Research-Based Consulting

While they may be very good at basic research, many higher education students, teachers, or even professors around the world have never been in contact with applications of theoretical concepts they learn, teach, or develop. Without real-world experience, it is a great challenge to get to a customer-centric solution or a recommendation for contextual, specific, and often urgent problems. The research-Based Consulting (RBC) process proposed in this book is intended to ease bridging this gap between basic and applied research. RBC introduces a process for delivering customer-centric acceptable, "e;immediately "e; implementable, with an appropriate level of rigor recommendations. This book is written to offer a practical guide to researcher-consultants, from students to professionals, for solving various types of contextual, specific problems. Designed as a metro, or train journey with two lounges, three zones, and eight stations, it turns the challenge of solving practical problems into an agreeable process. Distilled from three decades of experience both in industry and academia, the RBC process is field-tested with students, young professionals, and start-ups. This book aims to make explicit often tacit RBC skills. This makes RBC easy to acquire and transfer. It is an ideal supplement for preparing undergraduates, graduate students, and young professionals to be trusted problem solvers, who act logically and examine issues critically.