The Intelligent Enterprise

Today's enterprises have to continuously extend their operational limits to earn profit, thrive and prosper. Over time evolution led to the development of two concepts to master this challenge: intelligence and knowledge. This work introduces a system theoretic perspective on enterprises, regarding them as natural living systems formed by evolutional forces. Intelligence and knowledge manifest in the system's behavior. 'Intelligence' is identified as the necessary framework that realizes continuous adaptation through the ongoing development and incorporation of control procedures and building blocks. The content that fills this framework is the 'Enterprise Knowledge'. The transition towards an intelligent enterprise requires drastic organizational changes. The rigid framework of business processes has to be replaced by a project framework, employees have to be integrated as 'Knowledge Workers' and IT systemshave to offer advanced structural and organizational properties to facilitate declarative processing.