"The whole is more than the sum of its parts..." ~Aristotle.

Josée Sylvain, 2008.

A Synopsis of RIBECO GROUP.

by J. Sylvain and F. van Arkel, Senior F/L Project Consultants

"This company was formed, early 1996, fruit of the vision and the experience of one Strategic Consultant and former Finance manager of a transnational insurance and financial services company, vis-à-vis frontier-crossing opportunities in Management Consulting, in European Union synergy and the widening scope of international business, the IT world (new technologies and the start of an onrush of millions of Internet businesses), and new globe-spanning communications trends.

That man is Rick Beets, today still the Chairman & CEO of RIBECO GROUP ®.

Rick Beets, after an internationally flavoured childhood in Wassenaar, The Netherlands, speaking 8 languages and a graduate business economist with Master's degrees in Business Administration, Finance and Marketing, had spent most of his professional life in Management Consultancy. He'd always kept (and used) his original consulting company, RBC (1991), besides having worked for years in senior management positions at ALEXSA (Suisse), MANAGEMENT VIEW and GRUPO PANALUX (Panama). The growing service needs of the business community promised a new and bright future, especially in the South & Northwest of Europe and in the Americas where most of Rick's professional contacts and experience were located.

Founded as RICK BEETS CONSULTANT S.A.R.L. in 1991, for some free-lance project work during his undergraduate studies at Webster U., Rick's company now grew into a small transnational Group of service entities, by 1996. Combining a traditional MGT consulting background with a modern IT solutions emphasis, RIBECO are today a Business 3.0 think tank, hosting industry-specific online "tribal" Communities and economic intelligence.

Specializing in ERP/CRM software on UNIX/Posix platforms and integrated Web/net solutions in high-end security, RIBECO have been a strategic services provider to SUN MICROSYSTEMS and AOL TIME WARNER, with a support role in the migration to Free Software of leading IT platforms such as Solaris, SunOne J2EE and Intergate. FSF Members (GNU-GPLv2/v3 solutions).
Even so, RIBECO GROUP stayed true to their general Management origins, consulting and outsourcing to any size organizations, startups, online and cross-cultural ventures.

We now integrate into general service, our 1990s textbook classics such as the self-evident management formulas Complete Business Solutions, Cross-Cultural Citizenship ® and the Knowledge Culture ® and Quality Culture ® business models, the anti-trust beater Family Management ®, the intelligent targeting concept Differential Marketing ®, even along with our modern IT and ERP philosophies, GICS Servers ® and Mobile Platform Independence ®, right into the world of Business 3.0 and Economic Intelligence, which concepts were pioneered by RIBECO to such an extent as to rank us among the world's leading experts, today..."

(c) 2007, 2009.

E.L. (Rick) Beets, 2009.

"Ribeco Group ® evolved from the original "RBC" (RICK BEETS CONSULTANT) cabinet for free-lance consultancy, founded 1991 by E.L. (Rick) Beets from Holland." This is his story.

"RBC was founded RICK BEETS BUSINESS CONSULTANT S.A.R.L. in 1991, while I was an undergrad at Webster University's European campuses, taking on some odd-hours project work that -surprisingly- grew enough to justify a small company. Early clients included VIAJES MELIÁ of Spain, INTER ACCESS Consultants, the US&FCS / U.S. Commerce Dept. (trade rep & logistics) and small businesses: needing business plans, communications, coaching, accounting or finance support, biz software, etc.
To this day, I take pride in employing the RBC team, considering the "old company" the backbone of the wider RIBECO GROUP ® context built around it.

Expanding activities, by 1996, a wider scope and a strengthened corporate environment were called for; with a formal presence in Spain and in Central America, where I was working at the time (for a medium-sized Panamanian insurance & financial services company with investments in real estate, hotel-, gaming- and tourism industries). The new companies had to match a traditional MGT consulting ambiance with promising opportunities in international IT, Enterprise platforms and database marketing, serial entrepreneuring and Venture Capital trends, etc.


Why RIBECO ??
The original reason for the name I have already forgotten. 't Was something about a partnership that never materialized... When the company was formed, there was just a corporate shell and a name on the "sounds cool" slate. It so applied that "RI" stood for "Rick" and "BE" for "Beets"; with "CO" (for "Companies") slapped on for phonetic consistency.

In 1996, RIBECO SPAIN and RIBECO OVERSEAS were brought to life as full-phledged corporations, while RBC and a few other small entities (e.g. BEETS YACHTING GROUP / BYG YACHTBROKERS) merged into them, so that a real GROUP had evolved. Not just on paper: as active consulting units, with RIBECO SPAIN acting as caring mother company to a number of small region- or industry-specific business units. The added value of a Knowledge Culture emphasis and the evolving "avant-la-lettre" Economic Intelligence specialty of the new Group proved to be a marketable "USP" to benefit RIBECO ® clientele.


And Family?
Around our core "B2B" consulting specialties soon evolved a number of support services and some modest consumer marketing, never losing track of our overall objective: to build meaningful relationships and to share knowledge growth.
By 1997-98 the Group's activities included travel industry wholesale and import-export services, which led to the successful sale of some spin-off ventures (CAP SUR TRAVEL, B&R, EURO-AMERICAN TRADING), after having built us an "allround" experience, valuable business intelligence and a steady foothold in the international business community.

Over time, the "GROUP" came to encompass a larger "RIBECO FAMILY" of strategic alliances: compatible outsourcing partners, venture capitalists, free-lance specialists...

• RIBECO ® have always relied heavily on Free-lancing and Outsourcing, to cut on overhead: while selecting and training human resources with care, so to maintain service consistency and superior quality. Noblesse oblige...

Even if RIBECO GROUP ® remained primarily a family company of myself and my closest environment; its portfolio participations, serial ventures and "dot com"-like versatility made it into a wide-spread community of professionals, offering various levels of umbrella coverage to a number of business entities, pooled in merry Togetherness.
The Trademarked brand name and the corporate image of RIBECO ® today serve to group together some of the finest minds in the consulting business in a very motivating setting of synergy and advancement. I'm really proud to work with the best.

• "The whole is more than the sum of its parts..." I actually believe so!!