Preface for the Third Edition - Read

14. Systems 529
Also, the number of organizations using specialized KMS is likely to rise (Delphi
1997, 19). Despite the fact that on average smaller and less KM experienced
organizations participated in the FH Cologne study conducted half a year after the
study presented here, already 51.1% of the organizations reported to use “specific
KM software” (Döring-Katerkamp/Trojan 2000, 9).
Many organizations used document management systems which can be considered
as one of the technological predecessors of KMS 94 . In the 1998 KPMG study,
more than two thirds of the organizations (68%) used document management systems
and still 46% said they were using these systems with KM as the primary
focus (see KPMG 1998, 11). Moreover, many vendors of document management
systems have extended their systems to include KM functionality so that it is hard
to judge how many organizations really used KM functionality by exclusively
looking at the systems that were implemented. This will be analyed with an investigation
of the frequency with which specific KMS functions were used 95 . This analysis
will be independent of what type of systems supported these functions.
Beforehand, it will be investigated how well the various KM platforms and systems
were integrated in the organizations. Figure C-20 shows the level of integration
between KMS. Almost a third of the organizations responding to this question
(16 out of 49 respondents, 32.7%) had all KMS functions either integrated within a
single system or at least within one single user interface, e.g., a Web browser.
About half of the organizations (25 out of 49 respondents, 51%) had a medium
level of integration with either one main KMS from which other (sub-) systems can
be called one-sidedly or multiple systems between which easy data transfer is possible
(e.g., via drag&drop or copy&paste). There were still 16.3% of the respondents
who had several KMS in place between which not even data transfer was
possible.
all functions integrated in one system
multiple systems integrated with one user interface
one main system, direct call of other systems possible
multiple systems, data transfer possible
multiple systems, no data transfer possible
FIGURE C-20. Level of integration of information and communication systems related
to KM 96
Some respondents marked multiple categories even though the ordinal scale was
originally intended to be exclusive. This was especially true for multiple systems
integrated with one user interface (category 4) on the one hand and one main sys-
94. See also section 7.1 - “Technological roots” on page 273.
95. See section 14.3 - “Functions” on page 548.
96. Absolute numbers, n=49.