Who is your GURU ?

We find GURUs in all walks of life these days. GURUs are in vogue and everyone with some oratory skills tries to become GURU . 

Be it Management GURU , Finance GURU, Yoga GURU, Spiritual GURU ,  Fashion GURU , Image GURU , Fitness GURU & all kind of GURU. We are in fact surrounded by GURUs. 

Selecting the right GURUs is the major challenge when everyone is surrounded by GURUs and everyone is seeking GURUs. Demand is met by supply however supply is mostly of substandard qualities. 

Type	School Teacher	PHD University Professor	Practicing Professionals
Qualification	Learn to Teach	Learning for self so Teach	Learned, Self Practice & Teach

Whenever you are selecting GURU on any subject validate his/her qualification on the above criteria.

Will you go to swimming GURU who has no practical experience ? Apply similar test for all GURUs. One may not have matching drowning feeling with other GURUs but at the end if GURU is inexperienced practically drowning is certain. 

Seven BIG reasons to bring Customers Experience at the core of your business

Yes these are BIG reasons as ignoring these can have BIG impact on your business. 

- Your present or future competitors are working on it.

- Your customers are bored with your brand and are looking for something fresh and different. 

- Routine is boring that's why we explore more and more restaurants/food , cloths , travel destination , people & everything else.  

- That will give your business edge , sustenance power and competitive advantage. 

- Customer will spread words about your good deeds and experience you crate for them - Social media and physical network. 

- Smallest of non pleasant experience can move customer away from your business. Don' t ignore any aspects of customer experience.   

- Even if you have huge & long customer loyalty , your new competitor will have power to break that  - Flipkart did for crosswords , Samsung did for Nokia , Smart Phone did for Blackberry , Times Now did for CNN IBN/NDTV

Creating better customer experience is a daily job of every enterprises.  

Shake well before use - Your company / Institutions & Even Yourself

Unless you shake up the bottle, you will get diluted version of the medicine. Unless you shake up the institutions /companies, you get diluted performance. Therefore shaking up MUST be a part of regular activity if medicine or institutions have to perform at its finest potential. 

Our Institutions and companies for that matter perform below the potential merely due to non shaking up regularly. Mr Arvind Kejriwal & Team Anna have shaken up our democracy. People are now more forthcoming , speaking up and participating in democratic process and issues concerning them. 

Even at companies new CEO can bring life if he is enthusiastic and have capability to see things in different light. Status-Quo is the biggest challenge everywhere. Status Quo is nothing but unshaken condition. 

Look at the leaders who shook up the things. 

Public Life: 

Arvind Kejriwal , Narendra Modi , Nitish Kumar , Rajiv Gandhi , TN Seshan, CAG Vinod Rai , Manmohan Singh of 1991 , Ex BMC Commissioner Subodh Kumar........

Corporate: 

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Narayana Murthy (IT), Kishor Biyani (Retail), Dhirubhai Ambani (Capital Market and Business)...... 

There are many institutions and companies that are looking for someone who really can shake them up and enable them to realise and/or  regain its true potential. 

Shekhar Suman Show Movers and Shakers might have lived its life, but we need Movers/Shakers everywhere, or else we all r likely to go sleep. 

Are you a Shakers or waiting for one?  

Name some of the Movers & Shakers known to you? 

What is your team size?

What is your team size? 

Did any one ask this to Amitabh Bachchan or Seth Godin or Barack Obama or Krishna in Mahabharat ? 

Yes one person chose team over Krishna i.e.  Duryodhan and we all know the fate of entire Team Duryodhan. 

Question is often asked at every organisation whenever one goes for consultancy , What is your team size ?  

Team matters when an individual does not matters. But team does not matter when individual matters. In all the 4 names stated above , they only matter and they even need not have team at all. 

Every HERO of their own field work in SOLO mode.  When Sanjay Datt goes to Jail howsoever big his team may be its of no use to producers. Likewise it applies to everyone. 

Team matters but one need to know the difference - When ? 

One has to decide whether team is relevant or the person ? 

Who is the next leader competent to replace you ?

Leadership is EXTREMELY important. World is facing huge leadership crisis at all level. Corrupt leader is one problem but incompetent leadership is what I am discussing today.  

There are discussions all around about difference between leaders and managers.  That difference is startling and critical when managers are given leadership role. 

Managers are Cook and leaders are Chef. 

Leaders don't require instructions while managers do. Leaders don't need map to follow but they create their own road map, while managers cant do anything without map. Leadership is scarce and very precious as leaders defines & execute the destiny of the organisation or country they leads.  

There may be 5 to 7 founders of Infosys but among them who can lead? Hardly one or two. Being a part of the team if very different than being a leader of the team. It requires vision, fairness, anticipation, inspiring goal setting , executing , reasonableness , patience , firmness , perseverance , fearlessness & pressure handling capability and many such qualities. 

Richard Branson inspires dream and innovation, Narayan Murthy inspires fairness and consistency,  Vinod Rai , Ex CAG inspires fearlessness , Gandhiji inspires truthfulness , patience and walk the talk qualities , Indira Gandhi & Sardar Patel inspires firmness , Our BCCI Chief Srinivasan inspires pressure handling capability & Narendra Modi inspires vision, firmness, execution, fearlessness & pressure handling capability. They all are competent in their roles and predominantly displays qualities and leadership styles they have used in their role as leader. 

Look at leaders around you and find out what he or she inspires ? If the reply is NOTHING then these are leaders occupying leadership role without being competent for the role. 

To share my experience I suggest all leaders wherever they are leading to just find their replacement from the people they are leading.  I am sure you will not find many faces who can aptly replaces you considering the role you are playing as a leader.  Its a rare commodity & therefore valuable like brands. 

For top leaders of every organisation and institution , one of the very critical roles is to identify  , train and make next generation of leaders ready to take charge. Howsoever robust the organisation is today with its brands , technology and customer loyalty , incompetent leader can spoil the game and every sustainable competitive advantages an organisation enjoys.    

Who is the next leader competent to replace you ? If you don't have the answer or clue - leave everything else and find the answer. 

Balance Scorecard for Real Estate Companies

Most real estate companies are first generation companies if not business wise certainly as far as professionalism is concerned most companies are new and emerging. Growth of business and its size will quickly move these companies in big league as compare to its peers in other sectors. As organisation grows large part of management resources – time and mind-share goes in into managing the organisation. Managing means building and keeping it competitive. Initial dream was to build a building but now after many buildings dream not only expands but HOW part also becomes important. Making business an ongoing and sustainable entity is the real challenge.

Not necessarily those who can build buildings are equally capable to build an organisation. It requires different skill sets and discipline. Someone rightly said key challenge of every organisation is to attract and retain the talent.  Organisation is made up of people and its survival or break largely depends on people it employs. Talented people today will not come to unprofessional companies and for un-challenging roles. Therefore for the sake of attracting key people who can put their talent to work for the growth of your company is what business owners must aim to do.

Business Balance Sheets hides many things than what it displays. Tangible assets have no longer remained competitive advantage for the companies. Assets balance sheets captures are no longer the strengths of the company. In business environment many critical assets are intangible assets. These are customer loyalty and experience company creates,  kind of talented and innovative  people company employs, kind of robust and killing technology it possesses and the likes. Therefore when physical assets have become less important than intangible assets companies need to focus on creating these assets which will keep them in business and make them sustainable entity. 

Every company has some financial goals like ROI or Turnover Growth or Operating Margin Number of Flats and Sq feet to deliver for real estate companies etc . Companies are working towards these goals. Most companies measure their success merely on the basis of these goals.

However merely focusing on this goal will create lots of issues.

In order to achieve this goal company may ignore customer experience and expectations, happiness of people working for the company, people training & retention issues, business processes that need to be developed for making company process centric from people centric, ethics and environment. Therefore mere financial goal driven measure of success is not the right way to assess the success of the organisation.

Balance Score card is the matrix designed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton of HBS, during early 90s. The model assumes that bottom-line and profit is not the only criteria to measure success of any organisation. Every organisation must endeavor to balance various other things in its mission to earn profit and become sustainable business entity. It focuses on 4 things which will balance the focus of the management to equally other area of the organisation. Since business entities would like to remain sustainable and competitive over the period of time focusing on these 4 aspects will make them become and remain so.

I will briefly touch upon each of the 4 areas before I add few more of mine:

Financial Goals:

Predominant objective of every for-profit organization is to make profit. It can be measured in terms of ROI or ROCE or whatever suits the company. In order to achieve the same companies plan cost reduction, sales boost, asset utilization, branding and positioning etc.  Companies design strategies to achieve the same. However as mentioned above it has to be in sync with many other balancing factors.

Customer Perspective:

Every organisation has to consider this very critical perspective in their business strategy. Customer is the key for every business. Customers who pay for the product and therefore cause of profit of the shareholders and salary of the people of the company. No financial targets can be achieved if customer perspectives are ignored by the company. Therefore every company must have strategy for customer experience and on fulfillment of customer expectations. 

Internal Perspectives:

In order to achieve stated financial and customer perspectives companies have to align its internal processes and policies to enable the organization to achieve financial and customer perspective.  It can work towards better customer experience, speeding up the critical processes , educating customers , concerns for environment etc. Internal changes that will be required to achieve the two perspectives stated above.

Learning & Growth Perspectives: 

Organisation must learn and change in order to achieve the strategies outlined above. It also requires talent induction, training, retaining policies, knowledge management, new competency, out sourced partners etc. These strategies will be in alignment with overall financial, customer and internal perspective strategies and objectives defined by the management.  

The above form of Balance Score Card was designed during early 1999s. Many companies in India as well as international have implemented the same and reaped benefits. Recently Tata Motors was awarded Hall of Fame by the BS group.

The Way Forward:

In last 20 years management and business science have grown and changed considerably. Balancing requirement has also altered considerably. Customer Experience movement by Pine and Gilmore, People Happiness practices by Zappos CEO Tony are the new elements that have emerged. These are the success factors that have emerged which are again not a part of any balance sheets.

Companies like Starbucks, Virgin Airlines, Yes Bank, Microsoft and Googles of the world have embraced these new elements of sustainable competitive advantage. Customer Experience and Employee Happiness is a cultural issues and it takes years for any organisation to change the culture. Therefore it is termed as sustainable competitive advantage.

Corporate Governance has emerged as another critical area of business survival. Unethical behaviors are one of the major reasons for companies going out of business. Corporate Governance as stipulated by SEBI or BSE is not what I am talking about.  It is mere a statutory requirements. What matters most is Governance for survival, Governance for growth and Governance for Sustenance. This governance is not merely about independent directors on the board for statutory reasons but cross cultural talent on board for business benefits, it is also about ethical social conduct by an entity.

New Balance Scorecard Matrix:

Famous quote of Customer Experience Champion Steve Jobs is very useful to remember “Everything starts with customer experience and work backward for technology, process and people. “

Believe it of no when entrepreneurs start the business they desperately tries to get its first customer and do whatever it take to please them. When they go to VCs they will ask about customer traction. However as the organisation grows these customers become part many things organisation manages. They become subject to internal system and processes, people training or lack of it, governance policies like mis-sell, wrong commitments, misleading advertisements and what not. Customer experience is the first casualty of organisation growth.

Start up never start with ROI in mind it starts with product they want to offer to customer to solve their problem which will results into earning profit. There has to be a existing or latent demand from customer. Then comes the product and then comes profit. By serving customer with what an enterprise produce or offer business makes profit. ROI comes first in investing activities, in business customer comes first.  ROI is also dependent on raw material sourcing capability, business processes, own or outsource decision etc non customer centric things. But in most cases higher ROI is a result of better customer experience & therefore better pricing capabilities, more word of mouth referral customers, more repeat customers. Better ROI approach keeping customers aside has limitations and limit up to which it can be pushed. 

Cause	Customers	Customers	Internal to Business	Customers	Customers
Action	New Product	Achieving Scale	Bettering Processes ,Better Sourcing,  Eliminating Waste	Bettering Customer Experience	Best in class Customer Experience
ROI Effect	-     4% ROI	+ 6% ROI	+ 10% ROI	+ 15% ROI	+ 20% ROI

Therefore new elements of Balance Scorecard for 2^nd decade of 21^st Century would be:

Bringing back the customer at the center of all organizational activities & strategies is very critical. ROI to shareholders, hefty bonus to senior management, salary to employees everything comes from customers. How can a company either improve performance or remain sustainable if customer is not at the center of all its actions & thinking.

Focus on these intangibles is important for tangible & strong balance sheet.

Having defined the strategies and goals on the above new perspectives companies can break those strategies into actionable and measurable plans. For example:

Balance Scorecard for Real Estate Companies

Perspectives	Strategies
Customer Experience	NPS from 10 to 25   No Misleading Ad or Mis-sell Educate , Guide and Support R & D & innovation for new products /ways for better experience Total end to end support from booking to shifting Fulfilling all Commitments , Total Transparency Going out of the way to support, add surprise and delight regularly
Financial	ROI of 40%   Minimum 1 lac sq feet projects Residential Only , clear land projects Leverage equity up to 3 times 5 Lacs sq feet delivery every year 2 and 3 tier cities , exploring options for higher ROI projects/financial engineering
People	Employee Happiness Index (EHI) up by 20%   Flexibility in choice of work and time Annual Happiness measurement Aggressive policies to enhance the EHI Scope for personal hobby and learning Preparing with skills for higher responsibilities, handle uncertain future
Internal	Improve TAT by 10%      Continues process mapping and eliminating redundancy Continues Kaizen and eliminate time and money waste Customer Focused Process rejuvenation Learning best practice from other industry and implementing Exposing people to best practice companies to learn hands on
Governance	Ratio of Fresh to Experience / Ratio of Multiple Discipline / Zero Tolerance to Unethical Conduct / Amount of Scholar Ships to Community and Housing Society Families   Must have two independent directors from diverse fields Internal Innovation team to work with senior board members Reward best ethical and moral behaviors Community Service to surrounding community , labor on site. Support to housing society for community living projects

Each of the above strategies can further be elaborated & broken down to make it actionable and measurable. 

The idea is to understand that financial statement is just a statement on how intangible & tangible assets are working but ignores intangible part in reporting. Now assuming from the financial statement that performance reported is from the assets reported is a great myth in present times.   Intangible assets like smarter business processes, delightful customer experiences, sound governance policies, great HR policies plays critical role in deciding how physical assets will perform. Balance Scorecard is to keep focus on all aspects of the business which drives financial performance.

Real Estate companies are poised for huge opportunities in the days to come in the form of residential and retail boom in the country. Companies have to expand in other geographies within India and even abroad. In order to leverage opportunities internal house in order and customer centric ethical culture are some of the prerequisite.  Working with balance score card will help companies to approach growth in business and organisation in much methodical and prepared way.   

It is relevant to all kinds of organizations irrespective whether small or large, start up or scaled up, for profit or not for profit, Govt or private, real estate or IT ,in India or Indonesia.

Moot question for every organisation is not whether to balance but, what aspects of the business they wish to balance in order to achieve their vision statement. 

What are the intangible aspects that influence your business outcome ? 

Buy my book on customer experience - The Bread is Moving.

Who Moved Your Cheese (Customers) ?

You need your customer more than they need you . Do you know this fact?  Many would reply – YES we know.

But real problem starts when we see our action  as far as customer experience is concerned. Our actions are not commensurate with the statement above.

How many companies have mission /vision statement?  Most company will answer in affirmative.

But again real problem starts once the statement is freezed and put up on website and reception area. Other than customers no one in the organisations reads and practice that.

How many of the entrepreneurs are aware that in an era of commoditisation of products and services , ease & delight in fulfilling customer needs is the real sustainable competitive advantage? Fair number of entrepreneurs have now started realising this.

But how many entrepreneurs have done anything to achieve this competitive advantage ?

Become your own customer – visit stores, call call centers , use after sales, talk to front line people , talk to back-end people (their action or inaction impact performance of front-line employees and customer experiences)  and realise – map competitive advantage your company enjoys.

Entrepreneurs and CEOs are talking & complaining about low sales, competitive pricing pressure, top-line growth issues, challenge of how to differentiate – but rare  number of entrepreneurs and CEOs are taking action in the space of bettering customer experience (CE) and most are just clueless , complaining and talking about ROI on customer experience initiatives.  

What is the ROI of life insurance policy? What is the ROI of medical treatment cost of a dying patient?  What is the ROI of cost of going to the Gym? No we do not see ROI on insurance policy or medical treatment as it is a MUST to protect our family from risk , survival or preventive health measures. CE initiatives are beyond ROI as these are MUST , not just to survive  but it is the cause of every business.It has to be a part of business strategy. (though ROI of better CE is obvious i.e. survival) 

Cheese has again moved and those focusing on bettering customer experience know who moved and how to remain with cheese , all remaining are questioning & complaining –  WHO MOVED MY CHEESE  (Customers) ?

Today's Organisations - Horses on Steroids

Present models of ONLY ROI driven businesses are not sustainable.  CFO of Narayana Hrudayalaya today quoted in ET- CD, " kind of returns PE players are asking is not possible in healthcare industry." 

Yes healthcare industry is not only PROFIT driven but PEOPLE driven. Number of people impacted while making some profit to take care of future investments. Mere ROI focus is not sustainable nor desirable.

Why only healthcare ? Every industry today is in severe cut throat competition. Ethical conduct is replaced by END only matters,  Q on Q and ROI, ROCE kind of performance matrix. 

Balance Scorecard approach by some of the corporate is welcome step but how much it has helped in stress reduction and happiness enhancement is a  matter of research. 

These PEs and their insatiable appetite for ROI is deciding ROI benchmarks world over.  

Huge ROI will drive happiness for a few at the cost of unhappiness and stress for many. 

Today's organisations are like Horses on steroids in race course. 

Huge bonus and extravagant packages at the top level makes the organisation look like a race course. Bets on the houses are so huge that they have to run and run and win at all cost. 

Fortunately horses run only in race course but ROI hungry Shareholders & CEOs run all across the society. Examples of Ranbaxys and Satyams and many more unearthed are the products of such rush for crazy ROIs.   

Why I lost my Customers ?

Recently a friend of mine told me that he has lost one of his customer for 9 years , for meager small price difference. 

All of us whether in business or profession face customer attrition. Yes they leave us. Those who are involved in customer acquisition know how difficult it is to get one. So many meetings , follow up , promises and discounts offers it takes to get a customer.

Therefore when we lose our customer its painful as well as loss making proposition. Retained customer is an income , acquired customer is an expense as it takes 5 to 7 times the money to acquire new customer than to retain a one. 

As the customer gets older cost of acquiring him gets written off over the period of time. It is always better and smarter to not only retain a customer but also get referral from him to get a new customer. 

A value of customer is = profit out of his repeat purchase + referral leads he offers (which saves 5 to 7 times of cost of acquiring a new customer) 

But if customer is so important to any businesses important question to think is why do businesses lose customers to competition ? 

1. - Better Price 
2. - Better Speed to Delivery
3. - Better Understanding of the customer
4. - Better Proximity
5. - Better Quality 

Most important are Better Relationship (Human aspect of dealing & not CRM) and Better Customer Experience (Emotional Connect). 

Sometime you may wonder why ever after focusing on the above 5 tangible aspects , your business is still losing customers ? 

It may ( MUST ) be because you are ignoring completely the two intangible but critical aspects of business - customer relationship and customer experience.