Knowledge Management System in the Enterprise and Customer Knowledge Management

Abstract

Modern enterprises need to constantly develop their competences to meet market requirements. The development of these competences through the application of knowledge management (KM) and research and development works is insufficient. That is why companies are looking for new competences in their environment, among their suppliers, competitors, research institutions or universities. A still underestimated source of knowledge is the client. While the institutional client can often provide the company with access to important and valuable knowledge resources, the individual customer knowledge is often ignored in assessing the requirements for products or services. Classic Knowledge Management (KM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems collect information about the client and probably elementary knowledge from the client, but usually do not directly involve the client’s potential in the creation of new knowledge. A Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) system adequately fills this gap. The aim of the CKM is to optimize the exchange of knowledge between the company and its institutional and individual clients, and to use their creative potential. In this study, the CKM is defined as the activity consisting in planning, organizing and controlling projects in relation to the knowledge and innovative potential of the client. It is aimed at acquiring and developing customer knowledge by combining it with the knowledge of the company, and also creating new knowledge together with the client for the improvement of the company’s activity and creation of innovative solutions, products and services. The implementation of a CKM in an enterprise requires a specialized adaptation of the knowledge management system (KMS). Here, the KMS is defined as a set of principles, methods, means, knowledge (including information), people and their interrelationship networks, which allows to adopt and implement knowledge management strategies, functions and tasks in order to achieve the organization’s goals. Based on this definition, the KMS components were characterized, i.e.: people, a network of relationships, knowledge resources, instruments and methods as well as knowledge management principles. Next, the principles of choosing the CKM implementation style were discussed depending on the adopted strategy of personalization or codification. It has been established that prosumerism and/or communities of creation should be used in a KMS based on the codification strategy. In a KMS based on personalization strategy - team-based co-learning, mutual innovation and/or joint intellectual property. The CKM focuses on the processes of: 1) acquiring knowledge about the client, 2) acquiring knowledge from the client, 3) transferring knowledge to the client (sharing knowledge, disseminating knowledge and/or sharing knowledge with the client), 4) co-creating knowledge with the client. In relation to these processes, some useful ways of their implementation have been discussed, including the level of suitability of the CRM system.