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History

Itim focus is a new business venture, which we started in the beginning of 2008, with a history covering over 25 years.

Below, see our short history of how it came about:

• 1980 - Publication of "Culture's Consequences" by Geert Hofstede, one of the most cited scholars in the entire "Social Science Citation Index". This Index is a yardstick of the impact a scholar has on the world wide scientific community.
  
• 1980 - Bob Waisfisz met Geert Hofstede when being the managing director of what is now called the Maastricht School of Management, based in the Netherlands. It clicked between Bob and Geert and they started a cooperation, first leading to the foundation of IRIC, a small research institute.
  
• 1983 - Bob was invited by a Dutch multinational to conduct intercultural management seminars leading to the foundation of itim.
• 1985 - Foundation of itim, now called itim international, having licensees in 25 countries around the world.
• 1985 - Bob was able to convince Geert Hofstede to do basic research in the field of organizational culture, resulting in a new body of know-how encapsulated in what we now call the Hofstede model (on strategy, culture and change).
• 1988 - Itim takes the Hofstede model to the market by conducting organizational culture scans.
• 1992 - Clients appear to be unhappy with the fact that we only made a picture of their current situation. They wanted more. As a consequence Bob has over the years developed a whole suite of tools s, to assist clients and their management consultants in assessing their actual and optimal culture and to make change happen in a focused way.
• 2007 - Gigi de Groot, having worked for itim international as deputy director, buys the intercultural management activities, including licensee agreements from Bob and one of his business partners.
• 2008 Itim focus takes over the organisational culture activities and is run by Bob Waisfisz, Wanne Wiersinga and Lammert Hilarides.
• 2008 - Itim focus and FeedbackDialog join forces.
• 2010 Karin Th. Faase joins itim focus as a partner.
• 2011 - Seppo Savolainen joins itim focus as business partner.