Global CRM

Upcoming Events of Note

A series of sessions on the Middle East and US foreign policy are coming your way from the World Affairs Council. Check them out here. Topics range from whether the recent US elections were a foreign policy mandate for change, to long term planning for middle east relations.

Also, this week UDC is hosting a session on the partner/competitor status between the United States and China. Check it out at IFI WatchNet's site. That's a great site for the globally-minded.

EuroSlumber?

China's growing like crazy. India's doing great, thank you. Even the US is keeping its head above water with a 3% GDP growth rate (for now -- but keep an eye on real estate in the US).

But Europe? Pretty anemic. France, in particular, has been underperforming with a GDP half of that of the United States. Its recent quarterly economic numbers were far under expectations. What's going on?

In the past, I've dreamed of living in France where work weeks are short and vacations are long. But I'm beginning to believe that the labor market does need to be more fluid, to add more jobs at the bottom, where underemployment is high, and to give businesses more flexibility in shedding costs. This is not to say I think France -- and by extension, the EU -- should shed its pro-worker mindset. Instead, I propose that it SHIFT its mindset. Invest in workers to allow them more employability. Get training: get a tax break. Switch jobs: get a tax break.

This amounts to shifting revenues from the state to the companies whose capital is being freed up, but in the classic economist's point of view, the capital is better when held privately than when held by the state. And to an extent, that is true. Certainly it is better, in my view, to invest in worker so they can grow and have more freedom of choice, than to structure a society where people hate to leave their jobs -- in fact, would be punished by a sluggish job market if they DID leave their jobs -- and where the majority of young people aspire to work for the state. Public service is good, don't get me wrong, but I read this trend more as job risk aversion.

Europe's safety net is far better than America's in most regards. I hope the conversation about job security in France changes so it can take advantage of that safety net even as people embrace change, look for new careers and take advantage of the business nimbleness that comes from a fluid jobs market.

What do you think?

Global CRM

Global CRM



I just finished up co-teaching a two day seminar on customer experience management (CEM) in Hong Kong. I found the experience fascinating on several levels.

To start with, it was my first time to Hong Kong. I loved the people. The city, though dense and cluttered and hazy, still somehow conveys a strong sense of order and safety. I was in Kowloon near one of the biggest shopping centers in the world -- I took the opportunity to study global and local branding strategies in the stores and environmental signage, while buying a few things ...

In attendance at the seminar were retail strategists, several representatives from a "gentleman gambler club", one of Sri Lanka's biggest telecom providers -- an impressive crowd, many of whom were extremely sophisticated. A couple of companies sent multiple representatives pulled from several silos, which was actually exciting to see. It shows that companies acknowledge that CEM must be multi-disciplinary and matrixed, something that has been strangely hard to convince companies of with regards to CRM (which is often just thought of as an IT initiative).



The other two instructors, including the founder of Greater China CRM, Sampson Lee, delivered their material with their own unique styles. I especially enjoyed Sampson's ability to bring the students into discussion, as well as his command of the content regarding irrational decision-making and latent knowlege in customer choices.

A couple of topics seemed especially interesting to the audience: choosing an experience opportunity based on a unique brand concept, and the peak-end rule. You can go here to see the Wikipedia slug for peak-end. Sampson has done a nice job of applying peak-end to customer experiences in more-or-less sequential customer interactions in a retail environment.

Rafael Rodriguez' material, pulled from his vast library of management science slides from his Focused Management company, along with new materials, provided a speedy overview of Six Sigma, performance indicator hierarchies, and process optimization. I think his most interesting material was his TESCO case study, pulled in part from Patricia Seybold's recent articles on CEM.

Overall it was a great experience -- especially nice to see Sampson's wife, Alice -- but I am totally exhausted. Now, for reasons too intricate to explain right now, I'm heading to Moscow.

More news later ...