The demand for KM solutions has been witnessing tremendous growth in the past few years. A survey of 650 companies carried out by Delphi Consulting Group, Inc. [R3] in 1997 indicates that 49% already do or planned to invest in KM applications within the next 12 months. Another 49% of companies planned to invest within the next 12-48 months, and only 2% of the surveyed companies do not have any plans to currently invest in KM. Information Technology vendors have been developing several solutions to meet customer needs.

Dataquest Inc. [R8] predicts worldwide sales of KM software and services to double by the year 2000 to more than $5.3 billion.

The following diagram demonstrates the functions of KM already implemented in the different firms that participated in the survey: