The impacts of an intensified knowledge management activity in the consulting industry: an analysis of the post-pandemic situation

Knowledge management is becoming more and more important in helping companies reaching the competitive advantage. Being knowledge the product of consulting companies, it is essential for them to understand how to manage and measure it in order to achieve better corporate results. The objective of this thesis is indeed to analyze some key performance indicators related to knowledge management in consulting firms. In particular, the way by which those indicators were impacted during the coronavirus pandemic will be studied. After defining the different types of knowledge and studying the main schools of thoughts related to the knowledge management cycle within companies, the literature review will go through the most common knowledge management tools and best practices adopted by consulting companies. Then, some measurements of the knowledge management activity will be presented. The methodology used to approach this analysis consists of the construction of five case studies about consulting companies based in Europe. This method allows a detailed reconstruction of the reality hitting companies during the lockdown and a deep understanding of the impacts on KPIs. The interviews carried out demonstrate how an intensive knowledge management activity in consulting firms allows the number of prospects and the win rate to increase, while the lead-time of project development decreases. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Consultancy, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Measurement, Competitive Advantage, Learning Organizations