I recently had a notice appear on the screen of my PC alerting me to the upcoming expiration of a software license. The alert gave me the impression that by clicking through I would be presented with the correct version of software to order and extend the license one more year. Unexpectedly as I went to the next screen I was presented with an array of choices which appeared to be setup to result in ordering a more expensive and unnecessary license. Confused, I called the company’s customer support line to determine what action to take.
The call with the customer service agent was even more confusing as he referred to a notice that I should have received that “completely” explained what action I was to take. While this was being explained to me I checked my incoming mail box (I never delete anything) and no notice was found. I told him that I was surprised with the level of software sophistication that exists today that the prompt should have automatically told me what was already installed and what ordering action would be appropriate to update the software correctly and extend the license one more year. The agent was unable to assist me in making the right decision so I suggested (strongly suggested) that he refer this problem to his management that this required so much of my time to resolve (now a half hour) and it was still unresolved.
I let the system prompt me daily for the next week as my time to make a decision decreased. On the last day I clicked again and a new screen appeared that clearly identified what license I was to order to efficiently update my license. The whole matter took less than 10 minutes to complete.
Two hours later I received a call from the software company. The person calling expressed his concern that there had been a problem (earlier call seven days previously) and that this problem had been reported by others. He was personally calling to make sure there was no further confusion in ordering the correct license to retain me as a customer. I told him that I successfully navigated what must have been an updated sequence of steps to order the new license correctly. Since I noticed a positive response either due to my feedback or from others I also took advantage of an incentive and added an additional feature to the license.
I was stunned by the interest of the company to make a personal call, most likely costing more than the lprice of the icense upgrade, to make sure that I was satisfied and by someone who was in a senior position and clearly had the resources to deal with the matter. He also freely admitted that there had been a problem and was taking action to contact each person who reported it to make sure their customers were properly served and not confused or lost over the issue.
To say the least I was impressed. It is not unusual for software vendors who think they are pretty important to be unresponsive in situations like this and I will often seek out other competitive products in the marketplace. By taking this action I am now a more loyal customer who has first hand witnessed the extent this company will go to make sure that I was serviced correctly despite some difficulties on their part.
The name of the software company is Symantec.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Going Across the Middle
As a young man I participated in a number of athletic sports. It was not until much later in my business life that I realized how valuable this experience was. Owning or running a business reminds me of when I was a spilt end (the wide receiver term came much later) and had to catch a quick pass over the middle. The middle was the domain of the linebackers, defensive halfbacks and safety and they enjoyed taking advantage of the receiver concentrating on where the ball was coming from to position themselves to deliver a hit (a knockout blow) so that the receiver would think twice, or hear footsteps, the next time he ran that route.
In business we find many similar circumstances where there are competitors, regulators, legislators and often customers who are trying to deliver a knockout blow to send a message that could ultimately damage the reputation, brand, financial performance, etc. of the company. While you cannot eliminate the probability of taking a hit, you can control how prepared you are when they come and how you deal with them.
I always admired Mike Ditka who as a player for the Chicago Bears, Phildelphia Eagels and Dallas Cowboys was the perfect example of how to successfully go across the middle, catch the ball and deliver a hit. He savored the experience of not just catching the ball but delivering a hit (often knocking out the defensive player). The difference, Ditka saw it as an opportunity to control and not be controlled. He prepared physically and mentally to excel under these circumstances and defensive backs thought twice about how to bring him down.
Successful companies take and deal with the big hits that can create significant problems for others. What makes successful companies? They do the best in recovering from adverse conditions because they anticipate that challenges will happen unexpectedly and what should be done when they occur. They hire the right people who can think on their feet, have the right attitude and adopt a discipline to face problems head on and handle them in a proactive manner. Processes and policies are examined to see what adjustments if any are needed to reduce their exposure the next time they encounter similar circumstances.
Conditioning your organization to profit from the big hits that come in business will prepare you for high return opportunities. Nurturing your employees to thrive in these circumstances strengthens your company to excel where other, less prepared companies “hear footsteps” and drop the ball. Aggressively responding to tough business situations successfully will deliver a message to the marketplace, future and prospective customers, competitors and employees.
Those times that I was properly prepared, physically and mentally, I was able to catch the ball and run over the defensive back, hardly noticing that he had actually hit me pretty hard but I was so focused down the field that I ignored the impact. Is your organization prepared to take the hit, focus on where they need to go and deliver a positive message to all involved as to what your company is about?
Intentionally prepare your company to deal with the unexpected, motivate your people to rise to the occasion when extreme circumstances occur, develop a positive attitude as to how your company deals with adversity that is focused on a successful outcome. Keep your eye on the ball and look down field.
Be prepared to go across the middle!
In business we find many similar circumstances where there are competitors, regulators, legislators and often customers who are trying to deliver a knockout blow to send a message that could ultimately damage the reputation, brand, financial performance, etc. of the company. While you cannot eliminate the probability of taking a hit, you can control how prepared you are when they come and how you deal with them.
I always admired Mike Ditka who as a player for the Chicago Bears, Phildelphia Eagels and Dallas Cowboys was the perfect example of how to successfully go across the middle, catch the ball and deliver a hit. He savored the experience of not just catching the ball but delivering a hit (often knocking out the defensive player). The difference, Ditka saw it as an opportunity to control and not be controlled. He prepared physically and mentally to excel under these circumstances and defensive backs thought twice about how to bring him down.
Successful companies take and deal with the big hits that can create significant problems for others. What makes successful companies? They do the best in recovering from adverse conditions because they anticipate that challenges will happen unexpectedly and what should be done when they occur. They hire the right people who can think on their feet, have the right attitude and adopt a discipline to face problems head on and handle them in a proactive manner. Processes and policies are examined to see what adjustments if any are needed to reduce their exposure the next time they encounter similar circumstances.
Conditioning your organization to profit from the big hits that come in business will prepare you for high return opportunities. Nurturing your employees to thrive in these circumstances strengthens your company to excel where other, less prepared companies “hear footsteps” and drop the ball. Aggressively responding to tough business situations successfully will deliver a message to the marketplace, future and prospective customers, competitors and employees.
Those times that I was properly prepared, physically and mentally, I was able to catch the ball and run over the defensive back, hardly noticing that he had actually hit me pretty hard but I was so focused down the field that I ignored the impact. Is your organization prepared to take the hit, focus on where they need to go and deliver a positive message to all involved as to what your company is about?
Intentionally prepare your company to deal with the unexpected, motivate your people to rise to the occasion when extreme circumstances occur, develop a positive attitude as to how your company deals with adversity that is focused on a successful outcome. Keep your eye on the ball and look down field.
Be prepared to go across the middle!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Where Can I get advice?
Life in the top chair can be lonely particularly when you are faced with business circumstances that require decisions outside of your comfort zone. How do you get the perspective to execute a decision process to deal with a specific situation? Can you go to your leadership team when the problem may conflict with their vested interests – job security, career objectives, self-esteem, etc.
Direct reports are not always the best resource to give you advice as it may be difficult resolving what they tell you. It may be designed to respond to what they think you want to hear. Even if you have an employee who you feel is a good “unbiased/confidential” resource you need to recognize that others will know he/she has your ear. This raises other organizational conflicts unless you are able to let everyone in on what is going on which is not always possible or appropriate.
Owners and executives who have found themselves in this predicament and have dealt with it successfully have reached outside the company for advice. This can be risky if done in an emergency mode so the best practice is to proactively develop relationships with people whose opinions you regard highly. These people should have the range of experience and expertise that covers the areas of your business that you are less familiar with. In the event that this group is not able to address a specific issue they are probably in a position to direct you to a reliable resource.
Consultants (those who have actually had credible management experience developing their area of expertise) are a common way to create an advisory resource. This may be done on an hourly basis or retainer. A retainer may appear more costly but it removes the billable hour pressure that might influence availability and desire of the consultant to move into a more involved role in the solution which compromises the independent perspective of your advisor for they are now part of the problem.
Other business professionals if you find they are sufficiently removed from your market – customers and competitors - to handle your discussions confidentially. A number of organizations offer “leadership” groups where you can meet in a structured process, often 4 – 8 hours every month, where members are required to discuss different aspects of their business. This can be a valuable source of advice as long as you can be transparent, honest in divulging critical information about your company and able to be accountable to the group. Having this type of an accountability partner/group can be very effective but also intimidating for many of us.
Professionals who have retired that have had a credible track record in industries and levels of responsibility that are similar to you can also be very useful. However, will they take the time to understand your business or be flattered by your invitation to be an adviser and just offer platitudes? An advisor should be proactive in pursuing information in order to give you informed advice.
No matter which way you go, effectively using an outside advisor requires an investment in time, discernment in developing a trust relationship, becoming comfortable being told what you don’t want to hear and accountable to someone when you are used to being the top dog. An owner or CEO/CXO does this successfully will be recognized as someone who is coachable, prudent, balanced and will most likely have a record of successfully making decisions that are well thought out. Another by product will be the positive influence on his management team in how they become part of a decision making process that has depth of experience and business expertise.
Direct reports are not always the best resource to give you advice as it may be difficult resolving what they tell you. It may be designed to respond to what they think you want to hear. Even if you have an employee who you feel is a good “unbiased/confidential” resource you need to recognize that others will know he/she has your ear. This raises other organizational conflicts unless you are able to let everyone in on what is going on which is not always possible or appropriate.
Owners and executives who have found themselves in this predicament and have dealt with it successfully have reached outside the company for advice. This can be risky if done in an emergency mode so the best practice is to proactively develop relationships with people whose opinions you regard highly. These people should have the range of experience and expertise that covers the areas of your business that you are less familiar with. In the event that this group is not able to address a specific issue they are probably in a position to direct you to a reliable resource.
Consultants (those who have actually had credible management experience developing their area of expertise) are a common way to create an advisory resource. This may be done on an hourly basis or retainer. A retainer may appear more costly but it removes the billable hour pressure that might influence availability and desire of the consultant to move into a more involved role in the solution which compromises the independent perspective of your advisor for they are now part of the problem.
Other business professionals if you find they are sufficiently removed from your market – customers and competitors - to handle your discussions confidentially. A number of organizations offer “leadership” groups where you can meet in a structured process, often 4 – 8 hours every month, where members are required to discuss different aspects of their business. This can be a valuable source of advice as long as you can be transparent, honest in divulging critical information about your company and able to be accountable to the group. Having this type of an accountability partner/group can be very effective but also intimidating for many of us.
Professionals who have retired that have had a credible track record in industries and levels of responsibility that are similar to you can also be very useful. However, will they take the time to understand your business or be flattered by your invitation to be an adviser and just offer platitudes? An advisor should be proactive in pursuing information in order to give you informed advice.
No matter which way you go, effectively using an outside advisor requires an investment in time, discernment in developing a trust relationship, becoming comfortable being told what you don’t want to hear and accountable to someone when you are used to being the top dog. An owner or CEO/CXO does this successfully will be recognized as someone who is coachable, prudent, balanced and will most likely have a record of successfully making decisions that are well thought out. Another by product will be the positive influence on his management team in how they become part of a decision making process that has depth of experience and business expertise.
Monday, June 16, 2008
What does your company know about its business process?
A local business owner was concerned about the amount of energy that he and his organization were using to “get the job done!” The owner had made a conscious decision to hire younger people with little to no business experience into key positions. His intent was to mold them to fit his business model. However, as I continued my investigation he was not using any structured method, materials or mentoring to transfer knowledge of the company business process to them.
Documented operating procedures were few to non-existent and those that were in place were dated and had not been reviewed for current compliance. As I pursued this line of questioning the owner began to realize that his expectation of hiring “good” people that would understand intuitively what to do to run the business was unrealistic. While he had “intuitively” learned the business when he started, he now realized that the people he had hired did not have the attributes and desire to rise to this level of performance.
Given the absence of written procedures I suggested that a quick way to get everyone on the same page was to graphically illustrate in a flowchart format how the various operations of the company were connected from a responsibility and transaction point of view. The owner agreed and we conducted a number of two hour sessions where we flowcharted the business from the origin of an order to the acceptance of the final deliverable, customer acceptance and payment. The process resulted in a number of occasions where the owner did not know how the company performed a function and who was primarily responsible for it. When complete the flowchart was almost five feet long.
The flowchart process was very productive for the owner for it clearly revealed where he was of most value but also where he spent most of his time. His high value contribution was sales and project engineering but the majority of his high stress moments were when he was involved in “expediting” or “crisis managing” the operations of the company where he had the inexperienced and uninformed employees. He clearly saw that he needed to spend the majority of his time at the left of the flowchart in sales and project engineering and develop his operations people to be able to deliver projects without his micro-oversight and crisis intervention when a customer called about a problem.
I produced the business flowchart on glossy paper and the owner had it framed and mounted in an area where he could explain it to his employees. He was particularly careful to let his senior people know where he would be focusing his time on the business and now with clear definition of the business process where he wanted them to take responsibility and perform.
The benefits of this exercise were not long in coming as employees began to understand what their area of responsibility was, what the primary/secondary roles were, and what they knew could be expected of them and more importantly what they could expect of others. The crisis level dropped significantly and over a period of a year the business productivity rose dramatically.
Another byproduct of the process was a revision of the hiring practices to recruit people with appropriate experience that could add value to the business and company culture. Companies expect to train new employees but companies should also expect new employees to contribute knowledge or expertise and quickly be a producer and not be a burden on the resources of the company.
Investigate what your employees are using to guide their activities, make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what should be expected of them and what they can expect of others and hire people that can contribute and grow and not just float along.
Documented operating procedures were few to non-existent and those that were in place were dated and had not been reviewed for current compliance. As I pursued this line of questioning the owner began to realize that his expectation of hiring “good” people that would understand intuitively what to do to run the business was unrealistic. While he had “intuitively” learned the business when he started, he now realized that the people he had hired did not have the attributes and desire to rise to this level of performance.
Given the absence of written procedures I suggested that a quick way to get everyone on the same page was to graphically illustrate in a flowchart format how the various operations of the company were connected from a responsibility and transaction point of view. The owner agreed and we conducted a number of two hour sessions where we flowcharted the business from the origin of an order to the acceptance of the final deliverable, customer acceptance and payment. The process resulted in a number of occasions where the owner did not know how the company performed a function and who was primarily responsible for it. When complete the flowchart was almost five feet long.
The flowchart process was very productive for the owner for it clearly revealed where he was of most value but also where he spent most of his time. His high value contribution was sales and project engineering but the majority of his high stress moments were when he was involved in “expediting” or “crisis managing” the operations of the company where he had the inexperienced and uninformed employees. He clearly saw that he needed to spend the majority of his time at the left of the flowchart in sales and project engineering and develop his operations people to be able to deliver projects without his micro-oversight and crisis intervention when a customer called about a problem.
I produced the business flowchart on glossy paper and the owner had it framed and mounted in an area where he could explain it to his employees. He was particularly careful to let his senior people know where he would be focusing his time on the business and now with clear definition of the business process where he wanted them to take responsibility and perform.
The benefits of this exercise were not long in coming as employees began to understand what their area of responsibility was, what the primary/secondary roles were, and what they knew could be expected of them and more importantly what they could expect of others. The crisis level dropped significantly and over a period of a year the business productivity rose dramatically.
Another byproduct of the process was a revision of the hiring practices to recruit people with appropriate experience that could add value to the business and company culture. Companies expect to train new employees but companies should also expect new employees to contribute knowledge or expertise and quickly be a producer and not be a burden on the resources of the company.
Investigate what your employees are using to guide their activities, make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what should be expected of them and what they can expect of others and hire people that can contribute and grow and not just float along.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Are you fulfilling your legislative responsibility?
As business people we are constantly pressed to decide what our priorities are on a daily basis. Orders, planning, product or service levels, bank and customer relationships and employee issues dominate our calendars to the extreme and then we are called to be involved in our industry legislative agenda. Don’t we hire people to do that for us or pay annual fees to organizations to represent us?
It is so easy to make the excuse that we are too busy for “non-company” business but as we do that we are removed from connecting with our elected process and we abdicate authority to an amazingly important process that can have long range impact on our businesses, employees and families. Elected legislative representatives and their staff are not elected due to their knowledge of your industry and the issues that are at work that can make it viable of non-competitive. They are constantly barraged by people who do not have the busy calendar that you do lobbying for entitlements and legislation that either directly or as the result of unintended consequences can affect your business significantly and more often than not adversely.
My industry would annually bus a group of owners and senior company executives to the state capital to speak with legislators about industry issues. We traveled on one bus and when we arrived I counted at least 11 other buses. I asked the government guide taking care of our party what other businesses were also here and she quickly said that they represented the other side lobbying for assistance and more government regulation while we were focusing on “reasonable” regulation and no handouts.
The elected officials that we met with were honest with us but while they appreciated our presence and the opportunity to speak with us directly. They admitted to us that visiting only one day a year was woefully inadequate to represent our industry and the issues that were important to us. We needed to be in the state capital and available to testify or have some of our chief technologists do the same, meet with them in the district that elected them, invite them to our businesses no matter how small so that they can become familiar with who we are and what we represent.
While industry staffers can prepare the agenda and materials it was obvious that unless we took the time to invest on a regular basis our concerns would not be validated by our presence and personal investment. Can we expect our legislators to make the right decision when there is so much counter testimony on important issues when we say we are “too busy” to be there, then was that issue that important? We need to seek to represent our companies in our state capital (and if possible National Capital as well) as we would if we they were a customer and value that relationship as we do other strategic assets – people, intellectual property, market position - in the company.
We need to fulfill our legislative responsibility!
It is so easy to make the excuse that we are too busy for “non-company” business but as we do that we are removed from connecting with our elected process and we abdicate authority to an amazingly important process that can have long range impact on our businesses, employees and families. Elected legislative representatives and their staff are not elected due to their knowledge of your industry and the issues that are at work that can make it viable of non-competitive. They are constantly barraged by people who do not have the busy calendar that you do lobbying for entitlements and legislation that either directly or as the result of unintended consequences can affect your business significantly and more often than not adversely.
My industry would annually bus a group of owners and senior company executives to the state capital to speak with legislators about industry issues. We traveled on one bus and when we arrived I counted at least 11 other buses. I asked the government guide taking care of our party what other businesses were also here and she quickly said that they represented the other side lobbying for assistance and more government regulation while we were focusing on “reasonable” regulation and no handouts.
The elected officials that we met with were honest with us but while they appreciated our presence and the opportunity to speak with us directly. They admitted to us that visiting only one day a year was woefully inadequate to represent our industry and the issues that were important to us. We needed to be in the state capital and available to testify or have some of our chief technologists do the same, meet with them in the district that elected them, invite them to our businesses no matter how small so that they can become familiar with who we are and what we represent.
While industry staffers can prepare the agenda and materials it was obvious that unless we took the time to invest on a regular basis our concerns would not be validated by our presence and personal investment. Can we expect our legislators to make the right decision when there is so much counter testimony on important issues when we say we are “too busy” to be there, then was that issue that important? We need to seek to represent our companies in our state capital (and if possible National Capital as well) as we would if we they were a customer and value that relationship as we do other strategic assets – people, intellectual property, market position - in the company.
We need to fulfill our legislative responsibility!
Monday, June 9, 2008
You need vision?
Many company owners (more often owner/founders) question the vision setting process of strategic planning. Why? People who found companies are often gifted with a sense of what the market needs and while they are very visionary they are often filled with too much vision and end up keeping too many visions in place on the belief that they will be able to take advantage of a wide range of opportunities as the occur.
Consequently many companies do not have a formal vision that directs the resources of the company as it is viewed as too restrictive or limiting for the business that the company tries to take. They focus on mission, providing the market with capabilities and operate in a reactive state to grab what many would call low hanging fruit. Typically cost of sales is high for this type of business due the inability to correctly forecast demand and gross margins are not maximized.
This multi-vision mission approach can be very confusing to a customer company when they are looking for a strategic partner. Companies looking to sell to this type of customer and be the partner of choice take the time to form a vision of where they are going and carefully craft an intentional deployment of resources to achieve their vision. Companies that can demonstrate that they are committed and invested in one vision, not standing on the sidelines trying to grab anything that comes on the market in the short term, are more likely to convince a customer that they positioned to be a long term strategic partner. A vision that creates a compelling story of where the company will be in the future along with past and current activities that validate the ability and progression toward achieving the vision is fundamental in selling a strategic relationship.
One company that I worked with several years ago tried to get by just doing the mission level of strategic planning. After several attempts to sell to a customer using a “capabilities” sell for their multiple business lines the owner recognized that he needed a stronger future-directed message of “vision” to convince his targeted customers of where his company was going to take them. The next planning cycle focused on the vision message and they were able to craft a single sentence tag line that clearly communicated what business they were in. This process resulted in changes in the daily investment of the owner to work on his business and not just in his business. Now four years later the business direction of the company is tied to the vision and the customers that have been established that have selected the owners company strategically as a trusted value-add partner.
What is your commitment to your vision? Is it a token message not representing the commitment of your strategic resources? Commit to a compelling vision if you want to be a strategic partner to your customers. You need vision!
Consequently many companies do not have a formal vision that directs the resources of the company as it is viewed as too restrictive or limiting for the business that the company tries to take. They focus on mission, providing the market with capabilities and operate in a reactive state to grab what many would call low hanging fruit. Typically cost of sales is high for this type of business due the inability to correctly forecast demand and gross margins are not maximized.
This multi-vision mission approach can be very confusing to a customer company when they are looking for a strategic partner. Companies looking to sell to this type of customer and be the partner of choice take the time to form a vision of where they are going and carefully craft an intentional deployment of resources to achieve their vision. Companies that can demonstrate that they are committed and invested in one vision, not standing on the sidelines trying to grab anything that comes on the market in the short term, are more likely to convince a customer that they positioned to be a long term strategic partner. A vision that creates a compelling story of where the company will be in the future along with past and current activities that validate the ability and progression toward achieving the vision is fundamental in selling a strategic relationship.
One company that I worked with several years ago tried to get by just doing the mission level of strategic planning. After several attempts to sell to a customer using a “capabilities” sell for their multiple business lines the owner recognized that he needed a stronger future-directed message of “vision” to convince his targeted customers of where his company was going to take them. The next planning cycle focused on the vision message and they were able to craft a single sentence tag line that clearly communicated what business they were in. This process resulted in changes in the daily investment of the owner to work on his business and not just in his business. Now four years later the business direction of the company is tied to the vision and the customers that have been established that have selected the owners company strategically as a trusted value-add partner.
What is your commitment to your vision? Is it a token message not representing the commitment of your strategic resources? Commit to a compelling vision if you want to be a strategic partner to your customers. You need vision!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Is the Wave of Technology Innovation Over?
In a recent conversation with an investment analyst regarding a company that he was considering investing in he asked if it was necessary for a mature company to rely upon product innovation for growth. His belief was that if all the “big” development and technology frontiers had been crossed should a mature company focus more on milking a market rather than looking for ways to be competitive through product innovation.
I was somewhat taken back since in every market we continue to see companies use product innovation to enter markets or fend off companies entering their market. Apple is a recent example of a company reinventing itself through product innovation. Have all of the technology boundaries been met. No! As consumers we continue to press industry with high expectations for lower cost, higher performing products with high reliability under demanding conditions.
Successful products today need to be smaller, have more features, have higher degrees of integration and utility. The cell phone and IPod are a prime example of this compression of function, style and integration into an ever smaller footprint. Display and material science technology have been put to the test to deliver voice, music, video and other data to where we are almost anywhere in the world for an affordable price at the touch of a few keys on a keypad.
Design and manufacturing processes continue to evolve to meet faster product development cycles and the need to be able to manufacture in global locations with high volume, high mix and fluctuating or unpredictable supply of necessary components. Manufacturing lines need to be highly responsive to high mix and high volume demands under peak conditions. These demanding features require evolution in manufacturing technology, software design systems, and system integration to allow global integration and management of critical components in a highly secure environment where intellectual property is protected.
Our ability to manage teams of engineers not only in traditional corporate design centers but also using short term engineering resources located in other countries around the world. Effective product development requires project and management systems to have an around the clock communication and documentation environment so that product configurations are managed correctly, accurately and in a timely fashion to meet demanding schedules supporting ever faster product life cycles.
Looking back over the last 40 years we see the arrival of the computer, a rapid expansion of electronic products, the embedding of software to make products smart, the introduction of biotechnology just to name a few of the technology thresholds that we have crossed. Looking ahead we see research that is exploring the integration of engineered products (systems) with body tissue and the nervous system.
- Research is currently underway at the College of Engineering at Washington State University into new materials to extend the life of the artificial joints by having the material bond with bone tissue.
- New research showing people connected via electrodes in the brain conducting brain waves to a robotic hand causing the hand to close and sort through messages in an e-mail program. We seem to have many technology thresholds ahead of us and many opportunities for technology innovation to take us across that will increase the quality of life in many ways.
- Apple is looking at integrating solar cell technology into the iPod and IPhone revolutionizing the traditional method of powering this class of devices.
Technology innovation is a strategic cornerstone for successful companies. Companies that allow there ability to bring technology innovation to their customers atrophy as they attempt to improve their bottom line and move into a position to “milk” their markets are putting their ability to respond to competitive changes in their primary markets at risk.
If you are investing in a company examine carefully where they stand in managing and delivering technology innovation to customers. Market leadership and security is just a technology innovation away. Don’t be a buggy whip in your market!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Is Your Company Strategy "Customer" Engaged?
Much is said about strategic planning and the role it plays in directing company activity. However, do all strategic planning processes result in an engagement of company resources toward the right activities to meet customer needs? I have been party to a number of strategic planning engagements where the initial intent was to develop a plan based upon internal knowledge (“they knew”) of what the customer wanted. Steering the process to be customer focused changed the tone and focus of the process and what priorities were eventually used in making decisions to deploy company resources.
The entry point to an effective planning process is market or customer data, needs, requirements, etc. that should reflect a variety of factors that influence short and long term buying behavior. In collecting and considering this valuable input are biases recognized that may be present in the process? Have filters been created which discard valuable perspectives and feedback that may challenge current capability, competency and internal preferences.
Validating the beginning point to the strategic planning process is essential to having an engaged strategy. This adds to the front end work of the process but unless the a good “unbiased” analysis is made of what is driving the customer in their markets and how that will ripple down to purchasing your services you a re likely to have a strategic planning misfire.
Absorbing good customer input may be difficult as it may question the existence of lines of business, business practices and product technology that all have their internal, highly influential, champions. Effective company leadership will call into question whether the strategic planning process is aligning resources and actions toward changing customer needs or whether internal forces are active resisting and defending current direction and practices.
Changes in the marketplace will often impose demanding changes to current business direction. An organization staffed with people prepared to make the necessary adjustments to what they are doing to meet customer requirements will be highly competitive. Effectively responding to customer demands will create business opportunities.
Make sure that your strategic planning process is engaged with the customer!
The entry point to an effective planning process is market or customer data, needs, requirements, etc. that should reflect a variety of factors that influence short and long term buying behavior. In collecting and considering this valuable input are biases recognized that may be present in the process? Have filters been created which discard valuable perspectives and feedback that may challenge current capability, competency and internal preferences.
Validating the beginning point to the strategic planning process is essential to having an engaged strategy. This adds to the front end work of the process but unless the a good “unbiased” analysis is made of what is driving the customer in their markets and how that will ripple down to purchasing your services you a re likely to have a strategic planning misfire.
Absorbing good customer input may be difficult as it may question the existence of lines of business, business practices and product technology that all have their internal, highly influential, champions. Effective company leadership will call into question whether the strategic planning process is aligning resources and actions toward changing customer needs or whether internal forces are active resisting and defending current direction and practices.
Changes in the marketplace will often impose demanding changes to current business direction. An organization staffed with people prepared to make the necessary adjustments to what they are doing to meet customer requirements will be highly competitive. Effectively responding to customer demands will create business opportunities.
Make sure that your strategic planning process is engaged with the customer!
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