Objectives of knowledge management

1 
Information sharing in secure environment. Information needed to support business 
through a range of business partners can be shared using an extranet. Vlosky 
et al
. (2000) 
give the example of advertising agency Saatchi using an extranet to allow their advertis-
ers to access draft advertising material during a project. Information for suppliers is 
often shared by providing a log-in to a database which shows demand for products.
 2 
Cost reduction. Operating processes can be made more efficient through an extranet. 
The example given by these authors is Merisel, a $3.5 billion computer hardware reseller 
reducing its order processing costs by 70%. Such cost reductions are achieved by reducing 
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Chapter 3
Managing digital business infrastructure
the number of people involved in placing orders and the need to rekey information from 
paper documents.