New Approach to Competence Management in Telecom Industry

This paper discusses a new concept of competence management, i.e. competence development and competence retainsion within telecom research and development organizations. According to this new approach, a competent person is an individual that has competencies in various areas and can easily adapt to new functions and related requirements, in contrast to an individual who is specialized in a narrow field only. The new approach is extremely important in the times when telecom research and development organizations are constantly under pressure to decrease projects´ development time and costs and at the same time retain the high quality of their products. The paper also elaborates the relationship between knowledge and competence. Ericsson Competence Management Process is used as the base for the analysis.