Knowledge wins in the new economy.

• Author: Groves, Shanna
• Position: Up front: news, trends & analysis - Brief Article

Just as "no man is an island, entire of itself," business cannot survive in isolation, business strategists say. For an organization to survive in today's economy, there must be a focus on intellectual assets, collaboration, and knowledge management, reveals a recent study by Gartner Inc. The Gartner report also suggests that effective use of knowledge and collaboration will be at the forefront of business success and that relying on new technology growth alone will not suffice.

The Enron collapse and terrorist attacks of 2001 are lessons in why knowledge and collaboration are so vital. Both events failed to exploit information that would have provided better decision-making. As a result, government spending on information exploitation is now skyrocketing, and this is expected to spur development of soft technologies that aid in collecting information and building knowledge. When intangibles are the primary source of shareholder value, it is essential that intellectual assets are effectively...