Best New Consultancy
In the two-year reflection period that came after selling a marcomms agency to a PLC, the soon-to-be team behind NOKAMO Consulting had noticed a shift in the marketing services supply sector that needed a closer look.
Marketing communications agencies were becoming heavily commoditised, a product of over-procurement, under-differentiated propositions and the continued tactification of the industry. In parallel, traditional marketing consulting from ‘the big 4’ had doubled-down on an optimisation-led, cost-out approach to marketing.
Was there space for a more ‘value-add’ consulting approach, one grounded in strategies that could create value and increase competitiveness in the long-term?
NOKAMO Consulting, a brand-led business consultancy – was incorporated in 2019.
Our contention: brand strategy is corporate strategy. Businesses must reframe their understanding of brand, not as design wrapper, but as force multiplier that defends the culture, and the P&L, against commoditisation, powering an organisation’s ‘flywheel’, its internal alignment & transformation, and contributing +20% of MarCap.
We offer three product buckets:
- STRATEGY FRAMEWORK = a new, more profitable direction & roadmap
- DESIGN = a leadership presence in market and basis for all future communications
- DEPLOYMENT = operationalising and embedding changes across the business
But it’s our model that differentiates.
Spherical.Thinking.Pro. recognises that organisations are delicately balanced ecosystems with multiple inputs/outputs, for which sequential workflows just don’t work. Our orbital ‘test, learn, iterate’ approach puts brand at the centre, controlling inputs from all sides and stakeholders, increasing the likelihood of successful implementation.
As one CEO said: “We needed a strategy framework that could be applicable from the CFO to the forklift truck driver. I have every confidence [this] will meet the targeted £30m incremental EV.”
From 4 to 25 people, we’ve met budget for 3 years, with double digit growth across all measures.
Our clients include startups, PE firms, SMEs , a FTSE 100 and a €3bn Swiss conglomerate. Assignments are international. Brands include Quorn, PGL, Sonova AG and Whitworths .
Creative excellence is provided by non-exec Jonathan Sands OBE; academic rigour by Professor Robert Jones; economic stewardship by James Bowling, FTSE 100 CFO.
We’re sector thought-leaders. Our ‘editorial’ library of provocative content has already paid off, having competitively tendered only once. We’re authoring a ‘Brand Investment Thesis’ with Kingston Smith, enabling clients to amortise fees across OpEx vs.CapEx.
But it’s our diverse team that make this possible. Our cognitive, mental, lifestage, belief and gender differences are what fuel our conspicuous thinking. Thus our ‘Great Minds Don’t Think Alike’ charter sets out the conditions needed for a fertile and varied input.
We also offer a LTIP share equity scheme, bonus payments, 360 benefits package, early finish Fridays, competitive annual training allowance and inflation tracking energy/COL payments. Our ‘Discomfort Disbursements’ pay for staff to do something outside their comfort zones.
Perhaps this FTSE 30 CFO sums it up best.
“I think NOKAMO are onto something. We need more dynamic and lateral leaps to navigate the more acute and differentiated challenges businesses increasingly face.”
View the profile in the MCA Members Directory.