Selling Solutions

I was reading a story about new approach to sales. Its adding ‘Empathy’ to the sales approach, this is where sales force will think from customer’s shooes. This would help sales guys to understand what language a customer is talking. Its no more just aggressive selling. It involves understanding the entire problem before giving the solution.

This concept seems to be quite new and I was talking to one sales VP, where he mentioned that he believes in ‘solution selling’, I think this is what he mean.

As this sales career really facinates me, I read about this very interestingly. So, sales is not mere making pushy calls!!

Link to the article.

Innovation-Brain storming sessions at Samsung.

Business week has an article in Innovation section, where the brain storming session at Samsung has been explined in detail.

The summary is, the innovation engineers are locked in an office, until they complete the project, they will be out of distraction from the external world. There they will propose new ideas, discuss design and analyse the competation’s design. This will only result in better design and innovative products.

Every step of the way, team members drew what Samsung calls "value curves." These are graphs that rank various attributes such as picture quality and design on a scale of 1 to 5, from outright bad to excellent. The graphs compared the proposed model with those of rival products and Samsung's existing TVs. The VIP Center specialists also guided the team in discussions exploring ideas and concepts from entirely different industries, picking up hints about the importance of the emotional appeal in the offerings of furniture makers and Hollywood.

Great idea!!

Fit to be a leader.

I am a firm believer of the fact that leaders should have a high energy level, which generally reflect how they interact with customers and employees. Its vital to have a very positive body language.

I was reading an article about how keeping fit is important for leaders. This business week article gives some examples and concludes how it would help you to become a better communicator.

Aligning to client’s culture

I was reading a pannel discussion abut BPO and outsourcing. The participants have stressed on the importance of aligning to the vendor and their culture for success of an ooutsourced project.

I have been working in this kind of industry since almost 6 years now. Obviously I prefer and encourage offshoring with my clients, but not many clients have understod the importance of aligning with vendor’s culture. During one of the project, I remember our CEO told us, align to their culture, then you can expect better results.

This is most forgotten part of such projects. The responsibility on both parties, vendor needs to understand the culture of client and client needs to understand vendors. I found some general outtings and discussion about sports or general issues tend to break this barrier. One should not feel, the technical part is one and all. Off course it is important, but alignment helps to cover a long road.

After all, we all would like to be treated well and respected at our work, is that right?

A Failed Merger

As per reports in Indian media, the merger between Air Sahara and Jet Airways is called off. The exact reasons for this may not be known, but it triggered me to think about this from a business perspective.

When a merger is planned, so many changes happen in bought out company. They need to align their operations and executives in to parent company and in an service industry like air lines, where customers measure your business, the impact would be too much.

It reminds me one tihng, I read this piece some where, mostly in eWeek. One needs to understand two cultures before even talking about mergers. Integration is a real big challenge and aligning both the companies and continue providing value to customers should be seen as a backdrop of any mergers. I really don't think just merging the companies keeping revenu in mind will simply not work.

Miami Heats are NBA Champions

Miami Heats beat Dallas Mavs to win the championship. It was a true exibition of team spirit, where everybody supported their start player. And it also an indication how the tempo changes during a series. In game 3, with 6-1/2 minutes left in the game, Wade took over and executed, since then it was just Miami all over.

What I observed was the mental toughness one should have to play or coach at this level. The series was well fought, and the coaching decisions proved very vital.

It should not mean that Mavs didn’t do a good job, their run in to Finals was fantastic. We should not forget that they beat defending champs. I liked the their strategical coach, Avery Johnson.
This is why I now prefer best of finals. When I was young and used to follow cricket in India, I used to wonder why there is only one final? I still believe a series would bring out a true champion.

iPop Nano

I got an iPop nano, its sleek design really fascinated me. Its worth of its cost for the quality of music we get. It’s easy to load and use.

I guess this is truly an example of how innovative the design could be.

Hiking The Rocky Mountain

We went for around four miles hiking in Rocky Mountain national park.(Long’s Peak and Wild Basin). Oxygen filled environment and fresh air really made me more energetic.

We witnessed waterfalls, lakes, mountains, trees, canyon and steep roads.

It was good outing all together.

‘Global Integration – Challenges and Implication’

The globalization is the buzz word now a day, with every other company trying to expand the business beyond one country and this, obviously, requires integrating and interacting with other global players.

To me it looks like a great opportunity, companywide. With expanded operations, the revenue will be increased and on other hand a much wider horizon for employees. I am a firm believer of the fact that working in different countries gives a much wider experience for any body. It could be teachings from social life or be it learning from business interaction. Mental growth is the biggest plus point of working abroad. It’s petty, how some people don’t learn out of such chances.

And with this global market, India is poised to gain. India has a natural advantage of its younger working class, who don’t mind relocating to other countries. With age, this relocating activity looks more painful.

There is more necessity now a day to integrate with a global player. Now days, innovation is the key point and integrating with players who are already in this kind of business in other part of the world. Thus, you need not to build the operations from scratch.

This integration reminds me a well known success story with partnership model. Dassult Systems and IBM. Though IBM doesn’t have its own PLM operations, it works as distribution channel for DS products, there by adding tremendous value to DS as well as PLM industry. This is much successful. And Geometric software, the company where I work, has adopted same ‘partnership business model’ and I think even that is successful. This was clearly an innovative thinking back then by our CEO.

A recent panel discussion about globalization need and challenges in IBM trigged this thought.

Innovation in Services: A Case study from Bank of America.

I was reading a case study in Business Week about how innovation can help companies. Innovation in services is rare. In financial services, the last big breakthrough was online banking, nearly a decade ago. Bank of America came up with a innovative product, which is called ‘Keep the Change’.

The product works like this: Every time you buy something with a BofA Visa debit card, the bank rounds up your purchase to the nearest dollar and transfers the difference from your checking into your savings account. It also matches 100% of transfers for the first three months, and 5% of the annual total, up to $250 a year.

The result? Since the launch, 2.5 million customers have signed up for Keep the Change. Over 700,000 have opened new checking accounts and 1 million have signed on for new savings accounts.

There was a lot of market research and brainstorming was done before they finalized this product. What is really fascinating is the how innovative the companies are becoming.

Cost cutting impact.

Business week has a very good article on what might impact of unnecessary cost cutting initiatives. It sites three examples, Home Depot, Dell and NorthWest Airlines.

The biggest hit of such cost cutting initiative would be on customers, the article says. It gives the example of Home Depot where the cost cutting initiative led in to unsatisfied customer, there by reducing the income. It also says, Dell tried to cut its cost which only impacted the sales, off course the article admires the way in which these two companies tried to bounce back after learning from this episode.
I have some experience to share; I closely observed a cost cutting initiative in one of the Indian company. It only decreased the employee motivation. There were so many necessary things discontinued, which made employee think, actually this company is not doing well, so they started thinking other way.

Off course, CEO of this small firm was right in giving the directions as ‘cut cost as and when ever possible, how ever don’t compromise with basic quality of life in company’. This was transferred to lower brass in much twisted way and every division head jumped in to this initiative to cut more cost. Thus, resulting in decreased motivation among employee.

My gym story

It’s been almost 2 years since I started going to gym regularly, now it has become a kind of addiction. If I don’t go, it’s like missing some thing in life for that day.

The bottom line what I am going to tell is the energy level it has increased. Personally, now a days I never get bored, never felt tensed. It has certainly brought a new emotional level. If I feel low in energy, gym is the best place to regain it, over treadmill and with a baseball/basketball/football game.

I am glad, I started doing this regularly.

Draft Pick System of American Sports

I was thinking about the draft pick system of American sports. In this system, a pool of players aspiring to enter in to major league will be picked by different teams. Typically a bad performer in the last session gets the first chance to pick. I really impressed by how the talent is evenly distributed. Otherwise, only rich clubs will have all the talent.

How a club handles a new player is depends on the league. If it is NFL/NBA, the player is directly inducted in to the team and in MLB they need to go through the support system, minor league A, AA, AAA. This again is a wonderful system where they groom their future players. I guess, an American sport is more of a well managed business.

Off course, there are first draft picks who failed after coming in to Major league and its hard to believe Magic Johnson was not picked in the first place draft when he was entering in to NBA!!
Recent NFL draft pick and current MLB draft pick made me to think about this whole system and grooming the future players.

Staples Way! ‘That Was Easy’

Business 2.0 has an article on Staples new marketing initiative. With tough competition from Office Depot and Office Max, the office supply chain was in declined path in terms of revenue and market share.

There was a new marketing initiative, focusing on building the brand and making the moves which would promise a good shopping experience for the customers. Like moving the office chairs to floors, where customers can sit and experience them.

The biggest part of this initiative was a face list; they came out with one liner ‘That was Easy’. There were commercials in super bowl, and in prime slots. The idea was to give a new dimension to this image building activity. And they also create an Easy button.

The website has a downloadable ‘Easy’ button, which customers can download and keep it on the desktop. This would directly take them to Staples website. More ever, they started selling ‘Easy’ buttons; the millionth button will be shipped this summer. This was viewed as a modern day stress ball, on hitting on this button, it says “That was Easy”.

What really fascinates me is the marketing strategy they adopted in building the new image. That’s really commendable.

I was wrong !!

Miami Heats beat Detroit Pistons in Eastern Conference finals to enter in to NBA finals.

Earlier, I wrote in my blog, Detroit might win NBA. I predicted looking at their performance then, but I think 'some thing' happened during series with Cleveland-Cavs, after that they seemed to me that they lost the confidence.

How ever, I don't want to take out any credit from Heats, they rose to the occasion, played as team in correct time, and managed the ball very well in the court.

Does Pistons missing their old coach? Mr Brown? He is a defensive minded coach and put a lot of emphasis on the defense.

Doing Business In India

Economist has an article about why Indian business need to celebrate now. Author says, 'all the MNCs and international community looking at India as next big thing. No international company can do with out an Indian strategy'. This really talks volume about how important India is becoming in the international arena.

Signs of boom are everywhere, 5 million new cell phone connections are made each month, flights are full, stock market is roaring (Excluding recent free fall). Internationally, India is high as well. All the countries wants to have a pact related to business and technology and english speacking talent is a huge benifit for India right now.

Author says, Indian business can play a bigger role in delivering faster growth, but goverment needs to help. India opened up in 1991, but still further reforms are required.

Many of the bars that caged Indian tiger have been removed, leaving to roam and roar. Exiting days ahead.

The Science of Desire

Business week has very interesting article about ‘The science of Desire’, how more companies refocus squarely on the consumer, ethnography and its proponents have become star players.

This is about getting the idea from consumers as what they would like to see in this product and then decide to build the product with those features. Article has some examples of Sirius Satellite radio, P&G’s unreachable cleaner, Marriot hotel etc.

The beauty of ethnography, say its proponents, is that it provides a richer understanding of consumers than does traditional research. Yes, companies are still using focus groups, surveys, and demographic data to glean insights into the consumer's mind. But closely observing people where they live and work, say executives, allows companies to zero in on their customers' unarticulated desires.

The example of Marriot hotel is very interesting, one group of consultant gave the suggestion of making the hotel lobby suitable for business parties and meetings, thus changing the face of Marriot as businesses friendly.

This is truly amazing way of understanding the market need, rather then doing prototype and then taking chance on it, it makes a lot of sense to understand how could a product will look like. But, I am sure this needs a lot of study and analysis to come to such business decision.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_23/b3987083.htm