Topline Strategy Group Scales Growth with Efficient Knowledge Sharing

RESULTS

• Average of 10 minutes saved per user per search with Bloomfire
• 14:1 ROI based on time savings alone
• “Bloomfire transforms how teams can work together. It’s like comparing a VCR to a DVR. Until you experience it, you can’t really comprehend how much better having Bloomfire is.”

Topline Strategy was founded by Jon Klein in 2001. They are a consulting firm that specializes in market strategy, customer experience, and investor diligence for business-to-business technology companies and their investors. Their clients range from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Jon and his team have worked on hundreds of research projects that have helped their clients generate hundreds of millions in revenue.

Large Firm Talent with Small Firm Dedication

Topline is able to compete with larger firms by investing in highly trained consultants and empowering employees to be extremely effective and make every hour count. In the firm’s early days, they could rely on their more senior employees to mentor new hires and pass on the tacit knowledge required to be successful. As the company grew, that model was putting unnecessary stress on employees by causing them to spend more time on non-revenue driving activities. With SharePoint as their source for internal knowledge, they weren’t as efficient as Jon wanted. Jon said, “Having SharePoint is better than nothing, but it falls short in many key areas for us. I want our consultants to be spending 100% of their time adding value and leveraging the best thinking. I don’t want them spending time on administrative tasks, like looking for information.”

The Research Project That Changed Topline’s Knowledge Management Strategy

While Jon was looking for more efficient ways for his team to share information, Topline was hired by an investment firm to learn more about knowledge management platforms. Jon and his team interviewed dozens of organizations, many of whom were leveraging Bloomfire as their centralized source of knowledge. “Everyone I talked to that used Bloomfire kept talking about how easy it was to author knowledge and make everything searchable. It was like a light bulb moment for me. I had been trying to make SharePoint work, but hearing the same thing over and over from 20-25 Bloomfire customers made me believe there had to be a better solution.”

After speaking to customers of Bloomfire and its competitors, it didn’t take long for Jon to decide that Bloomfire was the only choice to ease the growing pains that Topline was experiencing. Topline implemented Bloomfire and rolled it out to their consultants at a company meeting, which is where Consultant Monica Traniello was introduced to the platform. Monica stated, “I found that having the ability to learn about what’s going on across other teams was a huge benefit. One of the cool things we do is that at the end of projects, someone will do a presentation at our company meeting. These are recorded and stored in Bloomfire, and I’m able to search for keywords from those videos to learn about different methods and ways of analyzing data. The centralization of all the tutorial videos has been hugely helpful.” 

Life Is Better with Bloomfire

The Topline Strategy Group has seen many benefits from partnering with Bloomfire. Monica reported that her life is easier now. She added, “I can spend more time actually working on my projects because I can find what I need to know immediately. That makes me happier, more efficient, and a better team member for the company.” 

Jon continued, “Bloomfire transforms how teams work together. It’s like comparing a VCR to a DVR. Until you experience it, you can’t really comprehend how much better having Bloomfire is.” Jon estimates his employees save at least 10 minutes of time every time they use Bloomfire to find what they need. Jon concluded, “My goal as the Founder and President is to help our team make the most out of every possible minute in the workday. It’s inconceivable to me that every company isn’t using Bloomfire.”

Everyone I talked to that used Bloomfire kept talking about how easy it was to author knowledge and make everything searchable. It was like a light bulb moment for me. I had been trying to make SharePoint work, but hearing the same thing over and over from 20-25 Bloomfire customers made me believe there had to be a better solution.