Alquimia, 2022

Abstract

Alfonso “Poncho '' Ruiz started Alquimia after 35 years in the sales and marketing industry. The company was to be the final challenge of a lifetime of industry experience. The boutique company focuses on Influencer Marketing Strategies and Consulting, allowing him to finally put his Tacit Knowledge to use for new clients and his employees. After early successes, the company has fallen on difficult times, and has already lost one client. Rumors are circulating that another client is ready to leave the firm soon. Alfonso struggles with the difficulty of converting years of Tacit Knowledge into the Explicit Knowledge needed to improve his company’s performance and thrive in the evolving field of Influencer Marketing. The case highlights the difficulties in transferring a lifetime of professional knowledge into something he can use to teach his employees and deliver a clear value proposition to his clients. The case uses comparative models, and a unique combination of activities and questions to walk the students through a process of understanding how knowledge is built and transferred in a small business to make the field of Knowledge Management personal and tangible. The case is set against the backdrop of the Digital Marketing and Influencer Marketing to present the value of knowledge management in a highly analytical and relevant industry, adding to the dynamism of the case. Finally, this case uses a series of sales and marketing frameworks as they evolve across the protagonist's career to present an agnostic and tangible model for applying the lessons of the case.

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