We can all picture the scene.

A new client brief lands. It’s a tight timeline. TPP refinement with an evidence map, affiliate-ready claims, and a narrative to feed into an upcoming GVD refresh. You assemble the team, open a blank deck, and start the process. Again.

Midway through, someone remembers: “Didn’t we do something similar for [another brand] last year?” You scramble through old folders, Teams threads, emails. A few slides emerge. But they’re version 11 of 17. No context. No sources. No clear logic trail.

So the team starts over. Not because the insight didn’t exist.

But because it wasn’t accessible.

Multiply that scene across every project, every team, every year. That’s the real cost of knowledge loss. Not just wasted hours, but lost margin, slowed delivery, and work that’s good, when it could have been great.

Rework is hiding in plain sight

Most consultancies don’t realise how much time they’re losing to rework, because it doesn’t show up on a single line in the P&L.

But it’s everywhere:

• Finding the same data points multiple times
• Rebuilding frameworks from scratch because no one saved the last one properly
• Rewriting affiliate deliverables because the original rationale was buried in someone’s inbox
• Repeating landscape research on a new brief with 80% overlap to the last

It’s not inefficiency by incompetence. It’s inefficiency by structure. Or lack of one.

Your knowledge is your product, but most firms treat it like admin

Every insight your team develops: every slide that nails a value message, every well-sourced claim, every summary of an HTA decision - is intellectual property.

But in most firms, it disappears as soon as the project closes. Stored in decks, not systems. Scattered across SharePoint folders, local drives, and the memories of whichever consultant worked on it last.

That’s like a manufacturer throwing out the blueprint every time they build a new product.

Your IP is leaking through the cracks.

And with it, your profit.

It’s not just about speed. It’s about margin

Rework is expensive.

If your team is spending 20–30% of their time rebuilding what already exists, that’s time you’re not billing elsewhere. It’s capacity that could go toward new proposals, deeper analysis, or faster turnaround - if the knowledge was there when you needed it.

And in the current climate where clients are demanding more for less, your ability to systematise your own intelligence is the difference between growth and erosion.

The solution isn’t another process. It’s a system

You can’t train your way out of this.

You need infrastructure that’s built to retain, structure, and surface the right insights. Instantly.

That means:

• Centralising internal knowledge so it’s accessible across teams
• Structuring past work so it’s searchable, source-linked, and reusable
• Making insights easier to apply than to rebuild
• Creating a system where every project strengthens the next

In short: stop thinking of your outputs as one-and-done decks.

Start treating them like assets.

Stop paying for the same work twice

Every firm has a ceiling. And it’s rarely talent.

It’s usually repetition.

You’re not losing margin because the work is hard.

You’re losing it because you’re doing the same hard work over and over again.

Fix that, and you don’t just move faster.

You increase your strategic value, your delivery quality, and your profitability.

Because the firms that win in the next era of market access won’t be the ones who work more hours.

They’ll be the ones who build smarter systems.