In today’s shifting business landscape, companies must continually reinvent their product offering and ways of working. In light of the new business paradigm, what’s the best way to bring together companies, investors, and business leaders on the lookout for new opportunities? Answering this question is what drove the creation of INFLEX’ON – an international firm designed to help entrepreneurs deliver long-term value.
January 26, 2021 | Article translated from the original article published in Informations Entreprise Nº177 January/February/March 2021
The business world is changing faster than ever before. In addition to heightened competition, companies must also deal with a rapidly shifting landscape that is making job tenures shorter and increasing the need for job relevance. Companies have to constantly reinvent themselves, including in terms of their organisational structure and governance system. With all these challenges, many executives are turning to coaching and/or companies are outsourcing key management functions. They realise that to remain competitive, they must be able to draw on a team of seasoned experts who will serve as valuable resources and guide the company through a given period. At the same time, employees are taking more initiative over their career trajectories – which will clearly no longer be with a single firm. Such employees are increasingly interested in opportunities that can give them new skills or expand their networks, and in continuing education programs that will keep them at the forefront of their field. This new business paradigm has created a gap between market needs and employees’ traditional role within a company. Meanwhile, investors are sharpening their focus on investments with promising returns, like SMEs – and SMEs in turn are looking for reliable, committed investors.
All these factors are what prompted the creation of INFLEX’ON – an investment and advisory firm with a revolutionary business model and completely new kind of service offering.
Convergence among investors, companies and CXOs
INFLEX’ON was founded by Till Bohbot in 2018 on a single conviction: entrepreneurship plays a key role in the prosperous development of our economies and societies. The firm aims to help SMEs deliver on their full potential by providing profitable, responsible, and sustainable responses to the challenges inherent in our ecosystem.
“How can startups – which are driven by ideas, ingenuity, and hard work (as well as by capital) – more efficiently create long-term value for our economies? That was the question I asked myself in 2017,” says Till Bohbot. “Based on my experience with setting up, leading, buying, and selling businesses, I saw that existing approaches to jobs and investment were creating obstacles. I spent some time speaking with entrepreneurs who had sold their businesses and who, like me, weren’t planning on taking a permanent position with another company unless they could bring something concrete to the table. I also spoke with a lot of executives who felt they would be more useful in another type of organisational structure or in businesses with different development cycles. At the same time, I had seen that startups and SMEs could be attractive investments, but that it was hard to find companies pursuing a core goal of long-term value creation rather than simply chasing after chimerical market valuations. Putting these facts together, I realised there comes an ‘inflection point’ in a company’s development that I wanted to help guide executives through, which is why I created INFLEX’ON.” Bohbot drew on the skills he obtained from executive education programs at Harvard Business School and IMD to set up the firm, with the goal of bringing together ecosystems that, in fact, wanted nothing more than to be put in touch.
A virtuous circle
In response to this fast-changing business world brimming with opportunities, Bohbot designed and launched INFLEX’ON’s novel business model and innovative approach. With his services, CXOs (CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CMOs, etc.) and entrepreneurs are, for the first time, brought together to pool their skills and know-how in an entrepreneurial venture and contribute to a company’s development cycle, without stagnating in their careers. Another innovative aspect of INFLEX’ON’s approach is that in addition to supplying funds, investors also provide real value added in line with their interest in the company, and vice-versa. INFLEX’ON’s pioneering business model creates a powerful network channeled into a unique service that pulls together the best combination of entrepreneurs and investors for a given point in a company’s development cycle.
“Companies contact us because they want to further their business development without all the worry, and take advantage of the new horizons, tools, and network our firm has to offer,” says Bohbot. “We start by pinpointing the relevant dimensions for a company and the challenges it’s currently facing; this step generally lasts a few days. Then we begin the consulting phase and draw on our network of CXOs. This usually lasts 3–12 months. And finally, around 75% of the time, either afterwards or in parallel, INFLEX’ON invests in the new business ideas that need funding. Through our new approach based on good sense, we leverage sustainable entrepreneurship to address today’s societal challenges.”
What people say about INFLEX’ON
INFLEX’ON’s methodology got us thinking about the key issues we needed to tackle and helped us identify our real challenges. Then, thanks to the firm’s ongoing support, we were guided (in some cases) and challenged (in others) in our management decisions, equipped with the right tools to move Enigma forward. Today, two years later, not only has our business started growing again – we’ve just had our best year – but we’ve also introduced two new flagship services, set up a crisis-proof enterprise management system, and outlined ambitious plans for 2021. Olivier Kennedy, Founder & CEO of Enigma
INFLEX’ON guided us through various pivots, advised us on structuring our staff, and helped us organize our operations. Its approach gave us the space we needed to make well-reasoned decisions and the tools to implement them. Our trust in INFLEX’ON, along with the interactions and synergies, naturally led us to pool our efforts at a key moment in our business development when Inqom became an established provider of next-generation, artificial-intelligence-based SaaS accounting systems for SMEs and accounting firms. Romain Passilly, CEO of Inqom
Our next-generation accounting service had reached a plateau after a promising first two years. We had successfully navigated through a period of rapid growth in our customer base, and felt that more opportunities were out there – but we needed someone to help us clearly pinpoint what our next goals should be. It was important for us to not lose sight of our company’s identity and core values as we further grew our business. With INFLEX’ON’s support, we were able to:1) Completely revamp our brand identity so that it more closely matched our corporate culture and core values 2) Create a new job position with specific skill requirements – someone responsible for maintaining and expanding our strategic advantages over our direct competitors. Damien Astolfi, Founder of Fidbox Sàrl
Express Bio Till Bohbot
- 1980: Born in Geneva on September 4.
- 2004: Obtains a Master’s degree in communication systems from EPFL.
- 2004–2006: Works as a consultant, then manager, for engineering firm Alten in Geneva.
- 2007–2008: Is transferred to Madrid to develop and lead Alten’s ICT (Information and Communication Technology) business unit.
- 2009–2014: At the age of 28, moves to Barcelona to create a software development and consulting business in association with former Alten colleagues, with the goal of establishing an international company called Amaris.
- 2011: Obtains an Executive MBA from IE Business School.
- 2015–2017: Merges his business with the rest of Amaris and is appointed Chief Operating Officer of Amaris Group. Under his leadership, the company’s annual revenue grows from €75 million to €150 million, with 3,000 employees in over 50 countries. 2016–2018: Completes the Owner/President Management program at Harvard Business School (an alternating two-year program).
- 2018–Present: Founder & CEO of INFLEX’ON, an investment and advisory firm specialized in SMEs.
January 26, 2021 | Article translated from the original article published in Informations Entreprise Nº177 January/February/March 2021
