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 noticed a shift in the marketing services supply sector that needed a closer look.
Marcomms agencies were becoming heavily commoditised, a product of over-procurement, under-differentiated propositions and the continued tactification of the industry. In parallel, marketing consulting from ‘the big 4’ had doubled-down on an optimisation-led, cost-out approach that was anything but transformative.
Was there space for a more ‘value-add’ approach, one that eschewed standard templated, risk-mitigated, AI-generated, ‘best-practice’ advice, and instead pushed, provoked, and positively disrupted, finding competitive advantage and growth in difference and discomfort?
NOKAMO Consulting, a brand-led business consultancy – was incorporated in 2019.
Our contention: Not to optimise the status quo—but to challenge the thinking that keeps businesses stuck in it. Not to work to a formula—but to interrogate the real problem and design a response that moves the dial – using brand as the catalyst for change.
This FTSE 30 CFO agrees: “We need more dynamic and lateral leaps to navigate the more acute and differentiated challenges businesses increasingly face.”
We offer three product buckets:
1 STRATEGY FRAMEWORK = a new, more profitable direction & roadmap
2 DESIGN = a leadership presence in market and basis for all future communications
3 DEPLOYMENT = operationalising and embedding changes across the business
But it’s our model that differentiates.
Spherical.Thinking.AI. recognises 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 success.
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 30 people, we’ve met budget for 5 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 PGL, Sonova AG, Warners Hotels and Morson.
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 is paying 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.
View the NOKAMO Consulting profile in the MCA Members Directory.