Special Report- Measuring KM Success: Key Metrics and Strategies

The ROI of Information

Calculating Return on Investment (ROI) is a well-established business practice. It is a formula used to determine the feasibility of a new endeavor or significant changes to an established process. Essentially, ROI tells management that the organization’s money will be well spent. It works well in environments where cost savings are easily measured. Installing a new widget-manufacturing machine that costs $1 million and saves $2 million in reduced labor costs and in- creased production of widgets falls into the category of a “no-brainer” decision. Determining the ROI in the knowledge management area is often a more nebulous process....

Measuring KM Success: Calculating the ROI for a Business Research Knowledge Management System

Some of the world’s largest companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on market research and competitive intelligence (CI) research—creating it, purchasing it, and analyzing it. With that magnitude of investment, it’s not surprising that they often dedicate a KM system to managing it.

So how do these organizations assess the value and, more importantly, measure the hard dollar ROI of their KM systems for market research and CI...