Objectives of knowledge management

Digital business 
applications 
infrastructure
Applications that provide 
access to services and 
information inside and 
beyond an organisation.
Enterprise resource 
planning (ERP) 
applications
Software providing 
integrated functions for 
major business functions 
such as production, 
distribution, sales, finance 
and human resources 
management.
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Part 1
Introduction
Figure 3.5
(a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications 
infrastructure
Source
: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000).
Business process
architecture
Application / data
architecture
Technology
architecture
Business process
architecture
Application / data
architecture
Technology
architecture
Business process
architecture
Application / data
architecture
Technology
architecture
Procurement and logistics
Finance
Marketing
Functional barrier
(a)
Functional barrier
Business process
architecture
Application / data
architecture
Technology
architecture
Procurement and logistics
Finance
Functional integration
Marketing
(b)
new software into the application? Thus managers are faced with a precarious balancing act 
between standardisation or core product and integrating innovative systems where appli-
cable. Figure 3.6 illustrates this dilemma. It shows how different types of 
applications tend to have strengths in different areas.
ERP systems were originally focussed on achieving integration at the 
operational level of an organisation. Solutions for other applications such 
as business intelligence in the form of data warehousing and data min-
ing tended to focus on tactical decision- making based on accessing the 
operational data from within ERP systems. Knowledge management soft-
ware (Chapter 10) also tends to cut across different levels of management. 
Figure 3.7 shows only some types of applications, but it shows the trial 
of strength between the monolithic ERP applications and more specialist 
applications looking to provide the same functionality.