The common definition of knowledge is “facts and information acquired by a person by experience or education”. Pretty generic but knowledge is the main thing that makes human being so advanced and effective.
The question here is if there is a relation between knowledge and business success. The answer is very simple: without knowledge there is no business so therefore there is no business success.
A business is an entity that provides to potential customers products and/or services that are created, realized, designed with the knowledge of the business owners.
Without the knowledge of the people that created, developed and that are running the company there could not be a business because there is no product and/or service
So it seems clear that knowledge is the base on any business (like it is the base of any human activities) and the reason of that is because through your knowledge you use your skills to perform what the customers needs.
We must pay attention that there are two knowledge that are equally important: the product/service knowledge and the customers’ knowledge. Sometime businesses have an outstanding service or product but it doesn’t fit customers’ needs and they fail. And sometime businesses are successful with a crappy service only because this is what customers need.
So the combination of knowledge of what we can do and of the need we can satisfy is the base for any success and we must have both otherwise it is an issue.
So far everything seems clear but what happens when the company expands his business?
Usually the knowledge and the skills are focused on the business owner(s), the person that had the idea, started the business and they made it successful. But when the company becomes bigger, that knowledge must spread out over the spine of the entire company, because the new employees don’t have at all that knowledge.
And this is often an issue that block or even damage any attempt to expand the company.
Marketing companies usually propose to businesses to expand but they don’t care most of time if the company can stand an expansion. And we are not speaking about find and hiring new employees or being able to produce more, we are speaking about the biggest issue of all: the knowledge management.
A company can expand only if it is able to clone itself becoming an unique organism able to have the same DNA. There are many analogies between a company and an organ.
An organ is made by cells, all of them able to do their tasks with the same skills. For example if the liver is damaged is able to heal taking new cells that already know what and how to do.
A business should be like an expanding organ: able to incorporate new cells that are already able to perform. You can do that only if you are able to share the knowledge of the first cell of the organ.