when it comes to repeating what works and only making the same mistake once. Learning is not as expected in groups. KM promotes the recording of experiences and making available the experiences such that others can repeat what works while not have to learn from experiencing the same mistakes.

5. The introduction of new business terms such as: CKO with the following job description:
A chief knowledge officer (CKO) is an organizational leader, responsible for ensuring that the organization maximizes the value it achieves through "knowledge". The CKO is responsible for managing intellectual capital and the custodian of Knowledge Management practices in an organization. CKO is not just a relabeling of the title "chief information officer" - the CKO role is much broader. CKOs can help an organization maximize the returns on investment in knowledge (people, processes and intellectual capital), exploit their intangible assets (know-how, patents, customer relationships), repeat successes, share best practices, improve innovation, and avoid knowledge loss after organizational restructuring.

CKO responsibilities include such things as: Collecting relevant data that is useful for the organization as knowledge Developing an overall framework that guides knowledge management Actively promoting the knowledge agenda within and beyond the company Overseeing the development of the knowledge infrastructure Facilitating connections, coordination and communications. Encourage individual learning and innovative thinking Implement reward plans and incentives Determine what technology is needed for the knowledge management effort and implement these technologies. Put processes in place in order to facilitate the creation of organizational learning. Measure the impact of knowledge management on the business.

Another new term :A knowledge management (employee) portal provides 24x7 access to ALL recorded knowledge, information and data about customers, prospects, employees, partners,

Knowledge initiatives have helped many organizations achieve significant bottom line benefits. Examples include:
Faster resolution of customer problems - BP Amocos use of virtual teamworking and videoconferencing allow oil field operative to tap rapidly into vital expertise and has speeded up the solution to critical operation problems Better management of assets - Dow Chemical by focusing on the active management of its patent portfolio has generated over $125 million in revenues from licensing and savings Savings through better dissemination of best practices - Texas Instruments shares best practice between its semiconductor fabrication plants, and has already saved the equivalent of investing in a new plant (over $500 million) Faster revenue growth - Skandia Assurance by developing new measures of intellectual capital and goaling their managers on increasing its value have grown revenues much faster than their industry average More innovative customer solutions - Buckman Laboratories knowledge network, connects the frontline field force with expertise throughout the company, thus helping create innovative solutions to difficult customer problems.