Customer World

Inside Steve's Brain- customer-centric design thinking

Here's an overview of the new book that's just got released - Inside Steve's brain ( Nishad sent this to me a few hours ago). Personally, it tells me a lot about the way the man is thinking, pushing( the people around him), acting-on( his instincts) and executing( without being worried about what the world thinks about him). Customer-centric enterprises need to have customer-centric design thinking - the way their products need to be conceived, designed and delivered. Steve just does it with impeccable perfection and style.    Here's the preview before you rush-out to buy:

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Emerging Technology trends that will shape business and economic growth - McKinsey's perspective

Carleen Hawn has drawn-up a nice summary of McKinsey's article.

Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. … we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

A. Managing relationships

1. Distributing cocreation

The Internet and related technologies … allow companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders—cocreation—in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control.

The Caution:
Companies pursuing this trend will have less control over innovation and the intellectual property that goes with it, however. They will also have to compete for the attention and time of the best and most capable contributors.

2. Using consumers as innovators

Consumers also cocreate with companies; the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for instance… Companies that involve customers in design, testing, marketing (such as viral marketing), and the after-sales process get better insights into customer needs and behavior and may be able to cut the cost of acquiring customers, engender greater loyalty, and speed up development cycles.

The Caution:
But a company open to allowing customers to help it innovate must ensure that it isn’t unduly influenced by information gleaned from a vocal minority. It must also be wary of focusing on the immediate rather than longer-range needs of customers and be careful to avoid raising and then failing to meet their expectations.

3. Tapping into a world of talent

… Much as technology permits [companies] to decentralize innovation through networks or customers, it also allows them to parcel out more work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks…new talent-deployment models could emerge [and] changes in the nature of labor relationships could lead to new pricing models that would shift payment schemes from time and materials to compensation for results.

The Caution:
This trend should gather steam in sectors such as software, health care delivery, professional services, and real estate, where companies can easily segment work into discrete tasks for independent contractors and then reaggregate it … Competitive advantage will shift to companies that can master the art of breaking down and recomposing tasks.

4. Extracting more value from interactions

Companies have been automating or offshoring an increasing proportion of their production and manufacturing (transformational) activities and their clerical or simple rule-based (transactional) activities. As a result, a growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations, knowledge, judgment, and ad hoc collaboration—tacit interactions, as we call them. By 2015 we expect employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44 percent of total US employment, up from 40 percent today.

The Caution:
Tere is still substantial room for automating transactional activities, and the payoff can typically be realized much more quickly and measured much more clearly than the payoff from investments to make tacit work more effective. Creating the business case for investing in interactions will be challenging—but critical—for managers.

B. Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding automation

Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes [like] forecasting and supply chain technologies…. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and … this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service.

The Caution:
Automation is a good investment if it not only lowers costs but also helps users to get what they want more quickly and easily, though it may not be a good idea if it gives them unpleasant experiences. The trick is to strike the right balance between raising margins and making customers happy.

6. Unbundling production from delivery

Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently… Information and communications technologies handle the tracking and metering critical to the new models and make it possible to have effective allocation and capacity-planning systems. Amazon.com [has] expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services [and] independent software developers … buy processing power on its IT infrastructure so that they don’t have to buy their own. Mobile virtual-network operators, another example of this trend, provide wireless services without investing in a network infrastructure.

The Caution:
Companies that make their assets available for internal and external use will need to manage conflicts if demand exceeds supply. A competitive advantage through scale may be hard to maintain when many players, large and small, have equal access to resources at low marginal costs.

C. Leveraging information

7. Putting more science into management

Technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models. From “ideagoras” (eBay-like marketplaces for ideas) to predictive markets to performance-management approaches… Leading players are exploiting this information explosion with a diverse set of management techniques. Google fosters innovation through an internal market: employees submit ideas, and other employees decide if an idea is worth pursuing or if they would be willing to work on it full-time.

The Caution:
Leaders should get out ahead of this trend to ensure that information makes organizations more rather than less effective. Information is often power; broadening access and increasing transparency will inevitably influence organizational politics and power structures. Environments that celebrate making choices on a factual basis must beware of analysis paralysis.

8. Making businesses from information

Accumulated pools of data captured in a number of systems within large organizations or pulled together from many points of origin on the Web are the raw material for new information-based business opportunities… market imperfections include[ing] information asymmetries and the frequent inability of decision makers to get all the relevant data … allow middlemen and players with more and better information to extract higher [prices] by aggregating and creating businesses around it.

The Caution:
But that sword can cut both ways; today’s aggregators, for instance, may themselves be aggregated tomorrow. Companies relying on information-based market imperfections need to assess the impact of the new transparency levels that are continually opening up in today’s information economy.

Add social value to your customer's financial value

Forrester has some interesting insights on the growing importance of social value in determining customer value:

• As marketers, we find ourselves relying more and more on consumers to impact others in their purchase decisions.  Evaluating customers based only on their business or financial value - such as my much-loved Life Time Value, or an operation's ROI - is *has been*. 

What's social value?

          I've simplified it into 3 components:

1) A customer's knowledge and involvement - in short, his level expertise  and  interest  in the  category and brand. 

2)  How he participates, and the value of his connections - what social activities is he involved with (both on and offline) and where (on what networks is he active).  The value refers to the value of the connections themselves:  are the communities more tightly-knit or diffused, are they public or more intimite.

3) The number of contacts the customer has in each network.

Your CRM or loyalty program members and active web users would be great starting points for social scoring. 

Secrets to building a customer-centric organization - #4

When it comes to building a team in an organization that thinks and breathes customers & selling best-in-class offerings, the process of recruiting the right 'fit' people rather than just the right people is important. What does this mean? It means that you might have identified the most qualified and the most experienced person for the job but they might not fit the culture, values, motivation, passion and environment that you may have in your company. The right fit is as much important as the right people. NY Times has an interesting article on 3 ingredients of success which provides more insights when you want to evaluate people and understand why they do what they do:

• After interviewing 200 people worldwide “who have made a difference in their fields,” three authors conclude that “success in the long run has less to do with finding the best idea or business model than it does with discovering what matters to us as individuals.”

• “When success just means wealth, fame and power it doesn’t last and it isn’t satisfying.”

• ...builders find lasting success when three essential elements come into alignment in their lives and work.

1. The first element is meaning. “What you do must matter deeply to you,”
2. The second is a “highly developed sense of accountability, audacity, passion and responsible optimism.”
3. Successful people “find effective ways to take action.”

Check the people who you want to recruit against this backdrop because you want to have in your team winners and not losers. Believe me, the difference will show and your customers will see it.

Secrets to building a customer-centric organization - # 3

Every customer-centric organization has to create a culture of organizational authenticity.

There is an interesting discussion around this topic in Fast Company. I have taken a few of the discussion points and posted them here.

What is organizational authenticity? Organizational authenticity means what is felt and thought concerning the mission and purpose aligns with what is said and done on a regular basis. - Paul S Markle

Transformational leadership transcends the one or few individuals and instills a sense of purpose and vision in the entire organization. The power play role of leadership is more focused with their position in their 'world' than organizational authenticity / integrity . - Donna  Karlin

How does a company ensure they attract authentic leaders for sustainability and growth and to promote a culture that is based on integrity?

"I believe there has to be a two way accountability pact or structure where both staff and leadership can ask and answer the question (in the affirmative) "Am I where I need to be to reach my level of excellence?" and "I am inspiring all those around me to reach for their level of excellence?" And can all include "...and live in alignment with my personal values and ethics?" If the people care about each other enough to ask, then they'll care enough to be authentic." - Donn Karlin

Here, you can take a organizational authenticity quiz. Go on and take the test!

Leadership scarcity

It's easy for organizations to be wanting to be customer-centric but the challenge is the need for a leader who can set the agenda, pursue the agenda relentlessly, be steadfast about the results, be ruthless about execution across various departments in the organization etc.. But, according to Jeffrey Phillips that's the area where there is a huge gap. Company boards need to find such leaders and there seems to be scarcity for such souls:

....there are few true leaders in most businesses, since it is impossible to pursue more than a handful of "visions" or strategies in any business without complete chaos.  Most senior executives in businesses are "managers" - that is, they understand the vision and attempt to implement it to the best of their understanding.  They don't create the vision, and in most cases don't fully back it or understand it, but are doing their best to implement the vision.  In any context, in any organization, there can be a maximum of one leader in this regard, however, in most firms there aren't any real leaders.  Most CEOs are pragmatists, guided by Wall Street and expected earning and returns.  Some leaders, like Jack Welch for instance, became recognized because he had a vision and pleased the street.  Some leaders, like Steve Jobs, have been recognized for their vision but have had up and down experiences - most likely because they could not communicate their vision effectively to a solid management team below them.  In many other firms, however, it is difficult to identify who is responsible for creating a vision and encouraging people to follow his or her vision.

....The best place today to find true leaders in businesses is in smaller, private firms.

Secrets to building a customer-centric organization - # 1

I have been coming across some interesting quotes (which resonate a lot & appeal to me) as building blocks towards creating a customer-centric organization. There is no one formula but I thought I will blog about them (as and when I find them), aggregate them here so as to serve as a resource for all. Here's the first!

How to get employees engaged?

I have already written in the past about the need to motivate employees to build customer-centric organizations. Technology can only do so much. We can have all the technology in the world but without engaged employees all these investments go down the drain. What are the building blocks of getting started on this? 

Nick Smith has some good suggestions:

• Know where you are coming from.
  It's probably wise, before stepping up to the leadership plate, to examine our own motivations because 'where we are coming from' speaks far louder than anything we might say or do.
• Make conversation a first class citizen.
  Conversation is the way we have got things done since Adam and Eve decided to walk out of the Garden of Eden.  The process flow is always the same:
  Ideas ----> Conversation ---- > Agreement ----> Action.
• Start slow to go quick.
  It's in wandering around, kicking the tires and sharing our frustrations that we come to discover a place we can call our own within a team.. something we can contribute and feel good about.. some role that we can fill (or learn to) that is personally meaningful to us.
• Get comfortable with blindness.
  Helping people find their own inspiration can be tricky.  Many times we don't consciously know what we want ourselves, but it comes disguised as a rant.  After all, we never get angry about the things we don't care about.
• Let go of the concept of 'failure'.
  Going out on a limb is messy.  It's all new to us, like learning to walk all over again.  We trip, we fall down, we pick ourselves up and then we do it all over again.  If we've got someone looking over our shoulder ready to snatch back control when we mess up, then we give up trying.
• Use consent rather than consensus as a framework for decision making.
  Many of us talk about Enterprise 2.0 as the democratisation of the workplace.  But seriously, is democracy that good a model?  As far I can see there are two big problems with it.  First, the bigger and the more diverse the group, the longer it takes to get a consensus of opinion.  Secondly, debate has a way of killing the brightest ideas.
• Be mindful of unexpected good stuff.
  This is about staying open and receptive to  what can never be planned.  The really magic stuff that comes out of great groups is the stuff that comes out of the blue.  It's not east to describe but when it comes it sneaks up on us and hits us up the side of the head.. and  we know.
• Be disruptive.
  Most people think of good leadership as maintaining order and keeping everything running smoothly.  What we are talking about here is the exact opposite.  Instead of being a good 'motivator' you can be a master disrupter - rearranging things to allow us to do what naturally moves us, and getting the other stuff out of the way.
• Be the keeper of the sacred scrolls.
  Just kidding!.. or maybe not.  It's part of the human condition to forget what is most important to us.  We get stuck in the inertia of those two old, tired ideas - 'work' and 'effort'... and then forget that  the real magic happens when we just enjoy our Selves.

21st Century CEOs - The emerging specialist CEO

BusinessWeek has an interesting article on the challenges of finding the right CEOs for corporations. The article goes on to mention that it will soon be the age of specialist CEOs. Take a look:

James M. Citrin, corporate kingmaker, has long had a close-up view of the leadership demands of the world's most dynamic companies. As founder of Spencer Stuart's technology, communications, and media practice, the executive recruiter has placed 165 chief executives, chief financial officers, and directors since 1994.

Citrin expects five specialist CEO types to be in the greatest demand:

• THE BRAIN
  Whether they're algorithm geniuses, coding prodigies, or merely credentialed scientists or designers, CEOs in touch with their inner geeks will be a sought-after breed. As global competition intensifies the pressure for top-line growth, innovators-in-chief will be more clued in to the next breakthrough business. ARCHETYPE: Arthur D. Levinson, the CEO of Genentech. (DNA ) Levinson has a PhD in biochemistry and is known for sending out late night e-mails to his researchers on details in scientific papers.
• THE AMBASSADOR
  A two-year stint in London may have counted as enough international experience in the past, but that won't be the case much longer. "More and more of our CEO specs are calling for explicit business experience in emerging markets," Citrin says. Boards are looking for CEOs with passports showing frequent visits to China and India, along with Russia, Brazil, and Dubai.ARCHETYPE: Citrin points to News Corp. (NWS ) CEO Rupert Murdoch, who has long wooed Beijing officials and launched alliances with local companies. Another example, he says, is PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi, who was born in Chennai, India.
• THE DEALMAKER
  Citrin believes dealmaking specialists—those able to both sell off noncore assets and go toe-to-toe with private equity players on big acquisitions—will be in heavy demand.ARCHETYPE: Retired AT&T (T ) CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr., who turned SBC Communications (T ), once the smallest of the regional Bells, into a powerhouse with a market value of $242 billion.
• THE CONDUCTOR
  Corporations' walls are only going to get more permeable, as companies form alliances with outsiders and turn to networks of innovators for ideas to put into practice.ARCHETYPE: A.G. Lafley, who says half of all new Procter & Gamble (PG ) products should come from outside its R&D labs.
• THE CASTING AGENT
  If you think "people are our greatest asset" is an overused bromide today, just wait. The talent war is only expected to worsen as boomers begin retiring en masse and emerging-markets managers remain scarce.ARCHETYPE: Xerox (XRX ) CEO Anne M. Mulcahy, who named operating chief and heir apparent Ursula M. Burns to the president's role in April.

To me the most interesting point from this article is that company boards need to decide what kind of leadership do they need for their companies at the moment and well into future - say next 3 -5 years.There might well be good and brilliant CEO prospects to choose from but they might not fit the specific need keeping in mind the company's current plans and objectives in the near future. Therefore, it needs careful planning, thinking and then selection.

Getting inspired by a designer

I read this interview of Ivy Ross, Chief Creative Officer of Disney Stores and was fascinated by some of the concepts she talks about. It has some great lessons for building organizations and developing ideas. Companies of the future need new structures and design thinking to create products and a culture that builds trust amongst employees who work there. There's a lot to get inspired from her thinking:

• I think there are no unique ideas anymore.The only way we are going to uncover  truly new ideas is to have diversity of thinking. It has to come from this diversity of people building on each others' ideas to create something new.
• Let's face it. Everyone has everything. We are not about price anymore. Everything exists at every price level.It's about the connection you find with that object.
• I also believe creativity and innovation are built around trust and freedom.
• You think of a cow giving milk and you only think of the end result.If the cow had not had the time to graze, there wouldn't be any milk. We are always hooking people for output, output, output. We are not giving them enough time to feed.
• I think the future of design is not just designing the object.We are going to design entireties, entire entities.

Toxic employees and customer management

Seth Godin provides an interesting perspective on toxic employees and how they manage customers:

Toxic employees are the ones that have difficulty with their co-workers, or worse, far worse, with your customers.They make two big confusions:

• They confuse "How can I help this prospect/customer?" with "How can I get rid of this person and get back to work?"
• They confuse, "How can I have a better day by treating this person with a great deal of respect?" with "Why isn't this person treating me with the respect I deserve?"

Managers can hire the non-toxic, re-assign the toxic and be really clear with themselves that they're willing to pay almost any price to keep toxic employees away from everyone else. And if toxic employees appears to be a pattern, my bet is that it's your fault, not the employees.

Viewing Nation vs Reading Nation

NY Times has an article on how young adults in the US are givng scant notice to newspapers. The article reports that:

Thomas Patterson, a professor of government and the press at Harvard who conducted the survey, said that young people today do not make an appointment with news every day the way older adults do.

“We found that most young adults don’t have an ingrained news habit,” he said. “Most children today, when watching television, are not watching the same TV set that their parents are watching. So even if their parents are watching the news every day, the children are likely to be in another room watching something else and aren’t acquiring the news habit.”

“My sense is that newspapers in their traditional form are not going to be able to recapture this audience,” said Professor Patterson. “What’s happened over time is that we have become more of a viewing nation than a reading nation, and the Internet is a little of both. My sense is that, like it or not, the future of news is going to be in the electronic media, but we don’t really know what that form is going to look like.”

When do we really get convinced to buy?

Noah Elkin writes in a article -'real-world data ...might affect my purchase decision.'

That's is so true. When you see a salesman, you feel he has an agenda to sell his products. So, we get a lot more cautious. We raise our defences. When you see an ad, you know they will have to say nice things about the product to make you buy. Hence, we normally filter these messages and add our own 'trust filter' to it before we make a 'buy' decision. So, where do we really get real world data?

• In our informal conversations with our friends, relatives, family members, associates etc.
• In our formal conversations when you first believe that the person who you are talking to is an expert and therefore you can trust his/her word.
• Or news that you pick-up in the newspapers, TV, internet etc - Sources that you believe provide unbiased information.

The sad truth is such data is never archived till social media came-in. Noah writes:

This kind of dialog long predates the meteoric rise of online social networks. Content has always connected us as consumers, and similarly, we have always found ways to share our thoughts and feelings about what we've consumed. The dramatic change that has taken place in the past few years enables us to capture, create and share our own content, moving us in essence from a one-to-one model (the proverbial water-cooler conversation) to a one-to-many model, opening our opinions to networks that span space and time.

He suggests two simple rules of social media:

1. Listen to your networks.
2. Be useful to them.

According to me, this should be the foundation of any communication that we design for consumers in broadcast media now. But, it starts from the other end.

1. It must be interesting enough to be useful to them first.
2. Then, they will listen to it.
3. And it must be useful enough, so they pass on the message to their network of friends.

I guess this triggers a dialog - the world of real data, which will then convince them to buy the product.

American Express brings its customer community together

American Express has launched a unique online initiative called The Members Project that enables its cardmembers to come together as a community by submitting and sharing their project ideas for making a positive impact in the world. Cardmembers can rate and discuss the project ideas on message boards and will ultimately vote and choose one innovative winning idea that American Express will help
bring to life with up to $5 million. The Members Project, which is a part of American Express' new brand campaign, "Are You a Cardmember," highlights the value of being a Cardmember and part of the American Express Cardmember community. "Our Cardmembers make up a unique community -- one that is highly engaged and passionate -- and we know that they care about the world around them," said Jud Linville, president of American Express Consumer Card Services Group. "Through the unique experience of The Members Project, our community of Cardmembers is pulling together and collectively shaking up the world just a little bit to do some good."

Cardmembers can go register and submit their project ideas for making a broad positive impact in one of the following categories: Arts & Entertainment, Business & Finance, Education, Environment & Wildlife, Fun, Health & Fitness and Community Development. Cardmembers can also participate by rating or posting comments about project ideas already submitted. For every Cardmember that registers, regardless of whether they come up with a project idea or just add their input on project ideas already submitted, American Express will contribute $1 toward the winning idea. The more Cardmembers registered, the more dollars available. American Express will commit at least $1 million and up to $5 million for the winning idea.

I love the deep engagement that this idea will create with their cardmembers.

Why not skin for credit cards?

Financial services products are sometimes too intimidating for consumers or too transaction focussed. How can you make an age old financial product like credit card interesting. Why not skins for credit cards that you have in your wallet? I read about this idea and thought it was quite interesting. It just makes the category interesting and financial services brands can make it a conversation starter for consumers.

..a company called CreditCovers started selling "skins," with special designs that consumers can stick over the fronts of their cards, theoretically transforming them from mere financial tools to emblems of identity...

Looks quite cool to me.

Living life in the edge

I have been reading a lot articles on disruption,crisis management in corporations, rapid cultural changes in society, changing media habits of consumers due to new techonologies etc. I have always wondered how does one keep pace with such sweeping changes and how, me as a leader, keep the edge without jumping off the edge? Here are some interesting tips from Fast Company on what some leaders do:

Many leaders say that pushing the limits outside the office gives them the experience of being in the moment, especially in times of crisis and keeps them focused, ready to take action. They say it helps them become comfortable with pressure and embrace risk.

• Continue moving…inaction leads to stagnation.
• Read…anything.
• Talk to people…constantly.
• Ask for feedback and be open to what you hear.
• Try something that seems counterintuitive.
• Don't let others in your organization do all the dirty work.
• Go work "on the line or in the trenches".
• Do a 360 on yourself.

Try This

Make a list of all the things that inspire you about other leaders. Compare them to your skill sets. What are you missing that they have? This is a great place to start understanding what you need to do to go to the next level. Then start learning those skills and practicing them. Start now, even if it's scary. You don't have to jump out of a plane to get your heart pumping; sometimes it is as simple as looking in the mirror and telling yourself the truth about something you should be doing and then taking the steps to do it.

'Physical Size Does Not Guarantee Success; What Matters Is Mental Size'

Subroto Bagchi, COO of Mindtree Consulting makes some lovely points on what it takes to build an organization. Frankly in my view, it's the 'soul of the enterprise' that makes all the difference.Everything else is replacable. Business  will follow if you cultivate the right culture. Ask yourself this question- Does your enterprise have a soul? Surely, your customers will know it, everytime your employees interact with them. May be you can start by asking them first. Be ready for a lot of suprises!

If you then want to go back to the drawing board, you can start thinking with Subroto's advice:

• Being big is not about size, but about mindset - Let us imagine that you want to someday build a skyscraper. You have to pre-think what plumbing must go into the skyscraper. It cannot be an afterthought.So you have to pretend that, "I am a skyscraper." The inlet and outlet for the skyscraper is going to be very different. So pretending [or imagining] is a very, very important thing.
• Countries like Singapore, or Israel, or Finland, are world leaders in many ways. These are developed countries. These countries are at the top-end of GDP. But they are so tiny. They're microscopic when you compare them to countries like India or Pakistan. Many of the African countries are significantly larger. In today's world, physical size does not guarantee success. What is important is mental size. Nokia was created out of Finland. Singapore's GDP is way bigger than the GDP of India, and ... the population of Singapore is half the population of Bangalore.
• Process to Empathy Ratio(PE Ratio)- Process is not a substitute for building an emotionally rich organization. Process without emotion can quickly bring you down to the lowest common denominator.
• Inventive Thinking -When you look at building an organization, yes, the first idea is important, but an organization is built only as an idea of ideas. Sometimes people fail because they don't take a long view of time. Sometimes they fail because they do not adapt. I think adaptability is very important.
• Create the right organization infrastructure - An organization, an enterprise, is about infrastructure.We have to continuously build infrastructure.Many companies do a good job of building the physical infrastructure. Some companies even do a good job of building the intellectual infrastructure. But above these two layers is what I call the emotional infrastructure. This is the most difficult - the most difficult to build and the most difficult to sustain.In a hyper-competitive world, it is easiest to demolish a company at the physical layer. It's less easy to demolish a company at the intellectual layer. But it is the most difficult to break a company apart at the emotional layer.
• Have the right balance - Look at your enterprise as a three-legged stool. One is the employee, one is the customer and the third is the investor. The three have to be balanced at all times. If you try to deliver to the investor at the cost of the employee, or at the cost of the customer, this three-legged stool topples over. So we need to be careful.

Read more

Adding social innovation to design

Josephine Green, is a Senior Director of Trends and Strategy at Philips Design. Her perpective on design is quite interesting:

• History teaches us that technology truly becomes a growth engine when, and only when, it is accompanied by social innovation.
• Because any new emerging technologies have to be relevant, meaningful and appropriate to people’s changing lives and to society’s emerging needs Only in this way can the new technologies reach their true potential and can companies and society grow and prosper.
• We believe that the future is about technology and social innovation and that while technology is still important, it becomes more an enabler in adding value for the individual and the collective. This means putting people at the center of our processes and business. It means thinking differently and doing differently.
• We need creativity, difference and boldness, and even more inefficiency, to let the truly new and imaginative emerge.
• We are now committed to this approach and are innovating through a network of partnerships and alliances involving customers, research institutes, other companies, etc.

Design is a business tool, but it is also a cultural tool. Design has always been a bridge between technology and culture and people.

Understanding what makes a leader

Wired has an open debate - Do leaders teach? or Do teachers lead? - between Bill George, Professor at Harvard Business School and Wendy Kopp, President, Teach for America. In the quest of building customer-centric organizations, I feel it is important that there are enough leaders at every level in every organization who have a mission in mind and work towards that purpose relentlessly. This article has some interesting points on leadership which resonated with my thoughts a lot. Hence, I felt it will be a good read for you:

• In my studies of leaders who have failed, these leaders fell prey to the pressures and seductions they faced. It wasn't that they lacked leadership skills, style or power, but that the extrinsic rewards of leadership (money, fame, glory and power) went to their heads.
• Their egos, their greed, their craving for public adulation, and their fear of loss of power overwhelmed their responsibility to build their institutions.
• In contrast, authentic leaders understand that leading is not about advancing themselves and their personal interests, but serving others and bringing them together around a common cause. In the end they create great organizations because people are inspired to step up and lead.
• Perhaps leaders are more likely to stay on course when they're pursuing their passions.
• "Why is it so hard to lead yourself"? The answer lies in differences between your idealized self--how you see yourself, and how you want to be seen-- and your real self--how others actually experience you. The key to being able to develop yourself as a leader is to narrow that gap between your idealized self and your real self by developing a deep self-awareness that only comes from straight feedback and honest exploration of yourself, followed by a concerted effort to make changes.
• Teaching successfully is an act of leadership, and I often hear our corps members and alumni describe the moment they broke through as a teacher as the moment they realized that this work is not about them, but rather about their students.

I think the article really provides insights into how we should plan, prepare, practice and evaluate ourselves honestly, if we have to become great leaders.

Adding soul to contact centres

Olga Botero writes:

I came home one night from work, and my 15-year-old daughter told me, "Mommy, a robot called you to confirm our reservations to go to Peru during Easter break." I could not help laughing. I laughed so much she got upset. She said, "I am serious. It was not a person. It was really a robot." And she started imitating the voice. It was a contact center agent reading a script.

Last week, when my daughter received the call from the "robot," no one asked her why we were traveling. Nobody asked her if we were a family on vacation. No one asked her if we were vegetarian or liked aisle seats or windows. What a great opportunity that agent missed!

"Marketing in the future will be self-selecting, said Jason Mittelstaedt, vice president of marketing for RightNow Technologies, speaking at Gartner's 2006 CRM Summit in London. Mittelstaedt noted that Time magazine's "person of the year" for 2006 was the typical consumer, and yet, many organizations still don't understand how fast their customers are changing. According to Mittelstaedt, 65 percent of customers stop doing business with companies because of bad experiences with a product or service, and 27 percent never return. And yes, this includes contact centers.

Two magic words are all it takes to turn the contact center into the magical place it's meant to be: LISTEN and ASK. Robots do not listen and ask. But humans, even with lots of technology to make their life more efficient, do.

Subliminal impressions drive our thinking

Ever wondered what goes behind people who come-up with great ideas? And do you want to know how their minds work?

It's the subliminal impressions that you pick-up everyday that makes a difference to your thinking. You may never realize what caught your attention but it's there right at the back of your mind. So, train your mind to catch its attention on simple but unusual things that you see around you. Being inquisitive and perceptive, can make a huge difference.

You can't afford to get brain dead, you got to be 'brain agile' every minute, if you want to come-up with some great ideas!

Read more to believe it! Little John helped me learn this today!

Derren Brown is a mind master when it comes to suggesting, influencing, planting and hypnotizing.Our brains are pulling directly from everyday experiences that we aren't even remembering. Our bus ride to work, the lunch line, etc. So, pay a bit more attention to that boring stuff around you.

Home or work - Rules are the same!

Read an extremely good article in ET friday last. Written by Verne Harnish, he says:

What is the underlying handful of fundamentals that drive everything else that’s important in business? What is still fundamental today in building a successful firm that hasn’t changed for over a hundred years? Tom Meredith, former CFO of Dell Computer, and I were discussing how the fundamentals that create a great business are the same as those for parenting great kids.

Anyone with children will recognise the fundamentals as:

• Have a handful of rules
• Repeat yourself a lot
• Act consistent with those rules (which is why you better have only a few rules)

Further, he also quotes from Rockefeller’s leadership and management principles:

Priorities - Does the organisation have objective Top five priorities for the year and the quarter (the month, if growing over 100% annually) and a clear Top one priority along with an appropriate theme? Does everyone in the organisation have their own handful of priorities that align with the company’s priorities?

Data - Does the organisation have sufficient data on a daily and weekly basis to provide insight into how the organisation is running and what the market is demanding? Does everyone in the organisation have at least one key daily or weekly metric driving his or her performance?

Rhythm - Does the organisation have an effective rhythm of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings to maintain alignment and drive accountability? Are the meetings well run and useful?

Only if all bosses were so honest and every employee responsive

Read a nice little piece from Seth's blog about a note from boss to his employees. As we talk about collaborative and empowered organizations being the future, this note sets the tone to start the culture today:

1. I am sometimes under enormous pressure from upper management; pressure that you seldom see. Anything that you can do to make my job easier will be greatly appreciated.
2. Your interests are important, but please remember that I also have to juggle the concerns and feelings of a bunch of other people, including individuals outside of the department.
3. I may not have been given a huge amount of training before being named to a supervisory position. As a result, I’ve had to learn through trial and error. That's not always bad. Many of my responsibilities can only be learned through practice.
4. If you are a former co-worker of mine, please recognize that supervising former peers is one of the toughest jobs any supervisor faces. The support that you give me is crucial.
5. I will make mistakes. Please give me the same understanding that you’d like me to give you when you blunder.
6. If I do something dumb or am on the verge of doing so, please tell me. Don’t hint. Tell me.
7. I don’t like unpleasant surprises. Let me in on bad news as soon as possible. (Things that you believe are obvious may not be that clear to me. On the other hand, you'd be surprised at how quickly the latest gossip reaches my ears.)
8. I expect you to take initiative. If you keep bouncing things to me, I’m going to wonder why I have you around.
9. You should ask questions if you don’t know what to do. On the other hand, you should not have to be taught the same thing over and over again.
10. Let’s respect each other’s time. We each have a job to do and the more we can reduce unnecessary interruptions, the happier we'll each be.
11. Don't let all of my talk about meeting goals and producing results lead you into unethical behavior. You always have my permission to be ethical.
12. If either of us has a problem with the other's performance, let's talk about it.

Open Source organisation design

Reading the article in Wired about Kidrobots written by Alissa Walker, I felt there are some very important implications about how corporations need to redesign their business models for a successful future. Specifically on how organizations have to structure themselves towards customers, product design and internal working methods came to my mind. Here are my thoughts:

CEO  as Chief Engagement Officer: The job of person on the top of such organizations is about having a loose control of various functions and people in the organization.His/her ability to bring together multiple talents either from within or outside will become increasingly important. His/her job is to drive active engagement across functions and people. There is a nice quote in the article by the owner Paul Budnitz where he says "You need someone with a very clear vision holding everything together, and frankly that's what I'm exceptionally good at..."

Employees as artists: The ability to embrace ideas and suggestions across the board will become important for the success of the corporation. As mentioned in the article, "When there's no sense of possessiveness or ownership in the artistic process, great things happen,.." Employees must understand and practice this approach across markets, departments and offices.

R&D as open source: Product development wil get more collaborative and hence  they need to understand talent always may not reside inside the company. Like mentioned in this article, "ideas for new Kidrobot products are coming at Budnitz fast--from friends, musicians, fashion designers, graffiti artists, animators, even suggestions from Kidrobot's message boards..", R&D will be a lot more open than closed.

Products to extended experiences: Companies have to learn to work with alliances beyond their categories. It's no more just about the product but about the experiences in places where customers never expect them to be present. Like how the article mentions "Budnitz has overseen the design of a wildly successful tie-in with a shoe by Nike (NYSE:NKE) and exclusive apparel for Barneys. Then Volkswagen came knocking, with a plan to bring to life another bunny-inspired character, the Dunny, in a signature version of its new Rabbit. Budnitz was able to completely customize the vehicle, from interior textiles to the paint job..."

From retail to playtail : If an organization's customers have to interact with them at the retail level, it is no more about product placement and availability. It's the ability to provide an environment for customers to come-in and play with their imagination around products. The article goes on explain - "He transformed the spaces from toy galleries to lifestyle stores that feature a new limited-edition line of apparel." 

Corporation as a network: The corporation of tomorrow must not structure itself as head offices, corporate offices and regional offices but as a network of excellence across the globe. As mentioned in the article "Budnitz lets that sort of fluidity permeate the entire company. With so many projects in motion, it's impossible for him to provide all the direction himself, so he divides his staff of about 45 into small groups, letting important decisions fall to anyone from an intern to a visiting artist."

What does it take to be customer-centric?

Many a times, it is easy for companies to talk about being customer-centric, customer-focussed etc. But, it needs the right attitude and mindset in people who work for the organization, to make it happen on the ground.  Here's a set of rules from a book called Exceeding Customer Expectations and I found them to be an extremely useful list to remember and practice everyday.

I also feel this is an important checklist against which you could rate the people who you would like to recruit. Check out what they feel about these rules and some examples of where they have practiced it in their eariler jobs! Without wasting anymore time, here's the list:

1. A passion for taking care of customers.
2. A willingness to be flexible.
3. A work ethic based on dedication to the company and its mission.
4. An eagerness to learn a new business and work their way up.
5. Self-motivation and goal-orientation.
6. Persuasive sales skills.
7. Excellent communication skills.
8. Leadership ability.

Customer Relationship Economics

There's a lot buzz & interest around customer-centricity and CRM but according to a survey done by Strativity Group, many executives in companies really don't understand the economics behind customer relationships leading to poor understanding, appreciation and execution. Take a look at some findings:

• Over 75% of respondents did not know the cost of a new customer while 81% did not know the cost of a customer complaint.
• 50% of respondents did not know their organization's annual retention rates.
• 60% of senior executives claim they do not deserve their customers' loyalty.
• 51% of respondents claim that their company does not deliver unique and beneficial products or services
• 56% agree that their company's products or services are worth the price they charge.
• 34% affirm that they have the tools and authority to serve their customers.

Strategies fail due to poor execution!

• Basic execution parameters such as frequently visiting customers (34%), providing
  the necessary tools and authority to employees (34%), and strongly linking
  compensation with service quality (29%) is lacking.

Employee readiness to execute remains a challenge!

• 29% of the respondents indicated that their compensation plan emphasizes quality of service and not just productivity.
• 34% of respondents claim that their employees have the tools and authority to solve customer problems.
• 30% of respondents agreed that their company invests in people more than in technology.

Yet, according to the study, 70% of companies indicate that customer strategies are more important than they were three years ago.

I guess the challenge is to not only to have a customer strategic plan in place but it is also important to align people, processes and right metrics to make it a success.

Rural India & Digital Era - Customization will help

In a digital era, how do rural and poor communities share stories with one another? By a Nokia mobile phone, with adapted software, if academics in London and campaigners here get positive results from their project.

Using mobile phones with simplified icons, which villagers would find easier to deal with, this British-linked project seeks to zero in on what kind of information local users find useful.

Ramnath Bhat, 25, working in communications-based NGO Voices, is part of the Story Bank project, in association with University of Surrey.It is part of a larger project called 'Bridging the Global Digital Divide' and is based in the rural area of Buddikote, in southern Karnataka's Kolar Gold Fields area. 'We've seen in a prior research that in a lot of cases, information and communication technologies, or ICTs, don't encourage communication among the poor.'

ICTs - primarily computers and electronic communications - imply centralisation, complicated methods of participation, language, and design issues.The project is quite exciting, says Bhat. It uses the Nokia N80 mobile phone, together with easier-to-use software for villagers, including Dalits, to create multimedia content.

'We're modifying the phone interface to make easy the process of creating content. It will be all done by using icons. We'll have separate icons for recording ambient sound, for voice and for clicking pictures or taking video,' he added.

A computer icon is a small pictogram, used to supplement the normal alphanumeric tools used to relate to the computer.With these buttons, an unlettered villager should be able to record small video clips with audio tracks. These digital stories will be then sent to a nearby central server, connected to a touch-screen.

The project aims at making it simple to create and access digital content. Voices also runs a project in the area, where radio-type programmes are put out to local houses.

'We've noticed that villagers cannot access our community centre, because timings don't match or because of their work. With a touch-screen device located outside, they could create and send stories here anytime,' argued Bhat.

What information do villagers seek, really?

'For men, their primary needs are info on governance, legal awareness, agricultural, health. For rural women in this area, it tends to be career information for their children, profiles of other self-help groups, and options for financial loans,' he says.

Children, meanwhile, wanted info on general knowledge, sports events, film stars, and themes science (including seemingly remote themes like dinosaurs or space).

The NGO is also linking the Internet with radio, by adopting the Sri Lankan idea of 'radio browsing'. Villagers ask for the information they need, someone in the NGO searches the Net for it and then reads it out over the local radio 'station'.

thro' contentsutra

Building a customer-centric culture

Someone asked me the other the day, if I have been talking and spreading the philosophy of the ideal work culture that our office should practice, the need for extreme customer-centricity amongst employees, a passion for the work one does etc. for so many years now, why is that there are only a few people around me who seem to get it, do it, practice it and spread it.

Here are my answers:

• Building an organization is an evolutionary process. Keep doing it.
• Change management is a continous job. Keep attempting it.
• There's no perfect answer. Keep trying.
• Don't worry about results. Remember, culture & habits can't change overnight. Keep up the pressure
• Identify evangelists. Keep working on them to spread it across the organization.

It's interesting that on the same topic I just got a reference of a 1972 McDonald's Training Video.The content and the message of the video is still relevant after 35 years! Take a look:

So, don't lose hope. Remember, the 35 year McDonald's Chant!

Innovating GE way - Go back to School

Business Week reports:

It's a first, however, for General Electric's health-care unit, which sells $15 billion a year worth of clunky X-ray machines, CAT-scan machines, and ultrasound testing equipment. The health-care division has long been a technology innovator. But it has historically tried to differentiate its products by getting better and faster readings from its instruments—"feeds and speeds" as Lou Lenzi, the general manager of global design at GE Healthcare, puts it. So turning to art school students for ideas is a significant departure.

GE wants to make medical tests easier on both the patients and the operators of the equipment, which means focusing on the human side of the equation, from ergonomics to emotions. How, for instance, could a traditionally monstrous CAT scan machine be designed to seem less ominous to patients already distressed by their medical condition? How could a machine be easier for the technician to use?

"We're looking beyond the hardware. We're looking at the patient's journey."( says Lawrence Murphy, the health-care unit's chief designer (My emphasis)).

Improved Experience

There were other forces at work, too. One of GE Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt's initiatives has been to call on employees to "Go Big" by targeting large markets and ideas that might pay off in outsized ways. With that in mind, the health-care designers asked the Art Center students to look at how the company's services might be delivered in developing nations 20 years from now.

Cosmetics now get into personalization

It's a common knowledge that skin & beauty care is an extremely personal need for a consumer but brands have often sold their products enmasse. Pretty much the way cars were sold way back in the 1920s. Take for example lipstick, mascara, dry cream brands etc. They solve 'one beauty need' the same way for every customer That's not good enough anymore. All that is set to change as cosmetic brands have started to understand the need for personalization and individualized experiences.

NY Times has an interesting article on how cosmetic brands are reconfiguring their products and brands for these informed consumers.

Avon, meanwhile, has introduced the Hook Up Connector, a product that lets customers snap together a mascara, lipstick or other cosmetic (like Lego blocks, in terms of the mechanics). Later this year it plans to introduce a small multiproduct compact that women can load up with different products every day if they wish.

“This generation personalizes its cellphone rings and computer screens, so it makes sense to let it customize its cosmetics,” Ms. Poccia said. “The freedom to mix and match is just more important to young women than it was to their mothers.”

“This generation is so educated that we do not try the hard sell, but rather try to be influencers,” Ms. Poccia said. “We give the facts, the statistics, the test results, and let a young woman make choices on her own terms.”

Conversations are never assembly line

Joseph Jaffe is one person who does a great job of building collaborative projects. After his successful book Life after the 30 Sec Spot, he has started to write a  new book - Join the conversation and has invited people to contribute. I have tried to contribute my thoughts in Chapter 10 - Why are you so afraid of conversation? Here's my take:

It is a good idea to trace this to the history and growth of organizations in the industrial age. This was the age where efficiency was the focus. Organizations were built around driving productivity. People were trained to do things over and over again - faster and quicker. For over a century, people worked in an era of mass production. Hence, they forgot the ability to develop conversations. They worked in large organizations that told them what to do rather than get them to explore what to do.

We therefore moved from

• an era of 'inventory of goods' to an era of 'inventory of ideas'.
• an era of 'scarcity' to an era of ' insatiable choices'
• an era of ' information poverty' to an era of 'information overload'

Imagine the kind of shift they would have to make for this new eco-system. They had to express, share and collaborate to get prepared for such an environment. This is a new work culture altogether for them. Also, one-size-fits-all product strategy became irrelevant.

Conversation at the end of the day is two-way. Conversations require

• A capability to accept reality as it were because that's how consumers talk amongst themselves
• Ability to listen and respond in an unbiased manner
• Skills to experiment,learn and develop
• Ability to change the course of one's action swiftly, even if the decision was wrong

Hence, they were not ready for a conversation era. An environment where one has to express, empathize, engage, enable and empower. The mindset a marketer must have is not to 'inform at any cost' but 'spread at no cost'. This is a new marketing paradigm that demands new thinking, new rules and new ideas.