Objectives of knowledge management

Business demand for digital business services
The B2B market is more complex than B2C in that variation in demand will occur according 
to different types of organisation and people within the buying unit in the organisation. This 
analysis is also important as part of the 
segmentation
of different groups within a B2B target 
market. We need to profile business demand according to:
Figure 4.5
Development of experience in Internet usage
Amount of activity
Time
Fast
: simple search
or decisions
Medium
: research
for complex
decisions
Slow
: technically
complex or
financially risky
Email
Search
engines
Surfing
Research
offline
purchases
e.g. travel, car
Make small
low-involvement
purchase
Post to
a forum
Buy at auction
More frequent
higher-value
purchases
Sell at auction
Download
software
Visit
government
sites
Favoured
information
source
Frequent
high-
involvement
purchases
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Chapter 4
E‑environment
1 
Variation in organisation characteristics
● 
Size of company (employees or turnover)
● 
Industry sector and products
● 
Organisation type (private, public, government, not- for- profit)
● 
Division
● 
Country and region.
2 
Individual role
● 
Role and responsibility from job title, function or number of staff managed
● 
Role in buying decision (purchasing influence)
● 
Department
● 
Product interest
● 
Demographics: age, sex and possibly social group.
B2B profiles
We can profile business users of the Internet in a similar way to consumers by assessing: