Shetty summarised the steps to effective deployment of knowledge management as: Identify opportunity and define value propositions; define appropriate community enablers such as people, processes, techniques, content, performance management, and goals; define required community functionality; identify pilots and build workplan; analyse current state of enablers, and identify and build appropriate solutions.

Warning against complacency in putting knowledge management systems in place, Shetty said: ``Knowledge managementsystems are ever-growing, and continuously evolving. This is an on-going process as the tools are still maturing.''

However, he warned companies to watch out for the pitfalls. The most-common barriers to effective knowledge management systems are: unwilling employees (49 per cent); lack of performance matrices (31); complexity of the system used; lack of a common language in the organisation (13) and technological barriers (8).

Shetty also identified three key challenges to establishing a knowledge-led organisation. One, how to find experts within the organisation. Two, how to develop a framework which would facilitate knowledge-sharing. And three, how to access information by developing a digital feedback loop with customers and employees.

Knowledge management thus really envisions connecting the right people with the right information. By accessing the knowledge bank that is already present, and by expanding that bank through familiar business tools, an organisation can maximise returns from existingand future infrastructure. But then, as Shetty pointed out, strategies that help collaboration and facilitate information-sharing are a key issue.

The three types of intellectual knowledge that need to be tapped are: tacit, ie people-to-people; explicit; and potential that is, processed information. An organisation, recommends Shetty, essentially needs to have the ability to search, deliver and track these three knowledge founts continuously. So if so far, you were running a learning corporation, wisen up: and get ready to manage a knowledge corpus.