Main idea

To find out why a recommendation had held for a regional daily, you could reopen its case: audience figures, revenue, interviews. That would be a breach. This data belongs to the client, entrusted for a specific engagement; using it for another client, possibly a competitor, would betray the trust the consulting profession rests on.

The firm is stuck between two bad options: copying conclusions without their reasons, at the risk of applying them where they become wrong, or starting from scratch on every engagement, at the risk of never learning from its own experience. Either way, it produces reports; it doesn't get any smarter.

Why it matters

Confidentiality closes the only path that seemed to repair the loss of reasoning: going back to the sources. It forces the firm to look somewhere other than the client's case for what it can legitimately keep.

Nuances and limits

Not all data is confidential to the same degree; public figures or market trends can circulate. The dilemma concerns what the client entrusted.

Open questions

• Where is the line between what a consultant learned during an engagement and what the client entrusted to them?