Der unsichtbare Wissensträger

A few weeks ago, I had a call with a sales director. He said: "Our entire market intelligence is basically one person. He retires in two years. That's why we're looking for a solution." You could hear the panic.

I didn't show a demo. I just asked him to walk me through what that person actually does. It's always the same profile. Someone who's been in the industry for 20+ years, knows everyone, and has relationships across competitors, suppliers, and former colleagues. They go to trade fairs and don't "network". They just walk around and talk to people they've known for decades. They sit down for a coffee and ask: "How's business going at your end?" And somehow, they know everything that matters.

Inside the company, they're the default answer. Any question about the market: "Go to him." But the problem is that none of this is written down. It's not in a system, database, or even structured anywhere. It's in one person's head, and I've now seen this at multiple companies.

What happens next is predictable. The senior person leaves. They hire someone junior who is smart, capable, and motivated, but starting at zero. They have no network, context, and intuition for what signals actually matter.

I've now had this exact conversation with multiple companies. They all have the same question at the end: "What do we do when this person is gone?" No one has a real answer yet.