Never ever start any project without financial closure. Short term approach that lets manage till we need additional moneyinvariablywill puncture (Cost and time overrun, cost of finance will go up in a emergency situation and not so well thought out decisions in desperation) the project.
Don't forget the lesson of 2008 crisis, take money when available and not when u need it. You may not use the available money in full and pay interest or commitment charges , but that is a better scenario than no money and project suffers.
Seen this and seeing again and again.
(Not appliable to start ups, they need to manage from whatever sources till they dilute to professional investors)
Customer Experience = Marketing Job ?? Biggest Myth of enterprises of TODAY.
Its d Job of the highest decision maker or decision making forum in d company.
Why?? Customer Experience can be altered and made delightful by;
1) Making Offerings stand out among the competing crowd
2) Making HR more customer friendly and happier
3) Making business processes customer friendly and quicker
4) Making after sales , powerful tool to get new sales
5) Going out of the way to help customers. Its abt empowering yr people
6) Its about DESIGN. The way products /services will be manufactured and delivered to the customers.
7) Its abt sales collateral, ad campaign, social responsibility, governance and everything.
Its a SOUL (Script) of any enterprise. How CEOs and Core Team can remain out of the DESIGNING process of Customer Xperience and leave it to CMO or CSO??
CEOs other priorities without the center focus of customer experience design are misplaced priorities. Its red ocean mind set and running away from the real issue.
3) Rethinking the Future - Many Renowned Management Thinkers
4) Linchpin & Small is new Big - Seth Godin
5) Delivering Happiness - Tony Hsieh
6) Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
7) Mavericks @ Work - Taylor & Labaree
8) The Referral Engine - John Jantsch
9) Seven Days Weekend - Ricardo Semler
10) The Goal - Dr Eliyahu Goldratt
11) Blue Ocean Strategy - Kim & Renne
12) The Starbucks Experience - Michelli
13) Working with Emotional Intelligence - Danial Goleman
14) Who moved my cheese - Spencer Johnson
15) The Professional & Go Kiss d world - Subroto Bagchi
& Of course
16) Indian Income Tax Act and Companies Act - For not pursing & practicing the same
(Everything need not end with round figure, influence is not in the given order & not included religious books - Readers are welcome to share their influencers - boook or people)
1) No clear (roles ,responsibility & business) definition
2) Not knowing clear strength of the partner
3) No idea of how team can produce results which individuals can not
4) Different (Goals & Values)
5) No (large heart & attitude of leg go)
6) Attitude, ego and I (don't need ne one / I alone can do it) mind set
7) Mixing personal problems with business issues
8) Joining hands (without due diligence or for limited selfish motives)
9) Unable to accept one as a leader
Ambanis, Bajajs, Goenkas, Birlas, Mafatlals, Microsoft Partners, Salim Javed, Thackreys are examples of many many many such broken partnerships in business, politics and families.
Mostly it destroys value, Its sad , its worthless & repenting in the long-run. Synergy is in joining hands & reverse of synergy is in separation.
I invite readers with many more such insights for the benefits of other readers.
1) Appoint Chief Customer Xperience Officer reporting to CEO. A MUST. (is there ne one in charge of end to end customer experience with yr brand ??? )
2) Critically evaluate all customer touch points. Whether they create memorability in some way for the end users?
3) Have online social media team (it cud be one man) in place to gather data on customer reviews of yr offerings. Spread awareness about yr brand and address complains & concerns of the customers. (At the speed of thought and not once a week)
4) Act on negative feedback to improve offerings and promote positive feedback. (Must be a part of all review meet)
5) Encourage happy customers to share their views online /offline.
6) During the year make sure to make feel your all customer very special at least once a year. Genuinely. Have events, special price, offer free tickets, alter their opinion about how far a company can go to please their customers.
7) If u r a public company, make it a point to include customer experience initiatives and customer speak out . part of yr annual report. Have measurability and measure it every year.
8) Proactive , proactive and proactive to know what customer feels and think about yr brand and offerings. Do whatever it takes to find out. Spend money as customers are going to be spoke person in the market when yr company does very good or very bad.
9) Everyone is the solution business. Therefore don't just limit your efforts plainly in what u offer. Try & solve customer problem which she wants to solve thru yr offerings.
10) Try and apply everything above from TODAY. Retained customer will attract new customers.
Whether yr customers are promoting yr brand?? If not, check out, you may be offering mediocre customer experience. No one wud like to tell others that they are consuming mediocre offerings but if they are enchanted they will go out and tell the whole world. Amitabh Bachchans, Sachin Tendlukars & Madhuri Dixits of the BRANDs have their FAN followings. Make yr brand one amongst them this YEAR.
Focus on Balance Sheet first to restructure d business
Entrepreneurs mainly focus on sales first and then profit. However it is the Balance Sheet and not P & L statement is the most important business document. P & L Statement only talks about how company has fared operationally during that particular year.
Its the Balance Sheet that reflects that whether company is receiving payment of sold goods, leverage is in order or its risky, whether company is paying their suppliers in time or no, how much have company earned all these years and what company has retained in the business, funds diverted or no, bank limits are overdrawn or otherwise, liquidity position etc etc.
Therefore review of balance sheet on an on going basis is a MUST to measure the company performance. Even if you want to restructure yr business start with Balance Sheet.
When was the last time Balance Sheet and implications were discussed with auditor or management consultant???
Many a times Cash Flow is so comforting that entrepreneurs forget about Profit. Its your money that counts at the end of the day. Cash Flow is important and critical but not enough. Its not your money. It is money in the system. May be belongs to banks, creditors or private lenders.
Unless U have profit in the books and cash flow supporting the same, u r in for trouble (Big or small depends). At individual level we have seen the crisis in the US in 2008. Same can happen or is happening with many entrepreneurs who consider present cash flow is their own ownership.
It is also not necessary that all entrepreneurs are finance savvy (even management savvy) to understand implications of these tricky situations. Earlier it is the better it is.
