E-Business

KM is an evolving concept. It deals with tacit and explicit knowledge. Customer relationship, supply chain, performance monitoring, ‘what if’ analysis and innovations management are the applications of KM. The KM framework includes four entities namely, users, applications, analytical tools and data sources. A structured approach should be adopted for the implementation of KM. Data warehousing is a core technology for KM while OLAP is an enabling technology. Data warehousing facilitates the effective storage of data and OLAP helps in analyzing huge volumes of data.

While discussing KM one should be clear about the definitions of data, information, and knowledge. An information warehouse is the layer sandwiched between back-end data sources and front-end knowledge generation tools. It is not adequate to capture and store the knowledge, it should also be shared. Disseminating knowledge includes knowledge synthesis, communication and triggering knowledge events. Knowledge is valuable only when it is enhanced from time to time.