Josep Romero, marketing director of Watermark: "There is a lack of a corporate culture that values knowledge as an asset"

-What are the most widely implemented knowledge management systems today?

Today's top-tier Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as Microsoft Business Solutions Axapta, Oracle, or SAP, already include functionalities for managing human resources and, in their various forms, the skills and career development of employees, including analytical information about the entire company.

-At what level do Spanish companies compare to those in other European Union countries in terms of implementing knowledge management systems? And what barriers need to be overcome in this regard?

I believe that, as a general rule, more attention is paid to these aspects in multinational companies, which have a global Knowledge Management system; in medium and small companies, their implementation depends on the perspective of management.

-What barriers are encountered when installing a solution? The cost? The training of your employees? How can you make it profitable?

In my opinion, there are two main aspects: the lack of a corporate culture that values knowledge as a genuine company asset, and that recognizes that an organization that learns and circulates knowledge among its members, and that continuously improves decision-making to respond to the changing market in which we live, increases its chances of success. Secondly, SMEs have fewer resources to implement these systems, especially human resources, which sometimes, even when there is a conviction that these systems should be implemented, leads to stalled projects that are rarely ever launched.