Title: Aligning customer knowledge management tools with business strategy

Authors: Kamla Ali Al-Busaidi

Addresses: Information Systems Department, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O.Box: 20; PC:123, Al-Khod, Oman

Abstract: Customer knowledge management systems have become very strategic systems for firms' competitive advantage. This study aims to investigate the alignment of customer knowledge management tools with business strategies. The study significantly shows that customer knowledge transfer and application tools are essential for organisations regardless of their business strategy. Differentiation organisations, however, significantly utilise more customer knowledge acquisition and storage tools than others. Specifically, differentiation organisations utilise more non-information technologies tools for customer knowledge acquisition and more information technologies for customer knowledge storage than cost-leadership organisations. Additionally, the study revealed that there is no significant difference in the benefit of customer knowledge management solutions between these organisations.

Keywords: customer knowledge management; CKM; customer knowledge technologies; business strategy alignment; knowledge transfer; knowledge storage; knowledge acquisition; information technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJECRM.2013.056510

International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management, 2013 Vol.7 No.2, pp.117 - 134

Published online: 30 Jun 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article