Today, the business environment is characterized by three Cs, namely—Change, Challenges and Competition. In this tough and challenging competitive environment, it is very essential not only to survive but also to emerge as winners—the only key to stay in competition in the long run. To serve this purpose, the strongest assets available to organizations are its human resources, who are the source of ample amount of information and knowledge. The challenge today is effective utilization of this knowledge to gain competitive advantage, and hence the importance of knowledge management via effective talent management.

Knowledge management may be defined as the process by which organizations generate values from their intellectual capital and knowledge-based assets. Nonaka and Huber defined knowledge as a justified belief that increases an individual's capacity to take effective action. Action in this context may involve physical skill as well as cognitive or intellectual knowledge. Knowledge may also be defined as any information processed in the mind of an individual.

Generation of knowledge is a gradual transformation process, and is generated when data is transformed into information, which in turn is converted into knowledge. Data is any unstructured material which when combined in a meaningful way is information. Information when put together generates knowledge.

It may also be concluded that knowledge and information are not too different from each other, but the meaning of the terms somewhere overlap. Processed information is knowledge which is also known as tactic knowledge. This knowledge becomes information once again, now known as explicit knowledge, when it is communicated to others through any medium such as text, spoken words, computer output, etc. Churchman (1972) conceptualized knowledge as "knowledge resides in the user and not in the collection (of information)."

A study was conducted at Northeast University on knowledge management which had representatives from various organizations holding dignified management positions spread over 12 countries some of whom were from Australia, Germany, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and Spain. All respondents irrespective of whether they currently had or were thinking of implementing a knowledge management system in their organizations basically talked about three major subjects:

HRM Review Magazine, Knowledge Management, Talent Management, Gradual Transformation Process, Organizational Productivity, Knowledge Management System, Pricewater-houseCoopers, Performance Management, Resource Allocation Process, Discussion Forums, Development Programs, Foreign Multinationals.