In practice, knowledge management involves, among others, the
identification and mapping of intellectual assets within an organization. This
basically means identifying who knows what within the company. When viewed
from this perspective, knowledge management can be considered as a process of
performing an audit of intellectual assets focusing on the organization’s unique
resources and their crucial functions. Through this audit process intelligence,
value and flexibility are added to the identified intellectual assets. In addition, the
intellectual assets are protected from dormancy thus making possible significant
improvements in decision-making processes as well as in services and products.