In 2000, the Delphi Group surveyed 700 companies in the US, and found that 77% expected to adopt KM initiatives within two years, 53% saw it as a valuable approach to business, and 32% saw KM as a major imperative. Research across Europe by the Cranfield School of Management with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin in 1998 indicated that 85% of companies believe that restriction of information on a "need to know" basis is dying, and that, therefore, workers were happy to share information.
Ninety-four per cent of respondents felt that the future would require people to share more informa- tion. Increase in spending on KM systems was predicted to grow by 70% in three years. In addition, 85% believed that knowledge assets would drive business value. However, 40% did not currently consider their companies "learning organisations". Finally, 62% believed that KM was not a fad; and we shall discuss this later on. We will look at KM from a marketing perspective. The system should, however, be part of a much larger whole, whereby information is brought together across the whole company with input from:-