A number of surveys have been undertaken which put knowledge manage- ment into perspective. The Industrial Society claim that 87% of companies believe they are in a knowledge-based business, and point out that Skandia AFS publish an intellectual capital balance sheet in their annual report. Simi- larly, Dow Chemical have generated $125 million in revenue from intellectual property, and Ernst & Young in the US attribute one-quarter of the annual performance review on their employees' contribution to the knowledge pro- cess. Buckman Labs, the US multinational, measures 1200 employees' contri- bution to knowledge they create and knowledge they share with others.
According to a study by Ernst & Young, 96% of UK companies surveyed felt that customer knowledge was the most important asset for maintainingcompetitiveness, closely followed by knowledge of best practice through bench- marking, corporate competencies and capabilities, the products and services themselves, and finally market trends. Some 33% of the respondents claimed to be in the process of developing a KM system to improve their knowledge base and competencies. A survey by the Journal of Knowledge Management and the Best Practice Club found that implementing KM benefits companies by improving decision- making, increasing responsiveness to customers, improving the efficiency of people and operations, leading to better products and service and greater innovation. In some cases, the culture of the company gets in the way; the system only works if it is seen to be important to the CEO and the board, and if it is recognised in the reward structure of the company.