Comparative Analysis of Commercial Knowledge Management Solutions and their Role in Enterprises

Knowledge technologies are a subject of permanent interest for software engineers at research organisations, as well as for market analysts in commercial organisations. In this paper, which aims to clarify the role of knowledge management solutions in an enterprise business, we survey the market of commercial knowledge management solutions and analyse their functionalities in domains such as document management, information retrieval, collaboration, decision support, e-learning, business automation and enterprise integration. The survey is based on a thorough study of web resources of knowledge management solution providers. Regarding the role of knowledge solutions in the business process, the present study will show that on an operational level they serve for better utilisation of the enterprise knowledge resources and, on a strategic level, they synthesise new knowledge needed for better management of customers, suppliers and partners. This paper gives an insight into the knowledge management market that can help strategic planners to easily begin a knowledge management initiative.