Showing posts with label richard branson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richard branson. Show all posts

Saturday, August 2, 2014

I am Amazed by ...

Nomenclature of this blog has changed from today. In line with the new name AMAZEMENT I list down my top 10 Amaze-rs. 

People whom I follow to get Amazed: (Order is Alphabetical,  intensity and area are different)


For his book Enchantment & APE


For what she is and her mission to become US president.    

3) MK Gandhi

For his conviction and determination. 


For his passion , vision & action for India's development.


For his passion for his customers. 


For his book Linchpin & daily blog posts  making sense of world around us (May be his initials matches with mine !!!)


For his clarity of thought about soul and its journey , his religious writings and powerful spiritual treatise in verse Atma Siddhi & Apporva Avasar showing clear road map to Moksha.


For his passion for customers , scintillating products , public speaking style. 


For his powerful messages for human beings.

10) Tom Peters 

For his books - Circle of Innovation , Re imagine and  The little big things & various presentations.

11) Tony Hsieh 

For his culture of doing business at Zappos and his present mission of delivering happiness across the globe.

Who are the people amazing you? 

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Leadership Vs Front-facing Candidates & Managers


Leaders can inspire but it is the local leader at  the voters touch points who can drives votes. Only leaders without right followers cant win elections. Mass leader with right candidate is the killer mix. 


Right Candidate
(non corrupt , performing perception & great people skill)

Likely Win


Mostly Wins

Wrong Candidate
(corrupt , non performing perception )

Mostly Loses


Likely Lose


Election Matrix

(Qualities of candidates and leaders are in relation to its opponent)

Uninspiring  leader
at the top

( Incapable, uninspiring, corrupt & ineffective & non inclusive image)


Inspiring Leader at the top

( Inspiring { thought leader , communicator} , capable, non corrupt, effective, executor, inclusive image  )


The above matrix is not only applicable to political parties  but also to all businesses. Howsoever strong leadership you may have at the top if your ground level customer focus managers are failing company will be in trouble.

People will become customers if they see Richard Bronson at the top but soon they will disappear if the touch point manager/staff is uninspiring.  Only dependency on right and inspiring leadership is not going to yield the desired result. 

Friday, November 25, 2011

Can Do > Have Done

Problem with EXPERIENCE. 


  • What experience do you have ?? 
  • Have You implemented or done this elsewhere? OR 
  • We have 20 years of experience. 


Most of us face/use these questions/statement when we start or wanting to do something new and for the first time or want to capitalise on our experience. 

Fact is Experience Kills INNOVATION  (Fresh Approach & Different Angle) . 

Experience means I know HOW it can be done and have done it too. 

Experience defies change,  Experience blocks mind, Experience brings EGO, Experience means Routine, Experience means my way is the only way and the right way. 

However companies are always looking for experienced guys. In rarely any organisation experience is at discount and innovation , new ways, vibrancy, tolerance to failure  is at premium.   

Entrepreneurs are basically risk takers but companies are run by employees who are risk averse by nature { there are always exception everywhere } . Like everything else tone and the top and culture top-man breeds will percolate down.  

Yes experience is critical in life threatening situation or when the stakes are huge, everywhere else, innovation and fresh approach MUST be encouraged. 

" Success Immortalises the way things are done " statement 

equally applies to experience. 


Go for thinking people , experience can be costly  { Well 

it can be opportunity cost!!! }. Tatas have brigade of 

experienced people.  Who is selected??? Cyrus Mistry 

age 43. Therefore Can do is greater than have done

Richard Branson's View on d subject. 

Richard Branson on When Inexperience Is an Advantage

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220789 (published on 29/11 , posted later on this blog) 


Bucks start & stop at the TOP.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs - Life & Death - Quotes & Salute

Today this Blog is completing its FIRST year. Last Dussera (English Calender 18th Oct 2010) it all begin and today happy to share that over the year there were total 113 posts, above 9200 visitors and visitors from some more than 30 countries. Thank you all of you who have visited, read my blog and even shared this blog with their friends base. Feeling of WOW !!!!


Well today I wanted to write something fascinating but wondering what to write on first anniversary !!!! However with Steve Jobs' death , I cannot think of anything else but to write about his thoughts and what people thought of him.

Tone and theme of this blog all along has remained Customer Experience and who better than Steve Jobs can define and create better customer experience. Two of his quotes are highly indicative:

“you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards for the technology."


"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

No one man can write Obituary of a man like him so I have decided to present all the tweets about him by some of the well known people:

Death: 

  
President Obama described Steve: …Steve was among the greatest of American innovators – brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it…

Mark Zuckerberg's tribute to Steve Jobs: Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. & Today, we lost one of the most influential thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs of all time.

Ratan Tata : Jobs has changed the way of life of many.

Richard Branson: RIP Steve Jobs. A truly great businessman. Inspiration to so many. A real Family man. He will be sorely missed.

Sergey Brin - (Google):  (Steve's) passion for excellence is felt by anyone who has ever touched an Apple product.

Anupam Kher: Steve Job made a person like me too, feel a complete tech savvy. That was the ease of his brilliant mind. Will miss his persona. RIP.

Steven Spielberg:  Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world at our fingertips. 

Sushma Swaraj : Rest in peace Mr Steve Jobs - entrepreneur and inventor par excellence!

Pritish Nandy: I think I will stick to Steve Jobs. Dassera will come again.

Sucheta Dalal: Yes, as a late convert to Apple, I think the greatest tribute to his genius would be to walk out of Windows & to a Mac World!! & we all remember Steve Jobs for his Apple inventions but he also built Pixar, one of the most original animation studios

Tom Peters: The way to honor Steve Jobs is to take your current project [today] and turn it upside down and shake it up with all your might!

Anand Mahindra: Steve, the only way I can commemorate you is by committing to cut the crap from my life&to dance to the tune of an inner voice..


Shashi Tharoor: 3 Apples changed d World, 1st one seduced Eve, 2nd fell on Newton nd d 3rd was offered to d World half bitten by Steve Jobs.

Javed Akhtar: Great are those who. Could think of what has never been done before and do what has never been thought before. Jobs was one such person.
 
Bill Gates: I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.

Life: 

Finally his own powerful views on life ,business & death: 

Death is the destination we all share. ... It clears out the old to make way for the new.


Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.

A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.

The products suck! There’s no sex in them anymore!

The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predictament.

We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

Finally actionable for all of us as rightly said by Tom Peters:  
The way to honor Steve Jobs is to take your current project [today] and turn it upside down and shake it up with all your might!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Brand Building in Action

Customer Xperience = (Internal Change and Innovation) = Negligible Interest among Entrepreneurs  (Unless ofcourse Richard Branson or Tony Hsieh is the CEO) 


Brand Building = { External Cosmetic Show (rarely connects with internal state of affairs) } = Highest Interest among all Entrepreneurs

In fact  Customer Xperience = Brand Building in Action

Therefore to remain relevant and facinated among class of entrepreneurs I declare I am no longer Customer Xperience Champion but reposition as Champaigner - Brand in Action

Life and Brand is all abt Positioning , after-all (!!!)

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

r CEOs PASSIONATE abt their CUSTOMERS?

During last 7 days columnists in leading business papers wrote abt Customer Experience and WOW !!!  THRICE.

1) In Mint Shuchi Bansal - Marketing & Media Editor referring to wow!!! customer services by Quintessentially Services.

2) In ET , Amitabh Chaudhry - Chief HDFC Insurance talking abt Customer Centricity of the Organisation.

3) Today, Ruchard Branson in the Mint talks abt Delightful Customer Experience as core competency @ Virgin.

However unfortunately most Top Managements in India still think Customer Experience is marketing and customer services department job. Whenever I speak to the owners of the businesses abt the subject, 9 3/4th  out of 10 refers me to their customer service and marketing dept. They even dont bother to know more abt it. 

They will do every other things to push their sales , spent time with brand designers , media and ad agencies, large growth options thru M & A, large fund raising , but when it comes to customer and customer experience they turn it to other departments. I fail to understand for /with whom they spent time if customers are not their priority or domain!!! 

No one , in fact no one thinks abt customer WOW !!! Moments,  forget designing that WOW !!! moments. 

In the world of online fulfillment , all physical businesses will keep fighting and bleeding in red ocean unless they make compelling reasons for the customer to experience their offerings. 

This will not happen without the top management's passion for the customers.