Real expertise comes from a company’s customers (and non-customers), rather than from consultants
80 % of the knowledge is available within the firm –
the rest can be purchased
Expert knowledge is often purchased without experts or employees really analyzing and interpreting it.
A large proportion of the knowledge required is normally already available within the company – and collects dust in some drawers (or, nowadays, on some hard discs) and cannot be located.
Practice shows that up to 80 % of the required expert knowledge can be compiled by interns and students based on documentation the company already possesses and the Internet.
Additional knowledge can be selectively purchased and applied and is available from databases, analysts, industry experts and associations for a reasonable price.
Customers‘ knowledge is authentic – consultant’s knowledge not
It is the customers who possess genuine, relevant expert knowledge, not expensive experts, who often work with secondary source materials and provide it only in aggregated, anonymized and therefore unauthentic formats. Therefore the main questions are:
- How systematically and with which approach do you involve your customers?
- How systematically and in which format do you use the knowledge of your employees?
- Where do you buy – targeted and focused – external knowledge and how do you integrate it?