Rik Vera

Rik Vera

• Thought leader, advisor, and keynote speaker on customer centricity, change management, sales, and marketing in a digital age
• Believes in changing the business model to better serve customers in a sustainable, future proof way
• Guest lecturer at various business schools in the UK, Belgium, France, and The Netherlands
• Author of “Managers The Day After Tomorrow”

With a history of over 25 years in C-level management in leading global manufacturing countries, Rik Vera’s tools have always combined extreme customer centricity, technology, changing the status quo, and changing business models where needed to better serve customers. And, to top it all, he believes in doing so in a sustainable and future proof way.

The years between 2010 and 2015 saw Rik Vera coaching, advising, and assisting large technology companies.

Rik Vera has, since 2010, travelled to countries across the globe. He delivered over 1,000 highly rated keynotes and workshops in over 30 countries. His audiences included all segments of the business market.

A partner in and CEO of nexxworks, he is also a guest lecturer who has spent time at various business schools in France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

His topics, over the years, have been the same. It remains that hotspot where extreme customer centricity meets technology meets changing the business model to better serve customers.

Rik Vera emphasizes that he does not foresee the future. He believes nobody can. But his passionate curiosity sees him push companies and leaders into a curious mindset. Rik is the author of “Managers The Day After Tomorrow”. The book discusses company management concerning digital transformation, innovation mindset, extreme customer centricity, business model design, and creating sustainable, future-proof organisations.

Rik Vera – Speaker

Rik Vera is a sought-after global speaker, lecturer, trusted advisor, and coach to companies both large and small. He lives in The Netherlands and presents in English and Dutch.

Speaking Topics

• BUSINESS AND LIFE IN THE DAY AFTER COVID-19: The Day After Tomorrow has been given a new name. It is has become The Day After Covid-19. When the meteorite struck planet earth and killed the dinosaurs in a short period, those little rats, that we now call mammals, were already around. The same is going to happen right now. We are not going to witness a brand-new economy or a brand-new customer. We are not going to have to interact with that customer in a brand-new way. Every aspect of the post-Covid-19 era was already around, but it had to fight the old normal of old business models that were still making money. People and companies locked in fixed patterns did not know how to escape the boxes they created themselves. Nobody likes to kill the old to give birth to the new. Rik predicted the ‘Twilight Twenties’: a decade of in-between zone. He was wrong. The Covid-19 lockdown will be our devastating Twilight Zone. That is what Covid-19 will have done: kill the Old Normal and make way for what was already there. The boxes are gone. The future will be here at full force.

What does it mean for a company? What does it mean for you and me that are in business? The answer is simple and not new at all. More than ever: extreme customer-centricity is a must. Connect to many will be easier than ever before and engage individuals will be more important than ever before. Combining both is a matter of survival.

In this keynote, Rik sets the scene, warning leadership to not freeze a company in a temporary coma. They should act immediately and at full force. There never was a better moment to make companies future proof.

• MANAGERS THE (NEW) DAY AFTER TOMORROW: In January 2018 Rik finished his book “Managers The Day after Tomorrow”. He had been struggling with the fact that writing a book about technological changes and fast-changing times is an almost impossible mission by definition: a book is static. The recent happenings about the pandemic, however, are fairly good reasons to re-discover the book.

The content of the book has evolved as the context has changed over time and so has the meaning of the content. In this keynote, Rik revisits Managers The Day After Tomorrow from the perspective of the new challenges to better understand the new Day After Tomorrow and how managers should prepare for that New Normal.

The questions that Rik wanted to answer in his book are more relevant than ever before. The changes in the outside world and those of the consumer are more devastating than we could ever have imagined in 2018. The waves of change are not only driven by technology but are amplified by the disruptive force of a virus that has killed the world as we have known it for many decades in just a couple of weeks. And that has created room for a completely new world of unknown ecosystems, business models, and customer behaviour.

In this keynote Rik re-visits, his book and re-defines what management should be like for Managers in this New Day After Tomorrow.

• CURIOSITY DID NOT KILL THE CAT: We know that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’. But are we aware that a culture can kill companies in no time? The good old ‘robust’ culture was killing companies in the past and it will be killing even more companies in this era of lightspeed and devastating changes to come. Change that culture while you still can and start very simply by implementing an essential new KPI, which is the perfect antidote for the ‘robust’ culture: the Net Curiosity Score (#NCS).

We have entered the Twilight Twenties. It is the time of monsters and creeps. There are no scripts and those that travel it based on assumptions will not survive. Assumptions will kill.

The good old ‘robust’ culture was inside-out, top-down, balanced scorecard driven, hierarchical, rigid, no longer in tune with the outside world, and based on patterns and assumptions. It was killing companies in the past and it will be killing even more companies in this era of lightspeed changes. Change it while you still can. Start very simply by implementing one essential new KPI which is the perfect antidote for the ‘robust’ culture: the Net Curiosity Score (#NCS).

The scripts for The Day After Tomorrow are in the making. The game will be won by those that know how to adapt to the new rules.  It will be the curious ones who re-write those rules. In this keynote, Rik explains the why, how, and what of the new culture that companies need to adapt and why curiosity is the leading force to make that change.

What is curiosity? How to create it? How to measure? How to enhance it? What are the enablers and what are the barriers?

• THE SMART ECOSYSTEM ECONOMY (BUILD ANTIFRAGILE SYSTEMS): The business environment saw a dramatic reshape between 2000-2020 due to technological waves changing people and society. Due to big data, AI, and robotization, we live in a data-driven world that will lead to a blurring of old industry lines. The new competition will be one between ecosystems. COVID-19 will be a tipping point: the world came to a standstill and when it reboots, it will reboot in a variety of small and smart ecosystems. We are just witnessing the opening moves of an exciting endgame that is going to unfold in the next decades to come. Companies need to play the game. Not playing it is not an option.

This is the era of the Smart Ecosystems Economy. We need companies to be ready to cope with randomness and unexpected events. We need companies to be systems that are not eaten by chaos and do not think they can control chaos, but companies that are antifragile and grow by randomness.

We all know that antifragile systems are the answer, but how do you build them?

In this hands-on keynote, Rik explains what it takes to become antifragile and how to build an antifragile system. He will explain what “smart” is and how to build a smart ecosystem or how to participate in one. Rik will help you to solve this antifragile mystery and turn it into actionable building blocks.

Do you want to know;

• Why we have entered the Twilight Twenties?
• What is that next digital wave?
• Why is it already happening?
• Why will it become even of bigger impact than the internet?
• Why will it help us to crack the magic formula for the Day After Tomorrow?
• What is that magic formula?
• What is the Beach Chair Syndrome?
• What is a FEAST interface?
• Why good CEX is what is needed?
• Why is TREE the formula of exponential growth?
• Why smart ecosystems are the key to a new and sustainable economy?
• How to build them and what rules you have to know?
• How to lead an organisation through the twilight zone and what that means for culture, leadership and organisation?
• What will kill businesses in the Twilight Zone?
• What is to be the one and only differentiator between life and death in the next decade?
• Why you need to become a surfer?
• Why do you need to have a HEART?
• And finally: why is it important to know the answer to the most important business question ever? And what is that question?

All that and more in a 45 minutes dazzling tsunami of slides, pictures, formulas, quotes, analogies and brand new and challenging insights. Never a dull moment with Rik.

“The only thing that will come to mind will be: what was this? And the vibes will last for days. You may even be rewired for life.”