درس فى اقتناص الفرص

لن أتعرض هنا لما حدث وقد يحدث فى مبارتى كرة القدم للتأهل لكأس العالم فمن حسن حظى أنى أحب كرة القدم ضمن باقة من الرياضات الراقية التى يشدنى إليها مستوى المهارات المطلوبة للتفوق فيها والتشويق والإثارة التى تحدثها فيمن يتابعون فنونها وقوة الإحتمال التى يتمتع بها لاعبوها وقدرتهم على الصراع والكسب تحت ضغوط نفسية رهيبة عرفتها حين كنت أمارس أحد تلك الألعاب الفردية العنيفة وقرر والدى يرحمه الله أن يحضر مباراة البطولة فكدت أخسر البطولة لأن تركيزى قد تشتت بين صوت المدرب وتعليماته واختلاسى النظر إلى الوالد بين الحين والآخر وأصوات المشجعين لى ولخصمى على الحلقة.
أريد هنا أن أهدى إلى شبابنا نموذجا لاقتناص الفرص يتعلمون منه كيف يبدأون عملا بسيطا يتطور ليصبح كبيرا لو نظروا حولهم ورصدوا مايحتاجه الناس وهو كثير وقاموا بتوفيره إما بتصنيعه أو التوسط لجلبه أو بيعه لحساب الغير .. لو فعلنا ذلك لما كان بيننا عاطل بالمعنى الحرفى للكلمة .. الصين أصبحت نموذجا للتسويق المقتحم الذى يراقب الأسواق بعينى الصقر وينقض على الفرص المتاحة بسرعة خاطفة يعجز أهل البلد أنفسهم عن الظفر بها .. وإليكم أمثلة نتعلم منها أسلوب الكوماندوز فى فنون التسويق والبيع:
• السعودية سوق عملاقة باعتبارها ملتقى العالم العربى والإسلامى يرتادها ملايين الناس طوال العام لزيارة الأماكن المقدسة وأداء شعائر الحج والعمرة .. وهؤلاء يحتاجون إلى ثلاثة أشياء أساسية يستكملون بها مشاويرهم الروحانية : ملابس إحرام وسجاجيد صلاة وسبح بأشكالها المختلفة .. ولايقتصر الأمر على الإستخدام الشخصى وإنما يتجاوز ذلك إلى إصطحاب تلك الأشياء معهم كهدايا لأحبائهم فى البلدان التى قدموا منها .. يدخل الصينيون منافسين شرسين يقدمون تلك السلع بأسعار رخيصة فى متناول كل الطبقات تكتسح أمامها كل ماعداها .. فرصة نادرة استغلها الصينيون واقتنصوها لسد حاجة ماسة إلى منتجات بأعداد ضخمة ومستوى أسعار منخفض وجودة معقولة تتناسب مع الأسعار.
• فى مصر لايزال الناس يقبلون الشراء من الباعة الجائلين الذين يدقون الأبواب يعرضون بضاعتهم ويفاوضون على السعر على الرغم من المحاذير الأمنية .. فرص كثيرة متاخة فى مجتمع الكثافة السكانية التى يتركز معظمها فى الأحياء الفقيرة التى يجاهد الناس فيها لكى يوفروا لأنفسهم وأسرهم سلعا ضرورية بأسعار تتناسب مع دخولهم الضعيفة .. يحمل الصينى أو الصينية شنطة ضعف حجمه ، يدخل العمائر ويدق أبواب الشقق يبيع بضاعته من الملابس والأجهزة المنزلية والإلكترونية والإكسسوارات الرخيصة المهربة دون كلل أو تعب .. جزء ليس بالقليل منهم إختاروا وسيلة أقل مخاطرة وهى مشاركة مصرى فى محل يعرضون فيه بضاعتهم يستهدفون المجمعات فى الأماكن الراقية ويظلون على اتصال دائم بالعملاء والأسواق يحددون احتياجاتها ويلبون تلك الإحتياجات بسرعة.. بل إن بعضهم أصبح ينافس الحرفيين فى أعمال الكهرباء والسباكة والنجارة بل وقص الشعر بالمنازل بأسعار تبلغ نصف مايدفع عادة فى مثل تلك الأمور .. اسواق موازية اصطنعوها مستفيدين من ضعف الرقابة واستهانة الأجهزة المعنية وسلبيتها.
• وأخيرا تنزل فرق من الصينين إلى مصر تحدد احتياجات مشجعى كرة القدم فى المباريات ذات الأهمية الخاصة مثل التأهل لكأس العالم فتغرق السوق بأعلام متقنة الصنع وبأحجام مختلفة تناسب كل الأغراض ومستويات الدخول .. ملايين الأعلام بيعت وسوف تباع يحملها الناس ويعلقونها ويزينون بها سياراتهم .. والذى يغيظ فى كل ذلك أن صناعة الأعلام بالذات لاتحتاج إلى تكنولوجيا متقدمة ولا ماكينات معقدة ولا تكلفة مرتفعة للإنتاج ، ولكن أحدا فى مصر لم يفكر فيما فكر فيه الصينيون ، فماذا حدث لنا لكى نفضل الإستهلاك على الإنتاج ، والراحة والكسل على السعى والتعب ، والوظيفة التى لاتجيئ على العمل الحر بكل مكاسبه ؟
حتى الأفكار الإبتكارية أصبحت وسيلة لاقتناص الفرص فنجد البليونير الأمريكى "وارن بافيت" يدعو ثمانية أشخاص كل عام لكى يتناولوا العشاء معه من خلال مزاد يشعل نار المنافسة بين من يريدون أن يحظوا بتلك الفرصة لحجز مقعد على مائدة رجل الأعمال الأسطورة .. ويفتح المزاد عادة بحد أدنى قدره 35 ألف دولار للمقعد الواحد وصلت هذا العام إلى أكثر من 860 ألف دولار.. ولما استغرب الإعلام من ضخامة المبالغ التى يتسابق أصحاب الملايين على دفعها والتى يخصصها بافيت كلها لأعمال الخير قال أحد المزايدين " لم يكن ممكنا لقاء بافيت بغير هذه الطريقة والحصول على استشارة من خبير مثله تزدهر بها أعمالى فأصبح مليارديرا مثله"

Things to Avoid When Emailing Customers

Some of the smartest companies I know limit the email interactions between customers and their service department, precisely because in an age of Web 2.0, an email exchange can easily be published. While most of the written communications are mundane and done by the book, they can also be taken out of context in a way that makes the company look bad, if not incompetent.




Here are a few things you should avoid putting into an email, if possible.



A rejection. If you have to tell your customer “no,” an email is sometimes the worst way to do it. I’ve seen clever companies ask customers they’re about to turn down to “please call” to discuss the matter. While this is frustrating to customers, it can help a company save face.



An excuse. If a company must defend a policy that, to customers, is indefensible, an email may be the worst way to do it. And yet many companies do it anyway. They blame their competitors, calling something an “industry standard” and insist that they must do something in order to remain competitive. In fact, these emails make them look awful when they’re published on Facebook or Google+.



An ultimatum. If the exchange with a customer has deteriorated to the point where you’re ready to refer the matter to your legal department, email is the wrong way to continue. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen an exchange that ends, “Any further correspondence with this office will not be answered.” Why put that into an email? Why not just let your actions speak for themselves?



A non-answer. Many companies have pre-written “form” answers that they simply cut-and-paste into the body of the email. Problem is, they sometimes don’t take the time to actually read the question and ensure the form answers the question. That makes the company appear distracted and clueless.



Anything you wouldn’t want to see published. If you wouldn’t say something to a customer in person, why would you put it into an email? And yet every day, I see customer service representatives addressing a “Mr.” as a “Ms.” or sending emails to “{Insert Firstname}” or including internal emails in which the case is discussed frankly, and without any of the pleasantries you’d expect from a customer service agent. Needless to say, they can be avoided by reading before sending.



Advice for Customers



Increasingly, the smartest companies will try to limit their exposure to any form of media that can be republished. That might include shifting customer-service calls to online “chat” where the windows can’t easily be copied (a low-down dirty thing to do, in this consumer advocate’s book) or insisting that any bad news be delivered by phone.



As a customer, it’s your job to keep the correspondence in writing, as much as possible. So when a representative says “no” ask for it in writing. When someone gives you a reason for a rejection, get it in an email — if you can.

درس فى اقتناص الفرص

لن أتعرض هنا لما حدث وقد يحدث فى مبارتى كرة القدم للتأهل لكأس العالم فمن حسن حظى أنى أحب كرة القدم ضمن باقة من الرياضات الراقية التى يشدنى إليها مستوى المهارات المطلوبة للتفوق فيها والتشويق والإثارة التى تحدثها فيمن يتابعون فنونها وقوة الإحتمال التى يتمتع بها لاعبوها وقدرتهم على الصراع والكسب تحت ضغوط نفسية رهيبة عرفتها حين كنت أمارس أحد تلك الألعاب الفردية العنيفة وقرر والدى يرحمه الله أن يحضر مباراة البطولة فكدت أخسر البطولة لأن تركيزى قد تشتت بين صوت المدرب وتعليماته واختلاسى النظر إلى الوالد بين الحين والآخر وأصوات المشجعين لى ولخصمى على الحلقة.
أريد هنا أن أهدى إلى شبابنا نموذجا لاقتناص الفرص يتعلمون منه كيف يبدأون عملا بسيطا يتطور ليصبح كبيرا لو نظروا حولهم ورصدوا مايحتاجه الناس وهو كثير وقاموا بتوفيره إما بتصنيعه أو التوسط لجلبه أو بيعه لحساب الغير .. لو فعلنا ذلك لما كان بيننا عاطل بالمعنى الحرفى للكلمة .. الصين أصبحت نموذجا للتسويق المقتحم الذى يراقب الأسواق بعينى الصقر وينقض على الفرص المتاحة بسرعة خاطفة يعجز أهل البلد أنفسهم عن الظفر بها .. وإليكم أمثلة نتعلم منها أسلوب الكوماندوز فى فنون التسويق والبيع:
• السعودية سوق عملاقة باعتبارها ملتقى العالم العربى والإسلامى يرتادها ملايين الناس طوال العام لزيارة الأماكن المقدسة وأداء شعائر الحج والعمرة .. وهؤلاء يحتاجون إلى ثلاثة أشياء أساسية يستكملون بها مشاويرهم الروحانية : ملابس إحرام وسجاجيد صلاة وسبح بأشكالها المختلفة .. ولايقتصر الأمر على الإستخدام الشخصى وإنما يتجاوز ذلك إلى إصطحاب تلك الأشياء معهم كهدايا لأحبائهم فى البلدان التى قدموا منها .. يدخل الصينيون منافسين شرسين يقدمون تلك السلع بأسعار رخيصة فى متناول كل الطبقات تكتسح أمامها كل ماعداها .. فرصة نادرة استغلها الصينيون واقتنصوها لسد حاجة ماسة إلى منتجات بأعداد ضخمة ومستوى أسعار منخفض وجودة معقولة تتناسب مع الأسعار.
• فى مصر لايزال الناس يقبلون الشراء من الباعة الجائلين الذين يدقون الأبواب يعرضون بضاعتهم ويفاوضون على السعر على الرغم من المحاذير الأمنية .. فرص كثيرة متاخة فى مجتمع الكثافة السكانية التى يتركز معظمها فى الأحياء الفقيرة التى يجاهد الناس فيها لكى يوفروا لأنفسهم وأسرهم سلعا ضرورية بأسعار تتناسب مع دخولهم الضعيفة .. يحمل الصينى أو الصينية شنطة ضعف حجمه ، يدخل العمائر ويدق أبواب الشقق يبيع بضاعته من الملابس والأجهزة المنزلية والإلكترونية والإكسسوارات الرخيصة المهربة دون كلل أو تعب .. جزء ليس بالقليل منهم إختاروا وسيلة أقل مخاطرة وهى مشاركة مصرى فى محل يعرضون فيه بضاعتهم يستهدفون المجمعات فى الأماكن الراقية ويظلون على اتصال دائم بالعملاء والأسواق يحددون احتياجاتها ويلبون تلك الإحتياجات بسرعة.. بل إن بعضهم أصبح ينافس الحرفيين فى أعمال الكهرباء والسباكة والنجارة بل وقص الشعر بالمنازل بأسعار تبلغ نصف مايدفع عادة فى مثل تلك الأمور .. اسواق موازية اصطنعوها مستفيدين من ضعف الرقابة واستهانة الأجهزة المعنية وسلبيتها.
• وأخيرا تنزل فرق من الصينين إلى مصر تحدد احتياجات مشجعى كرة القدم فى المباريات ذات الأهمية الخاصة مثل التأهل لكأس العالم فتغرق السوق بأعلام متقنة الصنع وبأحجام مختلفة تناسب كل الأغراض ومستويات الدخول .. ملايين الأعلام بيعت وسوف تباع يحملها الناس ويعلقونها ويزينون بها سياراتهم .. والذى يغيظ فى كل ذلك أن صناعة الأعلام بالذات لاتحتاج إلى تكنولوجيا متقدمة ولا ماكينات معقدة ولا تكلفة مرتفعة للإنتاج ، ولكن أحدا فى مصر لم يفكر فيما فكر فيه الصينيون ، فماذا حدث لنا لكى نفضل الإستهلاك على الإنتاج ، والراحة والكسل على السعى والتعب ، والوظيفة التى لاتجيئ على العمل الحر بكل مكاسبه ؟
حتى الأفكار الإبتكارية أصبحت وسيلة لاقتناص الفرص فنجد البليونير الأمريكى "وارن بافيت" يدعو ثمانية أشخاص كل عام لكى يتناولوا العشاء معه من خلال مزاد يشعل نار المنافسة بين من يريدون أن يحظوا بتلك الفرصة لحجز مقعد على مائدة رجل الأعمال الأسطورة .. ويفتح المزاد عادة بحد أدنى قدره 35 ألف دولار للمقعد الواحد وصلت هذا العام إلى أكثر من 860 ألف دولار.. ولما استغرب الإعلام من ضخامة المبالغ التى يتسابق أصحاب الملايين على دفعها والتى يخصصها بافيت كلها لأعمال الخير قال أحد المزايدين " لم يكن ممكنا لقاء بافيت بغير هذه الطريقة والحصول على استشارة من خبير مثله تزدهر بها أعمالى فأصبح مليارديرا مثله"

In Praise of Marketing: A Book Review

Many dismiss marketing as manipulative, deceptive, and intrusive. Marketing, they argue, focuses too much of our attention on material consumption. More recently, Benjamin Barber, in his 2007 book Consumed, claims that marketing is "sucking up the air from every other domain to sustain the sector devoted to consumption." He is correct. Coca-Cola, Nike, and Starbucks command more loyalty among many consumers than any political party, trade union, church, or mosque. Indeed, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz sought to make his coffee shops the "third place" in our lives, after home and work.
Marketing is an American success story. No country on earth is better at marketing than the United States. The latest Interbrand listing of the most valuable global brands reveals seven American brands in the top ten and sixty in the top hundred, more than twice the expected numbers based on the United States' command of 28 percent of the world economy.
"In most product categories in most countries, there are strong local brands reflecting local tastes that coexist alongside global brands."
Marketing by producers to consumers is as old as the bazaar. But modern marketing is more than just selling. It involves the design of products and services in response to consumer needs, latent or explicit. It involves branding these products and services, communicating their benefits to intermediaries and end consumers, and distributing them. All of these activities involve value creation. In return, producers extract value through the prices they set in the marketplace. The advent of commercial radio and, after World War II, commercial television enabled marketers to drive home the benefits of their national brands and to announce quickly the launch of new products and services to a nationwide audience. The willingness of producers to build their brands through advertising supported the emergence of a diverse array of media for the American consumer to enjoy. Moreover, these investments in marketing attracted talented businesspeople into the marketing field. Best practices in marketing were documented so its effectiveness improved over time.
Why marketing developed in the U.S.
By the 1960s, American brands had benefited from so much cumulative investment in marketing that they were unquestionably the strongest brands in the world. There were three reasons why marketing developed in the United States ahead of Europe. First, the sheer size of the U.S. demanded it. Second, the ambitions of American inventors and entrepreneurs demanded the broadest possible distribution. The Wal-Mart mission, for example, is to lower the cost of living for everyone everywhere. Third, American society was open to marketing while, in Europe, business or "trade" was viewed as less worthy a profession. Marketing in the United States benefited mightily from the endorsement of management guru Peter Drucker, who famously stated: "Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only these two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs." Warren Buffett, America's most celebrated investor, has religiously invested in companies with strong brand names such as Coca-Cola and American Express. To this day, the proportion of company chief executives who have risen through the marketing ranks is much higher in the United States than Europe.
The marketers at Wal-Mart, Google, and Lenovo are in the best tradition of Henry Ford and his Model T. They seek to democratize access to their products by bringing good quality to the mass market at an affordable price. And not just the domestic mass market, the global mass market. In his landmark 1983 article "The Globalization of Markets," Harvard Business School's Theodore Levitt wrote of "the one great thing all markets have in common is an overwhelming desire for dependable, world-standard modernity in all things, at aggressively low prices." With the fall of communism in the 1980s and 1990s, American brands, ambitious, confident, and flush with capital soon established beachheads in the emerging economies. Local consumers, long denied access to Western brands and often victims of shoddy local imitations, were quick to try and adopt the former forbidden fruit.
Was this democratization of access to American brands a Trojan horse for American cultural imperialism? No. In most product categories in most countries, there are strong local brands reflecting local tastes that coexist alongside global brands. Retailing and distribution remain largely local. And American consumers show a desire for increasing cultural variety in their life experiences, eating more often at ethnic restaurants and vacationing more often in faraway places. In many categories, increased global demand drove costs and retail prices down, prompting global production to shift to economies with lower input costs. The manufacture of personal computer components is now concentrated in Asia and manufacturers are constantly seeking to drive costs lower still in order to hit retail price points that will enable additional millions of poor people to buy in. As prices have fallen, Asian brands such as Asus and Acer of Taiwan have gained share while IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo.
"Critics of marketing tend to overestimate the level of intentional deception and the vulnerability of consumers."
In addition to globalization, a second force enabling marketing to bring good quality to the masses is technology. Today, the Internet, supported like most of the diverse media that preceded it by brand advertising rather than subscription, is further democratizing access to markets. The ability of consumers to compare prices over the web irons out cross-border price differences and expands trade. A poor farmer in India can check commodity prices on the Internet before he sells his crop to the local buyer. Thanks to a progressive decline in data processing and storage costs, technology now enables marketers to offer consumers much more choice including the ability to tailor solutions to individual needs at only slightly greater cost. American Express and Harrah's Entertainment, both heavy investors in IT, now tailor their marketing communications to the buying patterns or sales potential of tightly defined consumer segments or, indeed, of individual consumers.
Engaged consumers
The interactive nature of the Internet means that customers are now engaged more than ever in the co-creation of brand meaning and the development of marketplace offerings. Procter & Gamble recently invited consumers to vote on suggested new flavors for Crest toothpaste. H.J. Heinz worked with Google to invite submissions of thirty-second video ads for Heinz ketchup; over 2,000 entries were received. Then-Senator Obama's website was an impressive vehicle for engaging voters, many of them new to politics, as donors, volunteers, and idea generators. Marketers aim to satisfy the needs of consumers at all levels of income wherever they live in the world, surely a worthy goal. Why then is marketing criticized so often? And why do marketers offer such little resistance? There are two main reasons. First, marketing is not a profession. Second, marketing is not a science.
Unlike accounting or the law, marketing is not a profession. Anyone can call himself or herself a marketer. The absence of entry barriers allows for greater creativity, imagination, and new ideas. But the flip side is that manipulation and deception of consumers by irresponsible marketers is all too common. Absent professional exams and codes of conduct, abusers of the marketing toolkit are subject only to the sanctions of the marketplace and the law. The vast majority of marketers are honest and respect their customers but, collectively, they need to work harder to expose and shut down the charlatans.
At the same time, critics of marketing conflate their objection to harmful products such as tobacco with hostility towards the marketing toolkit harnessed to present them to the public. They also tend to overestimate the level of intentional deception and the vulnerability of consumers. As advertising icon David Ogilvy famously said in an earlier era: "The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife."
Perhaps marketers would be more self-confident about their contributions if marketing were a science with clear dos and don'ts. In fact, marketing is as much art as science, as much right brain as left brain. Many chief financial officers might still agree with John Wanamaker's famous adage: "Half my advertising is wasted. I just don't know which half." But our understanding of what works in marketing, how and why, has advanced greatly in the last twenty years. Low-cost data analysis enables marketers to understand what level and mix of incentives will produce behavior change, even down to the level of the individual consumer. Marketers have no interest in annoying consumers by delivering messages to those who are not interested in their products or services. It is now possible for chief marketing officers to calculate return on marketing investment and to report regularly to the corporate board progress against three or four brand and consumer health metrics that can predict subsequent business performance.
Even with these advances, marketers still do a surprisingly poor job of marketing Marketing. They do not appreciate, let alone articulate, the economic and social benefits of marketing. Marketplace exchanges are based on mutual trust between buyers and sellers. They create value for both parties. The billions of successful daily marketplace transactions are an important part of the glue that holds our society together. Good marketers offer consumers choices. Choice stimulates consumption and economic growth and facilitates personal expression. Good marketers provide consumers with information about new products and services, thereby accelerating their adoption. All these benefits are routinely overlooked as the 17 million Americans engaged in marketing, selling, and customer service routinely try to fly under the radar of social critics and go about their daily work contributing brilliantly but often unknowingly to our quality of life.

CEOs Marketing Role

Customers are the source of all cash flow. Organic growth depends on developing relationships with new and existing customers. And future growth prospects are baked into stock market valuations of companies.
Yet an increasingly high percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs have not come up the ranks through marketing or sales. At the same time, in many companies, the chief marketing officer position turns over every two years. Facing the current economic downturn, companies need marketing skills more than ever. But while every corporate mission statement pays lip service to respecting customer needs, actual customer expertise is typically a mile wide and an inch deep.
A good CEO knows how to balance time spent on the outside versus the inside.
Marketing expertise depends on customer insights. These insights cannot be gleaned from looking at market research data on a computer screen. Just like politics, all marketing is retail. The customer votes every day at the supermarket ballot box. To be customer-oriented, executives must get out and meet customers on their home turf—in their homes, on job sites, in their offices. Here the CEO has to set an example. AG Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, reinstituted consumer home visits and store visits for himself and his senior executives after discovering that Procter's product managers spent on average only three percent of their time in contact with end consumers. Terry Leahy, CEO of Tesco, the UK supermarket chain, spends two days a week in stores interacting with employees and customers.
But how far should the CEO go? What percentage of his or her time should be spent interacting with customers? Perhaps we can all agree on at least 10 percent, but as much as fifty percent? Of course, a company suffering a temporary crisis of confidence requires all hands on deck. But, in normal circumstances, the answer depends on at least two things: the nature of the business and the company's strategy. In a service business like Tesco's, the health of the brand depends heavily on the quality of the millions of daily transactions between shoppers and staff. Motivating the front-line personnel is critical. But in the pharmaceutical business, the key to success is not customer intimacy but product innovation; the CEO will need to spend time with his chief scientists, medical opinion leaders, government regulators, and CEOs of the companies distributing pharmaceuticals, but not so much time with end consumers. And, if cost minimization is the focus of the business strategy, it's not necessary for the CEO to spend time learning how different clients would prefer customized solutions.
The CEO should spearhead the identification of three or four customer health metrics.
Even in companies that see customer intimacy as their point of strategic differentiation, there are two reasons why CEOs should be cautious about overdoing the percentage of time interfacing with customers. First, marketing and selling should be a prime task of the CEO's direct reports, the individual business unit leaders. The CEO should not have to do their work for them, except, in occasional cases, to be brought in to close a major sale. The hero salesman does not usually make a good general manager or CEO. Second, no CEO—especially one with a marketing background—should spend time with customers as a way of avoiding dealing with other important aspects of the business (such as managing the balance sheet) or mentoring and coaching direct reports. A good CEO knows how to balance time spent on the outside versus the inside.
While balancing their own time, CEOs should nevertheless work hard to ensure the continuous attention of their people to customers. They should do the following three things:
First, the CEO should spearhead the identification of three or four customer health metrics that are leading indicators of sales or profit performance. These metrics should not be off-the-shelf standbys such as customer satisfaction (which, in any case, is a lagging indicator): they must be specific to the strategy of the business. Company scores on these metrics may be benchmarked against direct competitors and/or outstanding companies in other industries.
Second, CEOs must ensure an adequate pipeline of new product and market opportunities. This requires the investment in uncovering customer insights discussed above, either through business leaders regularly going into the field and through more formal customer research studies.
Third, the CEO has to develop marketing talent throughout the company. This cannot merely mean appointing a high-profile rainmaker as chief marketing officer. It requires the long-term infusion of customer centricity and marketing strategy capability throughout the organization. Over time, this should mean a higher percentage of general managers coming up through the marketing ranks.
Every CEO should spend at least 10 percent of his or her time taking care of these three challenges. Running around visiting customers is simply not enough.

Controlling Price Increases

When driving these days, do you look at the prices every time you pass a gas station? Do you notice yourself paying more attention to the prices of everything you buy? You are not alone. Consumers everywhere are more price aware. People who've been indifferent to price increases for years are suddenly amazed at what things now cost. How can marketers cope not just with inflation but with consumer sticker shock?
1. Understand Your Customers. There are at least four ways in which customers can respond to higher gas prices: downgrade from premium to regular; take fewer trips by car, consolidate errands, switch to public transportation; take the same number of trips but reduce the miles driven per trip by, for example, vacationing closer to home; drive more economically and less aggressively to improve miles per gallon; and buy a specific dollar amount of gas rather than filling up every time, even though this may mean more visits to the pump. Some consumers may even trade in (at a loss) the SUV for a hybrid, an example of how price inflation on one product can cause demand shifts in a second, related, category.
More customers than usual will be looking out for price promotions, but don't give away the store to those who don't need the discount.
2. Invest in Market Research. You must discard your existing customer segmentation assumptions and segment consumers around product usage behavior and price sensitivity. You must get out into the marketplace yourself and talk to consumers directly to understand their pain points and how they are changing attitudes and behaviors in response to price inflation. You must then quantify these shifts and develop product and pricing strategies that balance the need to maintain both profitability and market share.
3. Redefine Value. Customers buying soft drinks can think about price in three ways: the absolute cost per can or bottle, the cost per ounce, and, less common in this category, the monthly consumption cost. Customers short on cash will focus much more on the absolute price. They'll go for the 99 cent soft drink rather than the $1.29 container with 50 percent more volume. To motivate cash-poor consumers, marketers must reverse engineer products and packaging to hit key retail price points. This may mean downsizing package sizes, something the candy industry always does in response to inflation.
4. Use Promotions. If you've always passed through raw material price increases to the end consumer, you don't necessarily need to change that policy. However, lagging competitors in passing on price increases can have the same effect as a temporary price promotion. More customers than usual will be looking out for price promotions, but don't give away the store to those who don't need the discount, and cut prices not across the board but only on items selected as your inflation-busters. For cash poor consumers, these promotions should hit the key price points on small pack sizes. For cash rich consumers, encourage multi-unit purchases ahead of the inevitable next price increase.
Strong brands can hold consumer loyalty while increasing retail price points.
5. Unbundle. Customers who previously welcomed the convenience of buying product, options, and services rolled into one may now ask for a detailed price breakdown. Make it easy for your more price-sensitive customers to better cherry-pick the options and services that they truly need by giving them an unbundled menu of options.
6. Monitor Trade Terms. Beware of powerful distributors paying you more slowly than they turn the inventory they buy from you. In an inflationary environment, they're making money on the float by stretching their payables. Manage your inventory on a last-in, first-out basis to insure that increases in your realized selling prices do not trail the increases in your input costs.
7. Increase Relevance. You need to persuade customers to cut back their expenditures on other products, not on yours. In tough times, consumers more than ever need and deserve the occasional treat. So, if you are Haagen Dazs, tell the consumer to substitute private label peas for the name brand but to not forego the comfort of curling up on the sofa with a tub of her favorite ice cream. Strong brands can hold consumer loyalty while increasing retail price points. Weaker brands risk private label and generic substitution.
Clearly, not all marketers are equally affected by price inflation. Commodities like gasoline, where the manufacturer adds little value before the product reaches the end consumer, are more vulnerable, while sales of the most exclusive global luxury brands hold up pretty well regardless of price. Especially challenged are marketers of goods and services for which consumers don't necessarily understand the input costs: decorative candles, for example, are highly sensitive to oil prices and the purchases are discretionary. The key here is to educate the consumer, apologize for the uncontrollable price increases, give price-sensitive consumers some promotional options, and reemphasize product benefits.

اللعب فى دماع المستهلك وبرمجته

تبدأ قصة البحث الخطير الذى سنتناوله اليوم فى أكتوبر من عام 2004 حين قام " ريد مونتاجيو " عالم المخ والأعصاب المشهور بكلية بيلور للطب بنشر النتائج التى توصل إليها بإخضاع مجموعة من المتطوعين لعينات مختلفة من الإعلانات وصور المنتجات بينما يقيس رد فعل المخ عن طريق مايسمى "التخيل المغناطيسى الترددى" Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)" حيث تتم عمليات تحليل شخصيات المستهلكين باستخدام حقول مغناطيسية شديدة القوة، تقوم عبرها أجهزة الرنين المغناطيسي بتتبع الهيموجلوبين الغني بالأكسجين والهيموجلوبين الخالي من الأكسجين في المخ؛ مما يعطي الباحثين صورة تفصيلية لحظية عن اتجاه وأماكن سريان الدم وأماكن الخلايا العصبية التي تنشط خلال تلك العملية. وتقوم الفكرة الرئيسية لمثل تلك الأبحاث على عرض بعض الصور أو الأفلام أمام شخص ما في نفس الوقت الذي يتم فيه مراقبة وتصوير ردود فعل المخ لهذه الصور عن طريق أجهزة طبية مثل أجهزة الرنين المغناطيسي الوظيفي FMRI التي منها يتم تحليل ردود الأفعال تلك ليبنى عليها تحليل مفصل للشخصية. وقد ظهر نتاجا لهذه الأبحاث أسلوب جديد للتسويق يدعى Neuromarketing أو التسويق العصبي، وهو الناتج التجاري لفرع البحث الطبي الجديد المزدهر المعروف باسم Cognitive Neuroscience أو علم الأعصاب المعرفي والذي ظهر في أواخر التسعينيات وولد بجامعة هارفارد بالولايات المتحدة، حيث كان البروفيسور جري زالتمان ومساعدوه يقومون بمسح وتصوير عقول بعض الأشخاص من أجل الشركات الكبرى. أما الآن فتقود هذه الأبحاث جامعة أيموري بالولايات المتحدة بالتعاون مع معهد برايت هاوس لأبحاث السوق. وتظهر الدراسة التى قام بها مونتاجيو والتى تمت على 67 شخصا ونشرت نتائجها في 14 أكتوبر 2004 بجريدة "جورنال نيرون" ، أنه قد تمكن من أن يرصد نشاطا زائدا في الـ Medial prefrontal cortex أو القشرة الوسطية لمقدمة الفص الجبهي للمخ عند رؤية الصور التي أعجبتهم، وهذه هي المنطقة المرتبطة بما نفضل بل وإحساسنا بأنفسنا؛ مما يدل على أنه ربما يكون ولاؤنا للسلع بسبب ذوق السلعة أو شكلها، حيث قام خلال التجربة بتطبيق تكنولوجيا الرنين المغناطيسي على مستهلكى البيبسي والكوكاكولا. ومن خلال مراقبته لنشاط المخ مع كل منتج وجد أنه يزداد نشاط المخ في الجزء الذي يقوم بعمليات الإحساس بالطعم في حالة رؤية البيبسي، ولكنه مع منتج الكوكاكولا ازداد نشاط المخ في القشرة الوسطية لمقدمة الفص الجبهي، وتعليقا على ذلك يقول مونتاجيو: إنه غالبا ما تفوز بيبسى في اختبارات الطعم ولكن كوكاكولا تحقق مبيعات أكثر لأن العقل الباطن للمستهلك يكون متأثرا بصورة تمتلئ حياة وحركة للكوكاكولا، ولم يهتم أحد بقياس تلك العلاقة العصبية قبل هذا العالم.
وقد دفعت تلك الأبحاث مؤسسة كومرشيال ألرت - وهي مؤسسة تحارب تحويل المجتمع الأمريكي إلى مجتمع تجارى استهلاكي- في أوائل ديسمبر 2003- إلى إرسال خطاب رسمى إلى المركز الأمريكي للحماية من التجارب التي تجرى على الإنسان، يطالبون فيه بالتحقيق في آليات البحث بجامعة أيموري، وماإذا كانت تلك الأبحاث تخالف بالقوانين الفيدرالية التى تحدد المعايير المختلفة للأبحاث التى تجرى على الإنسان. والحقيقة المؤكدة فى كل ذلك أنه من الخطأ استعمال تكنولوجيات الرنين المغناطيسي في التسويق وليس للعلاج، خاصة أن أي زيادة ولو طفيفة في فاعلية الإعلان على البشر من الممكن أن تسبب أمراضا كثيرة بل قد تؤدي إلى الموت وزيادة معاناة البشرية، حيث ستكون وسيلة سهلة لدفع الناس لشراء منتجات غير صحية قد تنتج عنها زيادة كبيرة بالوزن، أو زيادة شرب الخمور،أو التدخين ، كما أن الأطفال يمكن أن يصبحوا فريسة سهلة للإعلانات لسهولة التأثير عليهم باستخدام التكنيك الجديد. وتعليقا على الجانب الأخلاقي للتسويق العصبي يقول جوناثان مورينو رئيس الجمعية الأمريكية للأخلاقيات الطبية والإنسانية "إن هذا نوع من تشويه علاقة السوق بين المنتج والمستهلك، فمن المفترض أن تكون هناك مستويات ومجالات للمداولة بين البائع والمشتري ولكن مع أسلوب التسويق العصبي لا يدع فرصة للمستهلك لخلق حاجز معلوماتي بينه وبين التجار. أما ريتشارد جليه بوار المستشار القانوني لمراكز أخلاقيات الحرية المعرفية بدافيس، كاليفورنيا فيقول: "إن التسويقيين حاولوا إثارة العقل الباطن بمنتجاتهم طوال هذا العقد، أما التسويق العصبي فيبدو أنه اقترب جدا من استخدام التكنولوجيا لقهر المستهلكين".
وعلى الجهة الأخرى يدافع مؤيدى هذا النوع من الأبحاث على مخ المستهلك بقصد التأثير المباشر عليه وبرمجته بأن التسويق العصبي يساعد على تلبية الحاجات الحقيقية للمستهلك، وإنه أفضل من أساليب التسويق التقليدية المعتادة التى تقوم على أبحاث السوق ، وسؤال عينات تمثل المستهلكين والى غالبا مالاتكون دقيقة نظرا لإن الكثير مما يحفز سلوكنا يحدث تحت مستوى الإدراك للشخص العادى فلا يستطيع فهم دوافعه. إن التكنيك الجديد فى نظر هؤلاء يعطى منتجى السلع معلومات أكثر دقة تشحذ بصيرتهم وتنبؤاتهم لمعرفة كيفية تطوير العلاقة مع المستهلكين للسلع التى ينتجونها، فالعقل ليس بهذه البساطة، والتسويق العصبي لن يغير الوضع لتجد المستهلكين يركضون مثل الإنسان الآلي لشراء المنتجات المعلن عنها بغض النظر عما يشعرون ويعتقدون، وأنه حتى بعد استخدام التسويق العصبي سوف يظل فهم سلوك المستهلك صعب التنبؤ به، فهو كالطفل المدلل الذي يصعب إرضاءه. ويعرف التسويق العصبي بأنه نوع من اختبار المستهلكين فبدلا من مجرد سؤال الأشخاص عما يريدون فهو يذهب مباشرة إلى العملية المخية لفهم رغباتهم.
ولكن يظل السؤال الحائر والمثير للقلق قائما : إلى أى مدى يمكن أن يغوص العلماء داخل عقولنا بغير أن نعلم ما الذي يبحثون عنه تحت ستار أبحاث بريئة فى ظاهرها ؟ أبحاث يكون ظاهرها معرفة ردود أفعالنا تجاه أشياء أو مواقف معينة، في حين أن الهدف الحقيقى هة استكشاف جوانب أخرى من شخصية من يقوم عليه البحث ، فإلى أين يأخذنا التطور المذهل في هذا المجال؟ وهل سيؤدي إلى أن تسيطر الشركات الكبرى على عقولنا وتسوقنا سوقا لشراء منتجاتها على غير إرادتنا؟ وهل ستقوم مراكز الأبحاث ببيع عقولنا لمن يريد أن يروج فكرا معينا ويحتاج لتجنيد أتباع يعتنقون أفكاره دون حتى محاولة التفكير؟ وهل نحن على مشارف عصر قد يدان فيه الناس لا على جرائمهم بل على استعدادهم للقيام بالجرائم؟

Marketing During Recession

The signs of an imminent recession are all around us. The spillover from the subprime mortgage crisis is weakening both consumer confidence and the consumer spending—much of it on credit—that has been buoying the U.S. economy.
Companies should bear eight factors in mind when making their marketing plans for 2008 and 2009:
1. Research the customer. Instead of cutting the market research budget, you need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value and responding to the recession. Price elasticity curves are changing. Consumers take more time searching for durable goods and negotiate harder at the point of sale. They are more willing to postpone purchases, trade down, or buy less. Must-have features of yesterday are today's can-live-withouts. Trusted brands are especially valued and they can still launch new products successfully, but interest in new brands and new categories fades. Conspicuous consumption becomes less prevalent.
2. Focus on family values. When economic hard times loom, we tend to retreat to our village. Look for cozy hearth-and-home family scenes in advertising to replace images of extreme sports, adventure, and rugged individualism. Zany humor and appeals on the basis of fear are out. Greeting card sales, telephone use, and discretionary spending on home furnishings and home entertainment will hold up well, as uncertainty prompts us to stay at home but also stay connected with family and friends.
Now may be the time to drop your weaker distributors and upgrade your sales force.
3. Maintain marketing spending. This is not the time to cut advertising. It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times. Uncertain consumers need the reassurance of known brands, and more consumers at home watching television can deliver higher than expected audiences at lower cost-per-thousand impressions. Brands with deep pockets may be able to negotiate favorable advertising rates and lock them in for several years. If you have to cut marketing spending, try to maintain the frequency of advertisements by shifting from 30-second to 15-second advertisements, substituting radio for television advertising, or increasing the use of direct marketing, which gives more immediate sales impact.
4. Adjust product portfolios. Marketers must reforecast demand for each item in their product lines as consumers trade down to models that stress good value, such as cars with fewer options. Tough times favor multi-purpose goods over specialized products, and weaker items in product lines should be pruned. In grocery-products categories, good-quality own-brands gain at the expense of national brands. Industrial customers prefer to see products and services unbundled and priced separately. Gimmicks are out; reliability, durability, safety, and performance are in. New products, especially those that address the new consumer reality and thereby put pressure on competitors, should still be introduced, but advertising should stress superior price performance, not corporate image.
When economic hard times loom, we tend to retreat to our village.
5. Support distributors. In uncertain times, no one wants to tie up working capital in excess inventories. Early-buy allowances, extended financing, and generous return policies motivate distributors to stock your full product line. This is particularly true with unproven new products. Be careful about expanding distribution to lower-priced channels; doing so can jeopardize existing relationships and your brand image. However, now may be the time to drop your weaker distributors and upgrade your sales force by recruiting those sacked by other companies.
6. Adjust pricing tactics. Customers will be shopping around for the best deals. You do not necessarily have to cut list prices, but you may need to offer more temporary price promotions, reduce thresholds for quantity discounts, extend credit to long-standing customers, and price smaller pack sizes more aggressively. In tough times, price cuts attract more consumer support than promotions such as sweepstakes and mail-in offers.
7. Stress market share. In all but a few technology categories where growth prospects are strong, companies are in a battle for market share and, in some cases, survival. Knowing your cost structure can ensure that any cuts or consolidation initiatives will save the most money with minimum customer impact. Companies such as Wal-Mart and Southwest Airlines, with strong positions and the most productive cost structures in their industries, can expect to gain market share. Other companies with healthy balance sheets can do so by acquiring weak competitors.
8. Emphasize core values. Although most companies are making employees redundant, chief executives can cement the loyalty of those who remain by assuring employees that the company has survived difficult times before, maintaining quality rather than cutting corners, and servicing existing customers rather than trying to be all things to all people. CEOs must spend more time with customers and employees. Economic recession can elevate the importance of the finance director's balance sheet over the marketing manager's income statement. Managing working capital can easily dominate managing customer relationships. CEOs must counter this. Successful companies do not abandon their marketing strategies in a recession; they adapt them.

اللعب فى دماغ المستهلك

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تبدأ قصة البحث الخطير الذى سنتناوله اليوم فى أكتوبر من عام 2004 حين قام " ريد مونتاجيو " عالم المخ والأعصاب المشهور بكلية بيلور للطب بنشر النتائج التى توصل إليها بإخضاع مجموعة من المتطوعين لعينات مختلفة من الإعلانات وصور المنتجات بينما يقيس رد فعل المخ عن طريق مايسمى "التخيل المغناطيسى الترددى" Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)" حيث تتم عمليات تحليل شخصيات المستهلكين باستخدام حقول مغناطيسية شديدة القوة، تقوم عبرها أجهزة الرنين المغناطيسي بتتبع الهيموجلوبين الغني بالأكسجين والهيموجلوبين الخالي من الأكسجين في المخ؛ مما يعطي الباحثين صورة تفصيلية لحظية عن اتجاه وأماكن سريان الدم وأماكن الخلايا العصبية التي تنشط خلال تلك العملية. وتقوم الفكرة الرئيسية لمثل تلك الأبحاث على عرض بعض الصور أو الأفلام أمام شخص ما في نفس الوقت الذي يتم فيه مراقبة وتصوير ردود فعل المخ لهذه الصور عن طريق أجهزة طبية مثل أجهزة الرنين المغناطيسي الوظيفي FMRI التي منها يتم تحليل ردود الأفعال تلك ليبنى عليها تحليل مفصل للشخصية. وقد ظهر نتاجا لهذه الأبحاث أسلوب جديد للتسويق يدعى Neuromarketing أو التسويق العصبي، وهو الناتج التجاري لفرع البحث الطبي الجديد المزدهر المعروف باسم Cognitive Neuroscience أو علم الأعصاب المعرفي والذي ظهر في أواخر التسعينيات وولد بجامعة هارفارد بالولايات المتحدة، حيث كان البروفيسور جري زالتمان ومساعدوه يقومون بمسح وتصوير عقول بعض الأشخاص من أجل الشركات الكبرى. أما الآن فتقود هذه الأبحاث جامعة أيموري بالولايات المتحدة بالتعاون مع معهد برايت هاوس لأبحاث السوق. وتظهر الدراسة التى قام بها مونتاجيو والتى تمت على 67 شخصا ونشرت نتائجها في 14 أكتوبر 2004 بجريدة "جورنال نيرون" ، أنه قد تمكن من أن يرصد نشاطا زائدا في الـ Medial prefrontal cortex أو القشرة الوسطية لمقدمة الفص الجبهي للمخ عند رؤية الصور التي أعجبتهم، وهذه هي المنطقة المرتبطة بما نفضل بل وإحساسنا بأنفسنا؛ مما يدل على أنه ربما يكون ولاؤنا للسلع بسبب ذوق السلعة أو شكلها، حيث قام خلال التجربة بتطبيق تكنولوجيا الرنين المغناطيسي على مستهلكى البيبسي والكوكاكولا. ومن خلال مراقبته لنشاط المخ مع كل منتج وجد أنه يزداد نشاط المخ في الجزء الذي يقوم بعمليات الإحساس بالطعم في حالة رؤية البيبسي، ولكنه مع منتج الكوكاكولا ازداد نشاط المخ في القشرة الوسطية لمقدمة الفص الجبهي، وتعليقا على ذلك يقول مونتاجيو: إنه غالبا ما تفوز بيبسى في اختبارات الطعم ولكن كوكاكولا تحقق مبيعات أكثر لأن العقل الباطن للمستهلك يكون متأثرا بصورة تمتلئ حياة وحركة للكوكاكولا، ولم يهتم أحد بقياس تلك العلاقة العصبية قبل هذا العالم.
وقد دفعت تلك الأبحاث مؤسسة كومرشيال ألرت - وهي مؤسسة تحارب تحويل المجتمع الأمريكي إلى مجتمع تجارى استهلاكي- في أوائل ديسمبر 2003- إلى إرسال خطاب رسمى إلى المركز الأمريكي للحماية من التجارب التي تجرى على الإنسان، يطالبون فيه بالتحقيق في آليات البحث بجامعة أيموري، وماإذا كانت تلك الأبحاث تخالف بالقوانين الفيدرالية التى تحدد المعايير المختلفة للأبحاث التى تجرى على الإنسان. والحقيقة المؤكدة فى كل ذلك أنه من الخطأ استعمال تكنولوجيات الرنين المغناطيسي في التسويق وليس للعلاج، خاصة أن أي زيادة ولو طفيفة في فاعلية الإعلان على البشر من الممكن أن تسبب أمراضا كثيرة بل قد تؤدي إلى الموت وزيادة معاناة البشرية، حيث ستكون وسيلة سهلة لدفع الناس لشراء منتجات غير صحية قد تنتج عنها زيادة كبيرة بالوزن، أو زيادة شرب الخمور،أو التدخين ، كما أن الأطفال يمكن أن يصبحوا فريسة سهلة للإعلانات لسهولة التأثير عليهم باستخدام التكنيك الجديد. وتعليقا على الجانب الأخلاقي للتسويق العصبي يقول جوناثان مورينو رئيس الجمعية الأمريكية للأخلاقيات الطبية والإنسانية "إن هذا نوع من تشويه علاقة السوق بين المنتج والمستهلك، فمن المفترض أن تكون هناك مستويات ومجالات للمداولة بين البائع والمشتري ولكن مع أسلوب التسويق العصبي لا يدع فرصة للمستهلك لخلق حاجز معلوماتي بينه وبين التجار. أما ريتشارد جليه بوار المستشار القانوني لمراكز أخلاقيات الحرية المعرفية بدافيس، كاليفورنيا فيقول: "إن التسويقيين حاولوا إثارة العقل الباطن بمنتجاتهم طوال هذا العقد، أما التسويق العصبي فيبدو أنه اقترب جدا من استخدام التكنولوجيا لقهر المستهلكين".
وعلى الجهة الأخرى يدافع مؤيدى هذا النوع من الأبحاث على مخ المستهلك بقصد التأثير المباشر عليه وبرمجته بأن التسويق العصبي يساعد على تلبية الحاجات الحقيقية للمستهلك، وإنه أفضل من أساليب التسويق التقليدية المعتادة التى تقوم على أبحاث السوق ، وسؤال عينات تمثل المستهلكين والى غالبا مالاتكون دقيقة نظرا لإن الكثير مما يحفز سلوكنا يحدث تحت مستوى الإدراك للشخص العادى فلا يستطيع فهم دوافعه. إن التكنيك الجديد فى نظر هؤلاء يعطى منتجى السلع معلومات أكثر دقة تشحذ بصيرتهم وتنبؤاتهم لمعرفة كيفية تطوير العلاقة مع المستهلكين للسلع التى ينتجونها، فالعقل ليس بهذه البساطة، والتسويق العصبي لن يغير الوضع لتجد المستهلكين يركضون مثل الإنسان الآلي لشراء المنتجات المعلن عنها بغض النظر عما يشعرون ويعتقدون، وأنه حتى بعد استخدام التسويق العصبي سوف يظل فهم سلوك المستهلك صعب التنبؤ به، فهو كالطفل المدلل الذي يصعب إرضاءه. ويعرف التسويق العصبي بأنه نوع من اختبار المستهلكين فبدلا من مجرد سؤال الأشخاص عما يريدون فهو يذهب مباشرة إلى العملية المخية لفهم رغباتهم.
ولكن يظل السؤال الحائر والمثير للقلق قائما : إلى أى مدى يمكن أن يغوص العلماء داخل عقولنا بغير أن نعلم ما الذي يبحثون عنه تحت ستار أبحاث بريئة فى ظاهرها ؟ أبحاث يكون ظاهرها معرفة ردود أفعالنا تجاه أشياء أو مواقف معينة، في حين أن الهدف الحقيقى هة استكشاف جوانب أخرى من شخصية من يقوم عليه البحث ، فإلى أين يأخذنا التطور المذهل في هذا المجال؟ وهل سيؤدي إلى أن تسيطر الشركات الكبرى على عقولنا وتسوقنا سوقا لشراء منتجاتها على غير إرادتنا؟ وهل ستقوم مراكز الأبحاث ببيع عقولنا لمن يريد أن يروج فكرا معينا ويحتاج لتجنيد أتباع يعتنقون أفكاره دون حتى محاولة التفكير؟ وهل نحن على مشارف عصر قد يدان فيه الناس لا على جرائمهم بل على استعدادهم للقيام بالجرائم؟

Towards A Lean Customer Service

Thanks to the pioneering success of Toyota, the concept of a "lean" operating system has been implemented in countless manufacturing companies and even adapted for industries as diverse as insurance and healthcare.
With its focus on standardization, quality improvement, cost reduction, and efficiency, lean's influence (and various interpretations of its tenets) continues to grow. In their working paper "Lean Principles and Software Production: Evidence from Indian Software Services," HBS doctoral student Bradley Staats and professor David Upton examine what happens when Wipro Technologies, an Indian outsource provider of software services, launches its own lean initiative.
"In terms of operations and improvements, the service industries in general are a long way behind manufacturing," Upton says. "The motivation for this work was to gain some well-grounded research on how improvements can be brought to services through some of these lean concepts."
Not all lean manufacturing ideas translate from factory floor to office cubicle. For example, tools such as the andon cord, a rope that manufacturing workers pull when they encounter a problem on the line, are not directly replicable in software as there is no line to stop.
"What we hope to do," Upton says, "is to distill the relevant aspects of lean manufacturing so that managers can see how these tools were applied successfully in a service environment similar to their own."
Unfortunately, lean's prevalence has led to some misconceptions.
"Some people think lean means 'not fat,' as in laying people off," Upton says, noting that in their paper they propose that the difference in a lean operating system comes from how it alters the way a company learns through changes in problem solving, coordination, and standardization.
They also draw on a framework of 4 principles of the Toyota Production System defined by HBS professor Kent Bowen and Steven Spear (HBS DBA '99):
Rule 1: All work shall be highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, and outcome.
Rule 2: Every customer-supplier connection must be direct, and there must be an unambiguous yes or no way to send requests and receive responses.
Rule 3: The pathway for every product and service must be simple and direct.
Rule 4: Any improvement must be made in accordance with the scientific method, under the guidance of a teacher, at the lowest possible level in the organization.
Wipro gains efficiency
In the paper, Staats and Upton describe how Wipro first launched its lean initiative in 2004 with a core team of managers. The small group visited lean manufacturing companies and discussed the concept's basic principles before each manager adopted a project in order to implement this new approach to software services. Of the projects, 8 out of 10 showed greater than 10 percent improvement in efficiency.
"Some people think lean means 'not fat,' as in laying people off." —David Upton
With those results in hand, the core team decided to roll out the approach across the firm. By the end of 2006, Wipro had 603 lean projects completed or in the works (the company typically had 1,100 projects under way at any one time).
"One of the important lessons we've seen on the ground is how Wipro approached the launch of this lean initiative," Staats says. "They didn't come out with big banners and say, 'OK, today your work is lean work, and yesterday it wasn't.' They started with a small group and recruited other people from there. It was a very controlled experimentation."
In their research, Staats and Upton document how the use of lean principles affected the workflow at Wipro. The concept of "kaizen," or continuous improvement, for example, resulted in a more iterative approach to software development projects versus a sequential, "waterfall" method in which each step of the process is completed in turn by a separate worker.
By sharing mistakes across the process, the customer and project team members benefit individually and collectively from increased opportunities to learn from their errors; the project also moves along more quickly because bugs are discovered in the system earlier in the development process.
Wipro also uses tools specific to the software development process based on lean principles. The DSM (design structure matrix), for example, defines connections and pathways for a project's workflow and suggests an order of tasks. A complementary tool, the SCE (system complexity estimator), ranks a software module based on its complexity and compares its actual architecture with its ideal (simplest) architecture in order to learn where a team might need more or fewer skilled members. The company also employs the more familiar lean technique of value stream mapping (VSM) to identify and decrease wasted time and effort throughout the software development process.
Improving from the bottom up
While most organizations struggle with implementing a new system, fighting the general inertia that many employees experience when faced with yet another new initiative, the goal of lean is to open up the work process and abolish the usual hierarchies. According to Staats, this seems to have happened at Wipro.
"It was interesting to talk to some of the less senior team members, because they were getting involved in much bigger-picture issues than they ever had before," he says. "In the case of value stream mapping, every member of the team was able to get a sense of the overall picture of what they were doing and spot problems they wouldn't have been able to see before."
"It's about unlocking the power of thousands of software engineers."—Bradley Staats
Staats suggests that the use of lean principles at Wipro could have qualities of a "Trojan Horse initiative." From the outside, lean accomplishes the short-term goal of productivity (getting inside the city's gates), but it could also lead to more radical, innovative change (the sacking of Troy).
"One of the main ideas behind lean is to take parts of a task that don't require human intervention and give them to machines so that humans can focus on the important issues," Staats explains. "The same is true in software, where you have the added benefit of being able to give some of your work to a computer, which can process it more reliably and quickly than a human."
More time, coupled with a better understanding of the different moving parts of a project, creates feelings of empowerment in workers who haven't traditionally taken part in innovation.
"It's about unlocking the power of thousands of software engineers and encouraging innovation up and down the organization," Staats says. "You can impact productivity while also changing the problem-solving capabilities of the organization."
Ideas into action
Wipro is typical amongst Indian firms in its thirst for knowledge, Upton adds.
"These companies are intellectual environments. People are very interested in taking conceptual ideas and figuring out how to put them into practice. There's not the same division between the 'real world' and university research that you often encounter in the United States."

The High Return on Valued Employees

Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been quoted as having said it takes just seven days for new employees to start treating customers the way they are treated at work. All the customer service skills and training in the world can be undone in only one week if an employee is treated poorly by his or her co-workers or boss.
Companies spend countless amounts of time and resources on developing quality customer service techniques. Employees are taught that the customer is always right. They are taught to do whatever it takes to get and keep a customer's business. What is often overlooked is internal customer service. Companies talk the talk to the outside world, but don't walk the walk with their own people.
Do you give your internal customers a positive or negative service message? Ask yourself these questions:
How do managers react when there's an external customer service problem? A manager's job is to be sure his team is providing good service externally, but does he support them when there's a problem? Some managers place blame, become angry and step in with the customer, making it obvious to everyone that the person on the line did a poor job. Better managers support their people and provide whatever backing the employee needs to make the customer happy. Instead of finding fault, they help find solutions. In the end, the customer is happy, the employee maintains his dignity and, ideally, the employee learns how to do better the next time.
Is your staff empowered to make decisions? The classic scenario of no empowerment is a car salesperson constantly checking with the sales manager to obtain approval during negotiations. This type of environment teaches employees that they have little or no say in the decision and it sends a message to the customer that he is dealing with the wrong person. As a customer, don't you wish you could just talk directly to the sales manager and save the hassle? If employees are empowered to make decisions and solve problems on the spot, the customer will go away satisfied most of the time.
Do co-workers support each other? Most people don't work alone; they rely on others to help them get the job done. When someone needs information from a co-worker, is it delivered on time? If people don't deliver on deadline internally, the end product will be late to the customer. When that happens, co-workers start the process of covering their own skins and placing the blame on others -- nobody takes accountability for the missed deadline.
Do your employees have the tools to do the job? Perhaps that car salesperson had to keep running to his manager because he didn't know enough about the dealership's negotiation policies to make the deal on the spot. While you're training the staff on how to satisfy customers, also consider training on team-building, time management and other techniques to help the staff work as a cohesive unit.
How do you match up against your competitors? Is your competition using your weaknesses against you in a sales pitch? If your staff feels like they're getting beat up by the competition, their attitudes can slip quickly. Poor morale around the office leads to lower incentives to do a good job for the customer, making the situation spiral downward. Don't just sit back and let the competition tell your story, work on problems internally so your employees feel confident out on the street.
Do your employees think service is important? Top management needs to send the message that service is a priority, both internal and external service. People must be accountable for their actions and must be motivated to do their best work. Some companies think tactics such as "Employee of the Month" recognitions are corny; but for many employees, that internal recognition goes a long way in goodwill -- goodwill that is passed on to the customer.
How are customers treated behind the scenes? If your top customer was a fly on the wall in your office, would he or she still be a customer? Companies that allow employees to bad mouth customers are breeding an environment of mistrust. If a junior employee hears a top executive trashing a customer, he is going to lose sight of the fact that the customer is your company's livelihood. Employees in that environment are more likely to talk bad about their co-workers and engage in back-stabbing behavior.
A company's culture is set by top management; employees learn what's acceptable by watching what those at the top say and do. Therefore, if you set a tone for support and service, it will pay off in satisfied customers, inside the company and out.

On The Burger Culture

The fast food industry originated in the United States as "hamburger joints," but has become a global industry. As the industry has grown, so has the menu of a typical fast-food outlet, in number and variety of items. This trend has produced an opening for a fast food chain that concentrates on preparing a few items well, offering those items with superior quality at a competitive price. For purpose of discussion, this concept has been called Basic Burger.
Competitive Analysis of the Industry:
The fast food industry is an important and growing segment of the broader food-service industry, which can broadly be defined as providing ready-to-eat meals, as distinct from food items to be prepared at home, or snack foods requiring no preparation before eating. Fast food in some form is as old as sidewalk food vendors, but in the form we know it now it appeared in the United States in the 1950s, as particularly suited to drive-up or drive-through service.
Originally provided by individual stand-alone outlets or small local chains, since the 1960s it has been dominated by nationwide and then global chains, of which McDonald's is dominant. The primary advantage of large chains is branding (Bodine). Branding in turn implies a reliability of experience. A stand-alone outlet might well be better than any chain, but is at least as likely to be worse. At a McDonald's or KFC outlet, customers know what they can expect.
In addition to competing with one another, fast foods face competition from two sides. On one side, they are challenged by convenience stores or grocery stores offering food, sometimes heated. On the other side, they are challenged by the lower-priced and simpler-service end of the conventional restaurant spectrum, which (particularly in the United States) itself includes chains, such as Coco's, often located along highways.
This second group of restaurants have been a particular point of competition for the fast-food industry, which originated from "burger joints" appealing especially to teenagers. As the industry has grown it has broadened its scope, particularly in variety of items offered. Some of this growth has come in the form of chains that emphasize items different from the traditional hamburger-centered menu, such as KFC, which concentrates on chicken. The hamburger-centered chains, such as McDonald's, however, have tended over time to greatly increase the number and variety of their menu items, for example fish items and salads.

The Basic Burger Concept:
The expansion of fast-food menus has had important implications for their operations. As the menu grows, the kitchen operation becomes more complex. The imperatives of operating with a small and generally low-skilled kitchen staff have tended to push preparation back along the supply chain, so that handling and preparation within the outlet is minimized. The end result, for the customer, is blander and more "synthetic" food.
Fast food was never intended or expected to be a gourmet dining experience. However, Americans old enough to remember the earlier, simpler "burger joint" experience remember it fondly, while younger Americans have a sense that they are missing something. In other countries where American-style fast food has penetrated, the comparison is drawn to traditional local forms of convenient informal dining. Fast-food chains such as McDonald's are widely viewed as symbols of "globalization" in its negative sense, even while people around the world eat in them.
At the heart of the Basic Burger concept is menu simplification, and exploitation of the resulting simpler kitchen operation to provide a tastier, higher-quality product at a price point equivalent to existing fast-food items, particularly the McDonald's Big Mac. This, and its counterparts at other chains, along with a few other items such as french fries, continue to account for a large share of all fast-food items sold.
The center of the fast-food industry remains the United States, and the concept (including the name "Basic Burger") has been formulated with the American market in mind. However, the same concept could well be applied elsewhere, and if originating in a different national market, could draw on local casual-dining traditions rather than the American-style hamburger.
Assuming that the concept is first applied in the American market, subsequent global expansion might seem to be hampered by recent international consumer resistance to American-identified brands (Emling). Much of this recent resistance is due to US foreign policy, specifically the war in Iraq. As American public opinion has now also turned against the war and the Bush administration, however, this point of resistance can be expected to be a thing of the past before a new brand, having established itself in the American market, is ready to extend a global reach.
Returning to the Basic Burger concept, the trade-off, naturally, will be in having fewer items offered. Customers not interested in the handful of menu choices offered will have to go elsewhere. However, by offering popular items of superior quality at a competitive price, Basic Burger will still be positioned to capture a substantial proportion of fast-food customers, providing a substantial market niche that is in less competition with other segments of the food service industry such as conventional restaurants.
The Basic Burger Operation:
By selling only a few key items, the outlet can concentrate its effort on them. The kitchen and storage areas, not requiring provision for a large variety of items, can be designed with emphasis on the core competency. Less preparation at distant central distribution centers will be required, allowing greater emphasis on on-site preparation, in turn allowing delivery of fresher, more "natural" meals to the customer.
It should be noted here that some menu variations have minimal impact on operational complexity. For example, small, medium, and large hamburgers are made the same way, so this type of variety can be offered without substantially increasing the overhead of operational complexity.
Funding Mechanism and Price. The central concept of Basic Burger, as outlined above, is to reduce complexity of kitchens and supply chains, and apply the resulting savings to provide superior quality within a given price point. From the customer's-eye point of view, this can be expressed simply by saying that the offering of Basic Burger would most likely be about the size of a Big Mac, and offered for the same price, but tasting noticeably better, and in particular more natural.
It may be found in practice that a somewhat larger or smaller offering is the optimum, and as suggested above, offering two or even three sizes imposes minimal overhead. Larger sizes are generally advantaged, since the labor input is more or less identical for all sizes. It may also be found that the quality is sufficient to allow for a modest price premium as compared to other chains' similar-size offerings. However, the Basic Burger concept is not dependent on being able to charge such a premium.
Employee Management. Employee training can likewise focus on the core competency, simplifying operations. Cashiers, for example, will only have to deal with a few items. Moreover, smaller kitchen staffs will allow higher pay, at least in some positions, for example drawing cooks with a higher skill level. Additionally, though the number of items is restricted, some scope for individual skill will be available in these positions, making the outlets a reasonable entry level for cooks intending to move on to general restaurants, something that is not the case with conventional fast-food outlets today.
A reputation for quality will also tend to foster employee morale. The Basic Burger operation will not be a radical departure from fast-food operations. Thus it can draw on well-established management procedures for ensuring consistancy of quality in the product. At the same time, the focus on core competency will open the potential for pushing a bit beyond the standard, e.g., in allowing some scope for skill in cooking. The whole operation will be distinctly on the high end of the fast-food spectrum, with all the advantages that this can convey in employee management and relations.
Customer management. Customers are familiar with fast-food characteristics and operations. Thus, the Basic Burger concept is not requiring them to learn how to respond to an experience that is new to them. The customer will place orders and pick up food in the same way as at other fast food outlets. The one element of customer education required is with respect to the available variety of offerings, which will be considerably smaller than at McDonald's or other similar outlets.
In large part, this education will be handled by the advertising and overall branding, as in the proposed name, Basic Burger. People have an intuitive grasp that if you only make a few things, you probably make them better. Moreover, in a world where they are bombarded with choices, people will respond to "old-fashioned" quality and simplicity. These will be at the heart of the Basic Burger message.
Likewise, for customers who are unfamiliar with the offerings, the simplicity of the menu will simplify their task. They will see at a glance whether they want what is offered; if it isn't, their time and energy won't be wasted. More often than not they will want what is offered, and the quality of the product will bring them back.

Organizational Success Illusions

Truth-a proper and clear understanding of reality-is the key to success in organizations, teams,relationships, and careers. In fact, the departure point for all achievement is a relentless commitment to truth-truth about who we are, where we're headed, where the market is going, what our customers want, what our core competencies are (and whether anyone cares), what our core limitations are (and whether anyone can help us), and what our employees are thinking.
The enemy of truth is illusion. illusion is "a false interpretation by the mind ... a belief or hope that has no real substance."Illusion comes when we perceive something to be true that isn't true or is only partly true. Illusion comes because we want to believe the thing is true. Illusion is often-perhaps always-tied into false hope.

This false hope is usually driven by our desire to avoid facing problems-and the pain that comes from facing them and attempting to solve them. It's easier to search for ways to market a formerly successful product that is now falling in sales than to gaze unflinchingly into the reality that the product is on the verge of extinction. "when the horse is dead, get off," says an old proverb-but it's incredibly but it's incredibly easy to keep trying to ride an old horse even after the stench of death has set in.

It's is always easier to hope that a problem will go away or solve itself than it is to shred bad ideas or to abandon good ideas that gone sour. And the more the reality of the situation diverges from our desire to avoid pain and from our false hope, the more we need and will use illusion to disguise the gap.

Illusions are living things. Like layer upon layer of paint added to a rotting wall, illusions tend to produce more illusions. We may, for example, deceive ourselves into thinking that the problem is marketing rather than acknowledging that the product is a goner. This first illusion leads to a second one-that the marketing department needs a shake up-and when that fails, to a third illusion-that what we really need is a new marketing concept.

This is the disastrous path that illusions put us on and then drive us along. They cause us to "solve" a problem by adding another layer of illusion and, when the rot breaks through, to paint it again. Illusions cause us to head into the netherworld of organizational fantasy and to "solve" problems that may not be the problem-or any problem at all. Organizations spend an unbelievable amount of time and energy attempting to treat symptoms. Much of this effort nearely shuffles illusions around.

The hardest part for any organization is how to overcome its pride, its self-image, and its dreams. It is difficult to admit that we need to stop painting a rotting wall. It can be equally difficult to admit that we just wasted three years on a lousy idea. Therefore, the value of shredding illusions is that we begin to face the real problems, which are the only news worthy of being solved, the only ones that make a difference. We peel off the paint, layer by layer, so that we can determine the condition of the wall. Then, and only then, can we determine accurately whether to repair the wall or tear it down and build something better.

Another old saying reminds us that when we know the truth, we can be free-free from myths, free from misperceptions that lead us down unhelpful paths, free from bad ideas disguised as "traditions" or "culture,"and free from opinions that just don't hold up under the relentless flood of marketplace reality.

The danger of illusions is that sometimes we do not know what we are looking for, so we make our decisions about the organization on the basis of outward appearances alone. Illusions sometimes help people gain and maintain their power, not because we're ignorant of reality, but because we sense or know the reality and choose to avoid it. We might tell ourselves that we don't know anything different or have all the facts, while what we're really doing is entering More deeply into the process of illusion building.

Again, this deception is compounded when new reinforce each other's illusions. I tell you your layoff plan sounds appropriate (suppressing doubts about the long-term effect on morale and innovation), and you tell me my reorganization should fix our poor customer service (suppressing questions about my lack of agreed-upon goals and training). We can all have ears that itch to hear what they want to hear. Reality is present and available, but "it evaporates in a friendly conspiracy of illusion" according to James Lucas in his book Fatal Illusions.

Hallmarks of Organizational Success

Companies that wish to compete successfully in a turbulent business environment characterized by global competition, exploding information technology, fast-paced change, and new employer-employee relationships will inevitably be forced to make significant adjustments in the way they operate. From interviews - conducted in late nineties - with more than 1,000 senior executives and academics, experts at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School have developed a set of twelve hallmarks that will characterize the leading corporations of the the twenty first century:

Vision directed - This means having a statement of principles that is not just some high-sounding works tacked up on the wall of the company cafeteria, but a rather clear set of values that actually influence a company's operations and give employees a strong sense of pride in their organizations.

Cross functional - Asea Brown Bovari is a giant corporation with tens of thousands of thousands employees doing business in hundreds of local companies located across the globe. ABB cannot afford to be organized along traditional functional lines (e.g., marketing, manufacturing, R&D) because business decisions involve continuous coordination among many functions. Instead, ABB has a matrix organizational structure, with its local companies grouped by products and services, and again by geographical location.

Flatter & empowered - Information technology, intense competition, and the rapid rate of change have made he old, rigid hierarchies obsolete. Decision making simply cannot move up and down the corporate silos fast enough, so organizations must be fattened and individuals at every level must be empowered to make decisions. But, as John Kotter argues in The leadership Factor, this requires more from managers than they were ever asked to do before. "Figuring out the right thing to do in an environment of uncertainty... and then getting others to accept a new way of doing things demand skills and approaches that most managers did not need in the past. It demands more than technical expertise, adminstrativeability, and traditional management. Operating in the new environment also requires leadership." So an effort at developing leaders throughout the organization must accompany efforts at empowerment and flattening the corporate hierarchy.

Global - Companies like Ford have recognized the advantages that globalization can mean, from buying materials and services in low-cost areas of the world to developing new markets that can help cushion the blow when your domestic sales take a downturn.

Networked - Instead of carrying out every function on their own, companies will often find it far more cost-effective to create partnering arrangements with other firms to perform certain functions. Outsourcing, for example, is currently occurring in almost every field of business, where organizations are recently hiring outside vendors for their legal, audit, and cafeteria operations, security, and janitorial.

Information-technology-based - Computers and communications systems will continue to alter the way companies operate internally while improving relationships with suppliers and cu stormers. At large law firms, for example, computer networks now enable corporate clients to regularly review the work the firm is currently performing on their cases as well as the number of hours being billed to each other.

Stakeholder-focused - As Dr. Jerry Wind of the Wharton School explains, "A company will not be able to operate as a closed entity cut off from society's needs and demands. Management will still give primary attention to its shareholders, ... [but] increasingly, governments, environmental organizations, ... will hold firms accountable for their actions."

Flexible/adaptive - One of the best predictors of a company's long-term performance is its ability to adapt to changes in the marketplace. This requires a culture that encourages experimentation and intelligent risk taking, that incorporates now ideas into the fabric of its operations, and that provides employees with abundant opportunities to develop new skills so that hey can keep pace with change. At Motorolla, for example, the emphasis is on lifelong learning, with employees attending more hours of training annually than at almost any other company in the US. Training programs have enabled the company to achieve an exceptional reputation for product quality and maintain positions of leadership in areas such as computer chips, cellular telephones, and paging equipment.

Customer-driven - While many companies talk about getting close to the customer, some are actually trying to achieve it. Some manufacturing companies, according to Fortune Magazine, recognized that the best way for manufacturing employees to understand customers' needs to regularly travel to their facilities and find out firsthand how they use these companies. The result : significant product improvements.

Total Quality-focused - If any single element can be called the foundation stone of the change process, it is the emphasis on quality. After World War II, W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran taught the Japanese the importance of quality and how to attain it. Eventually, American companies got the quality concept and began singing out its praises with the other world-wide believers. They did that, just in time to win back some of their customers from the Japanese. Some of these companies (e.g. Motorola and Federal Express) have even been recognized for their efforts by receiving the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Time-based - Developing a new product rapidly and bringing it to the marketplace ahead of the competition can spell the difference between a company's success or failure. In his book what America Does Right, Robert Waterman describes Proctor & Gamble's plant in Lima, Ohio, which was given the job of manufacturing the company's improved Downy fabric softener. Lima succeeded in overhauling its production equipment so rapidly that new Downy was rolling off the assembly line and into supermarkets in the unbelievable time of only sixteen weeks. The key, according to Waterman, was the plant's empowered work teams that took ownership for the project and held a large stake in its success.

Innovative - Innovative and entrepreneurial are words most of us associate with small or medium-sized companies. yet some of the large corporations - the elephants - have also learned how to run with the gazelles. Through a variety of methods, companies like General electric, Motorola, Federal express, and P&G have proved that they can compete successfully. Unfortunately, too many other U.S. companies are still struggling to find a change process that will make them more competitive.

These are the twelve hallmarks of success that a congress of The American Management Association ( AMACOM) I had attended in the mid nineties in Las Vegas with more than 4,500 of executives from the five continents had discussed and agreed upon. I can see now that we were right in predicting the future traits of the twenty first century needs and demands.

Characteristics of Effective Organization

A lot has been said on the characteristics of effective organizations; organizations that have a strong presence, and their impact can be felt in the markets and communities they operate in; organizations that utilize all their current and potential resources to achieve their strategic goals. From experience, I found that all the characteristic that have been compounded so far about effective organizations can be crystallized in the following features:

• Vision Directed - where the organization should have a clear direction about which way it is heading through "reading the future" of the markets and anticipating the changes that would take place and would influence the market dynamics. The organization needs a good working compass which points accurately to the directions to be followed in order to outsmart the competition, get to the customers first, and gain a bigger market share.
• Customer Driven - Years ago, management gurus began to warn organizations that they had become arrogant and self-satisfied, focused on giving the customers only what the companies wanted and losing sight of what they customers' needs actually were. The result was that major corporations like the automobile manufacturers lost market share to foreign competitors, at least until they eventually got aware enough and started crash enhancement programs of satisfying the customer.
• Innovative - We live in an age when organizations like to take great pride in their ability to adapt to change and pioneer innovation. During the eighteenth century, innovation was suspect, but with the constantly changing tastes and demands of the customers, new products and/or services became crucial to sustaining any organization. Customers loyalty and their sustainability cannot be build on the same product or service features for so long. Quick response to customers' needs became a vital organizational competency that maintain its competitiveness in the market.
• Flexible/Adaptive - there is no doubt nowadays that change became the only constant around us. That means business objectives and strategies cannot be clad mantled and remain constant. They have to respond promptly to the environmental influences and market dynamics changes. Otherwise, companies lose opportunities as their approaches become obsolete and not required nor "adopted" by the customers who would look somewhere else.
• Intellectual Capital Oriented - The quality of people decides the effectiveness of any organization. It is not enough to hire the best caliber people. An on-going investment in improving and developing people's skills and competencies is crucial in carrying out the organization's plans to build a strong culture, develop aggressive strategic goals, launching new products and services, and opening new markets. Employees are the internal customers of the organization and building a customer driven culture depends mainly on the way we value our HR, the intellectual capital of the organization. If turned into "business partners" through participation and trust, employees will assume ownership and contribute limitlessly to enhance organizational performance and its competitiveness.
• Knowledge Based - We are living the "information democracy" age. Information became equally available for those who seek to learn. But information alone would not turn organizations into "learning organizations"; it needs to be turned into knowledge so that we can apply on our jobs. Systems of the organizations of the 21st century are becoming more and more knowledge based where even employees compensation will be designed on how much knowledge they know and apply on their jobs. Being knowledge based will also make organizations keen to keep up-to-date on technological advances in order to modernize their systems to be able to deal with the enormous fast flow of information and make use of it.

There might be more to discuss on the characteristics of market leaders, organizations that become addicted to success, and fight hard to defend their domains and sustain their market leadership, but I thought the above features can be used as ground rules to build a strong organization.

Tracking The Value Of Diversity Programs: Organizational Perspectives

The shortage of documented financial or performance results for diversity programs makes it difficult to determine what works and what doesn’t. Are there any models for companies to follow? Not yet, says Guillermo Hysaw, vice president of diversity for Toyota Motor Sales, USA. Hysaw, who is managing his company’s newly announced 10-year, $7.8 billion diversity initiative, freely admits that he’s not sure whom to benchmark against. "Nobody is doing an outstanding job in diversity," he says. Here’s a brief look at how five companies--all among the largest and most successful in their industries--structure and evaluate their diversity programs.
Ryder System, Inc. Ryder, a logistics, supply-chain, and transportation giant, runs an extensive diversity program for its 30,000 employees. Ryder measures the return on its program by tracking litigation costs and the number of women and members of minority groups hired and promoted in key jobs throughout the company. "Since the initiation of these programs, litigation costs have dropped dramatically," says Gerri Rocker, director of corporate diversity for the Miami-based company. The company uses a scorecard for each business unit that includes a diversity component, with specific targets for hiring and promoting women and people of color. Senior leadership bonuses are tied to meeting these targets.Ryder requires diversity training for all employees that "focuses on respecting and valuing all aspects of employees’ beliefs and backgrounds, not only differences of race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, but also individual talents, ideas, and experiences," says Rocker. "Differences are seen as working assets, which enhance Ryder’s credibility, business operations, and customer service." An additional round of training for all managers and supervisors promotes skills for managing differences within heterogeneous groups and pushing employees toward quality performance. The program also teaches litigation avoidance by describing scenarios and behaviors that put the company at risk of lawsuits and advising how to prevent them.
Goldman Sachs Group. "Our senior executives have said that diversity is a strategic imperative," says Laura Liswood, senior adviser for diversity at the New York-based investment banking firm. "At Goldman, it’s assumed that diversity is a good business practice, and we put a lot of resources into it." Goldman Sachs’ diversity program includes a centralized staff of half a dozen people, plus senior leaders within each division. The company relies on its in-house staff and rarely calls in consultants. "It takes a lot of looking within an organization’s diversity program to find the challenges, and most consultants can’t get under the skin of an organization to that level," Liswood says. "It has to be a largely internal process." Goldman includes a diversity component in performance evaluations and assessments of corporate leaders, with results reflected in their compensation.
Price, Waterhouse, Coopers. The world’s largest accounting firm, with headquarters in New York City and 125,000 employees, sees diversity as a marketing imperative. "We find that more and more of our clients are demanding that our partners and staff--involved in securing new business as well as delivering the work--reflect the diversity within their organizations," says Toni Riccardi, chief diversity officer. "It is as much a part of the price of admission for winning and sustaining new business as other core differentiating factors. We measure our return on investment against very specific metrics focused on recruiting, retention of our top performers, and employee satisfaction."
New York Life Insurance. New York Life, the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States, runs an extensive diversity program focused on recruitment and retention of minority candidates. "The human resources department establishes annual diversity goals in each department and, with the help of diversity officers in each unit, monitors a department’s hiring and promotional activity," says Angela Coleman, vice president of human resources. An executive management committee tracks diversity objectives by reviewing monthly and quarterly reports for each unit. Diversity is one of 15 components in performance evaluations for managers. "It’s hard to quantify financial results," Coleman says. "We don’t approach diversity in terms of a dollar return on investment."
Cendant Corporation. Cendant, a vast real estate services company, launched its diversity program as part of a broader "employer of choice" initiative. The company appointed a diversity committee commissioned by the CEO, and then named a vice president for diversity in 2002. "Each of our business units has at least one representative who is responsible for diversity initiatives," says Kathy Andreasen, vice president of human resources for the New York City-based company. "The return on the resources dedicated to this effort is measured in number of hires, the volume of our services that are provided by minority suppliers, the volume of business generated by our multicultural marketing initiatives, the number of minority franchisees, and other measures."