Knowledge transfer in consulting is important, as clients hire consultants because there are skills they need, but lack. So how to get skills and knowledge consultants possessed becomes highly concerned by clients. The ordinary way which to tact this problem is organize a project team to follow and learning from consultant, and also to evaluate the project outcomes.
Form client point of view, the contract relationship has to be measured, by quantity or quality. But the measurement only suitable for tangible product, when it comes to intangible product such as knowledge transfer it turned out to be disastrous. For we still have no idea about the transfer process, which pass the know-how effectively from consultant to client, let along to measure its quality and efficiency. The obstacle is fully used by both consulting firm and client.
For consulting firm, during contract phase, they list outcomes is easy to be measured, such as document, the report paper, and after the document and report is finished, they leaves a client no better equipped than before the intervention. Unless consultants can improve management capability, they run the risk of creating a dependency culture, in which a client returns repeatedly to the same firm for the same work. This kind of circumstance is whole welcomed by consulting firm, which can led to lucrative business for consulting firm, and it is also liked by consultant for they can resale their skill and knowledge and less their pressure to enhance their skill. As to client, it facilitates to give report to high level officers about the progress and achievement about the project.
The obstacle lies in lack of measurement about skill and knowledge transfer during consulting project prevent consultant and client from truly working together, and misused by both party involved in consulting process, which influenced reputation of both consulting firm and consultant.