00:00Hello, my name is Isis German. I am the founder of German Business, creator of Access Intelligence,
00:08author of The Invisible Architecture of Connections and publisher of Beyond Access.
00:14I would like to thank the Icons of Change International Awards for these recognitions
00:19and for the opportunities to be part of these conversations.
00:23I am especially honoured by this recognition because many of the structures, observations and practices
00:31that emerged from our work naturally contributed to the principles behind SDG 17,
00:38particularly around partnerships, collaboration and cross-roader ecosystem development.
00:45For more than a decade, we have been building access across conversation,
00:51involve investors, entrepreneurs, executives, medium and large companies and organizations
00:58throughout Latin America, the United States and EMEA.
01:03Throughout that work, you have seen where access creates opportunities, where Isis is undervalued
01:10and how relational capital is often lost without organizations even realizing it.
01:16We have seen how often valuable access is wasted when it is treated only as a commercial conversation.
01:25What I will share today is based on real situations that help shape the way we understand access, relationships and
01:35opportunities.
01:36What we kept seeing across market and industry, organizations were struggling not because they lacked capability,
01:45but because they lacked structure in how they conduct and read their access,
01:51as well as other gaps we keep identifying along the way.
01:56And it was a response to that problem that German business emerged and that Access Intelligence was built.
02:03Access Intelligence is a practical mechanism designed to support organizations in addressing their broader strategic challenges through access.
02:13Not networking, not consulting, not lead generation.
02:17It is a structured mechanism designed to help organizations reach people, environment and conversation
02:23that are relevant to the challenges they are trying to overcome, but are currently unable to reach on their own.
02:31These challenges can take many forms.
02:34A company may be seeking for investment, new commercial opportunities, international expansion, greater marketing relevance,
02:43access to strategic partners, better positioning with decision makers,
02:47or simply a faster learning curve in a market they still do not fully understand.
02:53In many cases, several of these challenges exist simultaneously.
02:58One of the most important things we have learned is that these challenges rarely exist in isolations.
03:06A company looking for investment may actually need a strong commercial traction.
03:10A company struggling to close a new business may actually have a credibility challenge.
03:14A company entering a new market may first need to understand how the market behaves before deciding where to invest
03:22in its efforts.
03:24That is why we are never working on a single objective in isolation.
03:28We are working on the broader context surrounding it.
03:32Because solving one's challenges often depends on making progress in several others.
03:37Every project starts the same way before building access.
03:43The organization first needs a clear reading of what is actually preventing progress.
03:51Not only what it wants to achieve, but what is standing between the organization and objectivity.
03:59Is it access? Is it relevance? Is it credibility? Is it time? Is it market validation? Or are they simple
04:08pursuing the wrong conversation?
04:11Once the organization has established that reading and defining its criteria,
04:17they access intelligence mechanisms operating according to that direction.
04:22For every challenge, specific criteria lead to specific targets.
04:27And the specific conversation is serving a clear purpose.
04:32Only then do we begin building access.
04:36Very often without revealing the company's name.
04:39Without revealing the strategy.
04:42Without exposing the opportunities before the right moment.
04:46This protects the company's positioning.
04:48Prevent relationships from being exhausted prematurely.
04:52And allows us to build access even when we start with absolutely no existing network.
05:01The entire process happens remotely.
05:04That removes geographical limitations.
05:07And allows organizations to access markets that otherwise require years or physical present to begin developing.
05:16As conversation unfolds, new intelligence emerges based on the insights the organization made.
05:24Refining its reading, redefining its criteria and adjusting its strategy according to what the market is actually signaling.
05:35Not according its initial assumptions.
05:37There is another dimension to this working that is readily discussed.
05:43Many executives already have extraordinary relationships.
05:48Relationships built over decades.
05:50With investors, board members, partners, industry leaders.
05:55Those relationships are valuable.
05:57Precisely because they are not constantly being used for business.
06:02An executive plays a golf with someone, attends the same conference, has dinner, build trust in overtime.
06:09The moment that relationships become a negotiation, the dynamics may change.
06:16Very often our role is simply to protect that relationship.
06:21German business becomes the intermediary.
06:23We conduct the approach.
06:25We work alongside the executive team through the conversation and executives preserve the relationships.
06:33We manage the business process around it.
06:37That is one of the ways we help preserve what later become one of the most important concepts we developed.
06:46German business does not operate alone.
06:50After seeing those patterns, repeatable for so many years, I felt the need to document them.
06:58That becomes the invisible architecture of connections.
07:02The book explores everything that surrounds our connections.
07:07Reading, criteria, access, post-access, continuity, stewardship.
07:12Because connections begin long before two people meet and they continue long after that meeting ends.
07:21The same happening with beyond access.
07:25Those observations should not remain inside our project.
07:30They need to be shared.
07:32Because sharing then allows us to skip the step of explaining concepts and go straight to the execution.
07:40Today, these three fronts complement one another.
07:45German business creates the practical environment where access happens.
07:50The book explains the invisible architecture behind it.
07:55And Beyond Access continues documenting how we see and do business.
08:00Our culture, our mindset and our perspectives on access, connections and negotiations.
08:10As we continue building access, another pattern becomes impossible triggering.
08:17Organizations invest enormous amounts of time, researches and energy trying to reach the right people.
08:24They finally gather.
08:26The meeting happens, the conversation happens, the opportunity does not immediately become a sale.
08:34And the relationship is discarded.
08:37The executives become just another name inside the CRM.
08:41Another contact who ends up only being recently out to when someone wants to sell them something.
08:49Another conversation considered really unsexful.
08:53Yet that same conversation may have revealed exactly why the strategy was not working.
09:01It may have identified a better marketing, a better positional, a stronger partner on entirely different opportunities that nobody was
09:10looking for before the meeting happened.
09:13Over time, we realized that those conversations were carrying something much larger than the possibility of transactions.
09:22They carried possibilities, possibilities and future opportunities.
09:27The level of information extended between senior executives and investors brings enormous input applicable to multiplying challenges across different areas
09:40of new organizations.
09:41Along with multiplying possibilities for collaboration.
09:46We start looking at all of this as a form of capital.
09:51What we now call relational capital.
09:54One of the most valuable assets an organization can build.
09:58And one of the easiest to lose without even realizing it.
10:03Let me share a few examples.
10:07A Brazilian technology company approached us while preparing its expansion into the NBA region.
10:15The objectivity was to gain access to decision makers in the retail and industry sectors with the niche market.
10:24One important point.
10:26We had zero existing contacts in either sector.
10:29That demonstrated something fundamental about access intelligence.
10:33It does not depend on having a pre-existing network.
10:38It allows us to build the right relationships from the ground up.
10:42As we know prior connections existed.
10:47We began that process without revealing the company's identity or strategy.
10:53Protecting its position until the appropriate moment to move the conversation forward.
11:00Within a few months, conversations were talking places across both factors.
11:05Of course, what changed the company's strategy was not the number of the meetings.
11:10It was what those meetings revealed.
11:14Retail proved to be much more accessible.
11:18Companies were open to conversation, open to presentation, open to understand the solution.
11:24At the first glance, it is appeared to be the obvious directions.
11:28And industry showed more resistance at the door, harder to access.
11:35But the negotiations were far more promising.
11:39The companies quickly understood the landscape and adjusted the course.
11:44Within the first month, they redirected their strategy completely.
11:49Not because of the marketing reports.
11:52Not because of consultants.
11:53Not because of the conversation themselves had produced enough intelligence.
11:57To show where they should actually invest their time and energy.
12:03A second case involved a construction technology company.
12:08Like many founders, they came looking for new business opportunities.
12:13As we explored the challenge more deeply, another objective emerged.
12:19They needed to understand whether certain ideas had real market demands before investing research into developing them.
12:29The founder himself identified the four specific companies.
12:33His reasoning was simple.
12:36If these companies see value in that product, I will know there is a real opportunity worth pursuing.
12:42Those exact organizations become our criteria.
12:47Not because they were large, but because the feedback would be strategically meaningful.
12:55The objective was not simply to validate a product.
12:58The objective was to validate the directions.
13:02And the other companies were willing to adopt something entirely new.
13:06Within weeks, those conversations provided exactly that.
13:10The company discovered that it was genuinely demanding and interested for a solution that had not yet been formally developed.
13:19Before building it, before pricing it, before presenting it to the market.
13:25They already knew there was interest that changed the order of their decisions.
13:33Instead of building it first and hoping the market would respond, they allowed the market itself to influence what would
13:43be built.
13:44One of those connections lead to a first of this kind of product in that sector.
13:52A third case involved a company in the mobility sector.
13:58They managed approximately 500 vehicles.
14:03Their objective was to enter new markets and expand their client base.
14:09But they had an access challenge.
14:12Their approach was too generic.
14:15Every time they approached the potential clients, they kept hearing the same response.
14:21We already have something similar.
14:23The challenge was no longer access.
14:26The challenge was differentiation.
14:29Through the process of new access conversations, we began observing what did the companies say that resonated on their other
14:39side.
14:39New approaches were developed.
14:42More doors opened.
14:44They overcome the communication challenge instead of immediately pursuing more conversation.
14:51We took the time to understand everything the company was truly capable of delivering.
14:57As those conversations evolved and other opportunities emerged.
15:01Several of those capabilities became business of their own.
15:06New business units, new products, new spin-offs.
15:10Not because they were invented during that project.
15:14But because access had helped reveal a value, the company itself had not fully recognized it.
15:22They realized that they had much more to offer than they had been presenting to the marketing.
15:32There was still one of the final challenges in certain markets.
15:36Innovations alone is rarely enough.
15:40Companies also need validation.
15:42Someone respected who trusted them first.
15:46At the first point, at the point, they identified another objective.
15:51Securing a strategic partnership capable of changing every future conversation.
15:58Eventually, they reached an agreement with one of the largest vehicle rental companies in the country.
16:07The companies went from managing 500 vehicles to more than 90,000.
16:15Financially, it was not the most profitable contract.
16:20Strategically, it changed everything.
16:23From that point, a large, every conversation started from a different position and credibility.
16:31Some times later, the company was acquired by a larger player in the sectors.
16:36And a forced situation devolved a startup that was seeking investment.
16:42A fund declined to invest, but the way they declined was remarkable specifically.
16:49You compete with, well, no companies.
16:52These companies are already building the same features you are developing.
16:57Revenue is still low.
16:59Active clients are limited.
17:00The goal to market risk is too high for us now.
17:05There was not a rejection.
17:07There was a map.
17:09The company left knowing exactly what stood between them and investment.
17:15And understanding clearly what needs to be strengthened before the next conversation with investors.
17:22A funding manager from a separate organization letter commented the one that is dynamic.
17:28He wrote that even when a company does lot in security funding, the frictions of the process alone forces founders
17:36to confront bright spots,
17:39strengthen their narrative, and refine their go-to-market strategy.
17:45Leave them with a much higher probability of succeeding in the next conversation.
17:50That intelligence, he wrote, is a massive value add that is almost never captured in traditional success metrics.
18:01He was describing something we had been observing for years.
18:07These four situations reveal a pattern we keep seeing across industry and markets.
18:15Organizations were creating access, but they are rarely prepared to receive it with a transversality.
18:23One code see multiply path and possibility.
18:27The commercial team would look at it only through a sales perspective.
18:34Markets might never see it.
18:36Neither might innovation strategy or institutional partnerships.
18:42The opportunity became trapped inside a single department.
18:45And with the constant pressure for results and sales, the demand is always more and more.
18:52And those relationships that didn't know immediately convert end up never being explored to their full potential.
19:00That observation leads us to develop another concept, the opportunity director.
19:07Not as another commercial role, but as transversal function inside organization.
19:14Someone responsible for receiving access, reading it, understanding its potential,
19:21and directing it to every relevant department so that multiple forms of value can be explored.
19:30Without that transversal reading, organizations continue investing in significant research into creating access,
19:37while simultaneously losing much more of the value of those relationships code generating.
19:43Access should not be to a department.
19:47It should belong to the organization.
19:51Looking back, many of these outcomes naturally strengthen the kind of partnerships
19:59SDG 17 encourages their organizations I mentioned today.
20:05Are arriving with one objective.
20:08They left with something more valuable.
20:11The technology companies come looking for access to EMEA
20:15and they're left in knowing exactly where not to invest in this energy.
20:19The construction technology companies coming looking for opportunities, business opportunities.
20:25It is left in knowing where was demand before the product even existed.
20:31The mobility company comes looking for a new market.
20:35It is left with a strategic case that completely changed its market positioning.
20:41The startups coming looking for investment.
20:44It is left with a roadmap showing exactly what it needs to change before the next investment conversations.
20:51Access when treated as a system supported by reading criteria, intelligence and continuity does much more than open doors.
21:01It is improving decisions.
21:03It is strengthening relationships.
21:06It accelerates learning.
21:08And it is changing what becomes possible after the conversations.
21:13Our ambition has never been as simple to create more access.
21:19It is to contribute to a market where access is better understood.
21:24Relationships are better preserved.
21:27And opportunities are more intentionally developed.
21:31Because strong markets are not built only through capital technology or infrastructure.
21:37They are also built through trust, through collaboration and through the ability to transform relationships into long-term value.
21:48When that happens, the benefits extend far beyond individual organizations.
21:54They strengthen the entire ecosystem.
21:56And ultimately, they create a better position for long-term prosperity.
22:03Thank you so much.
