Customers, knowledge management, and intellectual capital

A modern business is a knowledge business. What it can do depends on what it knows, the preponderance of which resides in the skills of employees, their experiences, insights and intuitions, and their relationships. Knowledge management has therefore increasingly recognized workers as important contributors to the intellectual capital of businesses. Customers, too, can add to what companies know, but to learn from them, businesses must listen attentively to what they have to say. Unfortunately, an increasing reliance on technology impedes conversations between companies and those they serve to the detriment of both. By expanding the scope of its knowledge management effort to include its customers, however, a company can gain new knowledge to bolster its service, improve its operation, and accelerate its innovation. Much of what has been learned about gathering knowledge in the workplace can facilitate this undertaking.