acondas on the move – Setting sail for distant shores

Categories: here at acondasPublished On: 27.11.2018

Seven years after its inception, acondas sets its sights on strategic development.

It has the hustle and bustle feel of a train station when the employees of the Düsseldorf-based management consultancy acondas meet in Leiden in southern Holland for their annual strategy meeting. A sense of euphoria and excitement are in the air. Everyone knows some sort of journey is imminent, but a journey whose destination is yet unknown for most of the consultants.

Leiden as the launching point for setting sail for distant shores is well suited. With its over 1,000-year history, Leiden stands for some things that fit acondas well. Its size, for example: If Leiden were a company, the city with its almost 130,000 inhabitants would be a medium-sized company. Nevertheless, large European companies have settled here: the Airbus Group and the European headquarters of Ikea are based in Leiden. acondas, with its approximately 35 salaried consultants, is also rather medium-sized, but it advises several DAX companies.

There’s another thing that connects the city in Holland with the management consultancy from Germany. With two local universities and around 24,000 students, Leiden is a city of knowledge, education and qualification. It was here, in 1575, that the first university of the Netherlands was founded, and several training institutes and a people’s university are based in the city. At acondas, further education and qualifications are also of great importance. The concept of acondas_learning_lab_berlin as an innovative space for knowledge and exchange is not only unusual for a medium-sized consultancy, but also quite unique. In workshops and trainings, new methods and solutions for complex management issues are developed here.

And now Leiden is the point of departure, the kick-off event for the imminent strategic development, the launching pad for the journey. That’s why the atmosphere is a little like it’s on a train station. Some have freshly arrived: recently hired consultants eager to meet their future colleagues. Some are transferring: In fact, they’re moving up, and their recent promotion is the first step in the next stage of their career ladder. But for everyone, it’s the starting point for a new destination: Bidding farewell to what has been meshes with anticipation of what is yet to be. A certain tension is in the air, because the strategic development will pose many challenges.

Why set sail for a new destination in the first place? After all, it’s smooth sailing the way things are right now. Since acondas was founded seven years ago, it has quickly established itself as an implementation consultancy with an outstanding reputation among large corporations as well as small and medium-sized companies across many industries. “In terms of technical expertise and methodological knowledge, we don’t need to shy away from comparison with our major international competitors,” say the two managing directors Florissen and Fengler, “we can easily hold our own.”

Why, then, strategic development? “It’s a question of focusing on our customers’ future priorities.” Although they are for the most part not new, they are far from being worked through in most companies because they are entail profound changes and – figuratively speaking – hardly a stone will be left standing: “The digital transformation and the organizational development it requires will be the main concern of our customers over the next ten years,” Florissen and Fengler are convinced.

“The goal of our strategic development is to accompany and support our customers through this transformation process as best we can,” say the two managing directors, “and that’s why we have to set things up differently internally.” How the new sails will be trimmed and how the customers will benefit from it is not open for discussion at this point. How will the journey go on? To be continued…

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