Posted by Martyn R Jones on December 18, 1999 at 07:08:38:

In Reply to: KM in The Middle East. posted by Jubayli on December 13, 1999 at 16:49:05:

Hello,

Commercially the middle-east is a very big geographical market which has been historically characterized as very much oriented towards trading.

I don't think it is so much a question of North America or Europe being quicker off the mark rather than one of markets, market characteristics and market dynamics. Even within Europe for example there are large regional diffrences in the rate of adoption of more contemporary Information and Knowledge Management.

I think that one could make an analysis of the business profiles of small, medium and large businesses in the middle east and do a rough match of these profiles with the profiles of businesses that are adopting KM in Europe and North America. Sure, if HP find KM useful in projects carried out in a Californian Telco then the same would hold true for a similar project for a Telco in, for example, Bahrain.

I would also in my view say that to believe that middle-east management does not pay attention to elements of KM would be to maybe confuse tangible commercial KM with practicle and tacit KM.

I know that some Senior Execs in Telcos, Banks (including Islamic Banks), Industry (such as Energy, Aluminuium etc.), Retail and Government are tracking KM closely and will, when the need arises, be ready to take advantage of them.

As for benefits, they must not only be tangible but must also be approriate and relevant. It is probably not of the slightest commercial interest for the CEO of a large retail company either in Washington DC, Barcelona or Jeddah that some hi-tech IT company in Sunnyvale is getting some business benefit from KM if it is not applicable to their own business and does not promise to create additional trade and better margins or protect exisiting business.

So yes, I beleive that certain businesses in the middle-east will be interested in KM and that these businesses although not early adopters will use KM if they see an accruable benefit in doing so.

Regards,

Martyn R Jones

• km

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