Happy New Everything (Part 2)

This year, I wish you Happy New Everything!

Happy challenges, happy experiences, happy days.

New dreams, new desires, new ways.

I hope you will join us in saying goodbye to the “same old, same old” and hello to all the exciting possibilities this year has in store for us.

At Kons?lid?n, 2022 was a transformational year where we worked hard to strengthen our core (Read our 2022 recap here: me.konsalidon.com/2022)

We've got big plans for this upcoming year: expanding into several new and exciting businesses, and introducing some groundbreaking ideas and initiatives.

We embark on a journey of discovery and take bold steps towards something extraordinary!

In January, we power up our advisory vertical with a new business model

Our advisory vertical has been run as a “platform” rather than a consulting firm over the last 5 years and has achieved significant growth (1,000+ proposals, 300+ engagements, over USD 12 mn. in revenue created). However, the revenue was collected across several partner brands which is diluting the power of what we can achieve together.

We will continue our growth further, but with a higher focus on creating more brand value, by onboarding 50 Managing Partners?into full-time roles at Kons?lid?n over the next 36 months. These professionals plan to set up or currently manage their own boutique consulting firms and we believe our platform will be a great launchpad or accelerator for their journeys as independent advisors.

Our Managing Partners will manage the Kons?lid?n ecosystem for one of our solution verticals or industry verticals - they will further develop our internal capabilities, and will be supported by our ecosystem of boutique consulting firms and individual consultants for the delivery of advisory projects.

Managing Partners will invest in their own vertical depending on their growth plans in the coming months.?Kons?lid?n will use the investment to provide brand, infrastructure, technology, website, ecosystem operations, and business development support in line with the amount invested by the Partners.

The next 36 months (2023-2025) will be a "build" stage in which we will run a "cooperative model", i.e. revenue and profits created will be shared by partners and employees.

This is an opportunity for those who want to go beyond their limits and be part of something incredible. Get in touch with me if you would like to learn more and to be part of our great challenge.

In February, we roll out a 9-month calendar for our events vertical, K?nnected Insights

There has never been a more important time for the world to connect, come together, and learn from each other.

After surviving a global pandemic, ongoing geopolitical tensions, and talk of a global recession, it is only by working together that we will be able to rebuild economies, restore livelihoods, and thrive as a whole beyond these global challenges.

We start the year as community partners for two iconic in-person events in the UAE in February (over 3,000 delegates are expected across the two events). More information will be shared on our WhatsApp Community (join here: me.konsalidon.com/ecosystem)

We will roll out a 9-month calendar for seminars, webinars, panel discussions, and live events - join us as the best in business share their knowledge and expertise to help us all learn how we can do business better, together.

In March, we induct 6 new groups into K?nnected Knowledge, our peer groups initiative (managed by our team at EGN UAE)

Development is a continuous process and achieved better in groups with your peers.

With K?nnected Knowledge, you can participate in, or chair, peer advisory group meetings with 15-20 industry professionals, in your functional area of expertise.

We already have two groups (one for Sales & Marketing professionals and another for HR professionals) and hope to have the “formation meetings” for the following groups in March:

• ESG professionals
• Finance professionals (CFOs)
• IT professionals (banking and financial services industry)
• Transaction advisory professionals
• Entrepreneurs (Professional services)
• Family business owners

To find out more, click me.konsalidon.com/ecosystem and join one or more of our WhatsApp Groups. If you’d like our support to set up a peer group, please get in touch.

In April, we launch a live, interactive dashboard for our opportunity-sharing platform, K?nnected Opportunities

We recently converted our online opportunity-sharing platform into a WhatsApp community of 900 professionals (and growing). We now share all our advisory and board membership opportunities here.

In April, we will add a live, interactive dashboard where you will be able to see:

• List of opportunities shared (long-term job opportunities, short-term roles, consulting opportunities, board memberships, expert advisory opportunities)
• Status of opportunities (Won/lost/abandoned including reasons)
• Live update on cumulative value created ?

In May, we launch K?nnected Deals, our digital platform for buying and selling businesses

We are creating a platform to catalyze the Deals Ecosystem in the GCC region, including participation from:

• Sellers of existing businesses?
• Buyers interested in investing in the businesses
• Transaction advisory consultants, researchers, and legal advisors to help buyers and sellers decide whether it is the right time to buy or sell, prepare them for the sale/purchase, originate deals, develop valuations, pitch decks and proposals, conduct Pre-DDs and DDs, deal structuring, and support with post-merger integration.

In June, we are on a tour of Europe to explore the possibility of Kons?lid?n Europe

In 2018-2019, we launched Kons?lid?n South Asia (starting in India) and Kons?lid?n Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, our commercial model was rather weak and ever-evolving and thus rather difficult to replicate. Also, international boutique consulting firms struggle to survive in India due to the fierce pressure on pricing and in Saudi due to the (then) difficult environment, which meant that it was wiser to let both initiatives die an early death.

Over 40% of the boutique firms and individual consultants that we have worked with over the last 5 years are from Europe. We’d love to meet all of you at length, in person, to explore the possibility of collaborating to set up the Kons?lid?n model in Europe.

In July, we bring back from hibernation, K?nnected Intelligence, our knowledge center to support consulting firms and enterprises with 24x7 actionable research they can trust

Perhaps you are an internal advisor within a corporate? Or a leader within an enterprise without access to large consulting firms? Or a?boutique consulting firm who could deliver?advice and support to business leaders around the world. However, you are?constrained by the lack of scale economies that larger, global consulting firms enjoyed.?

Most large consulting firms?and enterprises?have centralized, dedicated research teams that work year-round. Due to your?smaller?size and the cyclical nature of research?work?that you need,?you?cannot?afford to make this kind of investment?to?have a dedicated research team. The overhead costs would be too high.

On the other hand, without a research team, you?also could not manage to handle projects?and decisions?that create an unexpected demand for research.?

Kons?lid?n’s Knowledge Center?will be?a cost-effective, global research ecosystem that can provide?business leaders and?consulting firms with business research of all kinds, at all depths, and across all industries. It will be?a one-stop shop for all?your research requirements and will?be?scalable.?

Whether you?need to use it for 5 hours, or 5 months, Kons?lid?n’s Knowledge Center will work with you?to be better prepared for important discussions, meetings and presentations, and make better decisions, faster.?

We’re like a traditional, quality-focused research firm… just quicker, more cost effective and we operate 24 x 7 x 365 across all time zones.

In August, we rejuvenate small businesses with the Superheroes Project, our mentorship and access program for SMBs

The Superheroes Project was set up as a not-for-profit Kons?lid?n initiative, to help small businesses and entrepreneurs cope with and recover from stress or losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, we were unable to sustain this initiative but we haven’t given up on our dedication to support small businesses.???

We will relaunch the Superheroes Project this year. We will continue to build our ever-growing team of Superheroes (mentors who are either experienced entrepreneurs or professionals) who will be ready to help small businesses reboot and rebuild at whatever price they can afford by taking on board membership positions.

Our Superheroes will be expected to help the small businesses by:

• delivering practical advice,
• helping the entrepreneurs action the advice, and
• providing the entrepreneurs with access to their network to accelerate growth.

Individuals or businesses will be able to obtain these services in exchange for a nominal cost and/or equity and/or revenue share to Kons?lid?n and our Superhero in line with the spirit of the initiative.?

This support will be needed by thousands of entrepreneurs and businesses in the coming months, and if you are interested in taking on advisory and implementation roles, board memberships, and/or ownership in small businesses, please join us on me.konsalidon.com/ecosystem

In September, we open the doors to graduates with Kons?lid?n Academy, our graduate engagement program

Kons?lid?n Academy will be a graduate engagement program for university graduates to train them for employment in the Services/Knowledge Sectors.

We will assess, train and recruit university graduates for four key roles:

• Business Development (K?nnected Pursuit)
• Research (Kons?lid?n Knowledge Center)
• Events (K?nnected Insights)?
• Kons?lid?n Venture Studio

Additionally, we will offer job opportunities at our clients through our recruitment vertical, K?nnected Talent.

While we will start humble (<40 students), the program will be “born digital” and will scale exponentially.?

In October, we accelerate adoption of AI for our partners, colleagues and clients, with K?gnitive, our AI-enablement program

At Kons?lid?n, AI has been seamlessly incorporated into almost every aspect of our day-to-day operations. To name a few,

• My meetings/calls were scheduled (until very recently) by Amy Ingram from x.ai
• Our blog posts (including my articles) are written on jasper.ai
• Our presentations are made using beautiful.ai
• Our personalized outreach on various channels is automated
• Our weekly newsletter will soon be sent using futurescope.com
• We are experimenting with AI-powered videos using www.synthesia.io
• Some of the images in this article are drawn by an AI

We are building an AI-enablement program to work with our partners, colleagues and clients to understand the use cases relevant to their business that can be automated using AI-enabled SaaS. More on this closer to launch.

In November, we introduce the Kons?lid?n Venture Studio to support entrepreneurs and corporates start start-ups

Over the years, we have had several requests from our clients and boutique firms to partner with them to set up ventures with specific objectives. We have helped create several new entities - a legal education start-up, a free zone, a market intelligence platform, a risk management services firm, a legal services platform, etc. - and the demand for external support to set up similar corporate ventures and start-ups is growing quickly.

We have five opportunities currently in the pipeline - including setting up a digital BPO/KPO, a grocery tech start-up, a last-mile delivery company, a venture related to EV-adoption, and a corporate services venture. In November, we will launch a Venture Studio as a formal vertical of Kons?lid?n to build and co-invest in these and other such partnership opportunities with our clients.

In December, we digitize K?nnected Talent, our platform to connect organizations with experts

As a part of our K?nnected Talent initiative, we help organizations recruit, onboard, and train employees or hire consultants, experts, or industry leaders to support. Since we started the initiative in 2018, we have supported businesses connect with over 800 consultants, consulting teams, or industry experts. We will launch our automated offering for this solution in December this year.

Organizations in certain sectors can afford to start small and grow slowly. While we are happy for them, we aren’t quite so lucky.

The majority of our competitors are huge multinationals with thousands of employees in almost every major commerce hub around the world.

Most have long lineages and strong reputations.?

To function in such a sector we must be better than our competitors in every way possible.?

Our competition is not just with them, but against time as well. We are battling the entrenched status quo.

In the last few years, we have taken some bold risks and tested out a variety of ideas. The results from some of these experiments have been encouraging. And with confidence from an incoming investment and a strong following and demand for Kons?lid?n’s services from organizations across the region, we believe it is time to put our successful experiments into action!

We know that the plan of action may not play out exactly as we predict, some projects will kick off earlier than anticipated while others may be pushed back to make way for urgencies.

We understand that not all of these ideas and initiatives will stand the test of time.

No doubt, this year is sure to be full of surprises and we can't wait to see what the year holds.

What are your plans for 2023? We are eager to hear your story and explore where our paths intertwine, so we can share in the journey together.

We are deeply inspired by Page Belnap’s “I’d rather be”, and would love to share it with you:

I'd rather be the ship that sails?

And rides the billows wild and free;?

Than to be the ship that always fails?

To leave its port and go to sea.?

I'd rather feel the sting of strife,?

Where gales are born and tempests roar;?

Than to settle down to useless life?

And rot in dry dock on the shore.?

I'd rather fight some mighty wave?

With honor in supreme command;?

And fill at last a well-earned grave,?

Than die in ease upon the sand.?

I'd rather drive where sea storms blow,?

And be the ship that always failed.?

To make the ports where it would go,?

Than be the ship that never sailed.?

I look forward to working with you in the coming year.

Happy New Everything! Here's to a remarkable 2023! ?? ?? ???? ???? ?? ?? ??????