Improving the feedback loop between the knowledge business and the core business

Knowledge management (KM) and process orientation (PO) constitute two important parts of developing an organisation, being the knowledge business part and the core process part. In order to stay competitive and to increase the customer value of their products, organisations must maintain close links between these two parts. This can be made by establishing a feedback loop, and this loop must be bi-directed. Knowledge and KM concepts must be introduced in organisations, but the way of working in organisations must also affect the knowledge residing in them. This paper analyses one approach taken to relate the core business and the knowledge business, and identifies where improvements can be made to ensure the bi-directional nature of the feedback loop. The use of data warehouse technology is suggested as an enabler of business process evolvement, since the feedback loop between the business processes and the KM application data warehouse may be seen as a subset of activities in the feedback loop between the core business and the knowledge business.