Don’t become a Dinosaur – a New Frontier for business success.

Every decade there is a new frontier, a key focus that businesses gravitate to, the thing that will make all the difference – if you do it well you win if you don’t you die, or at least become a dinosaur and fade out of existence….

The 2000’s was dominated with Customer Centricity – although this was always odd to me, as the opposite is to be rude or mean to customers, that just doesn’t make sense as a strategy.

This was the beginning of the age of customer accountability, giving customers the power – well at least appearing that way.

2000’s was dominated with Customer Centricity – this was odd to me, as the opposite is to be rude to customers – that just doesn’t make sense as a strategy.

The next decade from around 2010 has been all about personalisation and unique experiences, we are still in that phase and with it comes value accountability.

Over the last 8 years we have seen higher levels of accountability expected for delivering customer value, we have seen many regulators bringing customer impacts into the equation when considering regulations.

“This is only for big business, it doesn’t affect me”. I hear you say. Unfortunately that is NOT True!

Some interesting examples of this at the industry regulation level are:

  • Transport (airlines/trains) are accountable for delayed services and are expected to report impacts on customers and even provide compensation in extreme cases.
  • Insurance has had a big focus on claims decisions ensuring timely and accurate payouts, so much so that insurers have even used the percentage of payouts in advertising to show credibility.
  • Telecommunications & Utilities have really been through the ringer in recent years are now required to report service continuity, service speeds, and billing issues (to reduce bill shock) to regulators.
  • Banking has been in firing line for some time but he latest Royal Commission putting it under the microscope and will likely supercharge the timeline for change. The banks have already had to tighten timelines for transferring money between banks (which reduces both earnings and ability to make loans). Now they are likely to have to make fundamental changes in light of recent revelations.

The Royal Commission has also alluded to Retail as potentially being in the firing line. Why stop there, maybe Oil & Gas will be next…..

“This is only for big business, it doesn’t affect me”. I hear you say.

Unfortunately that is not true, these changes impact everyone, they change and shape of the landscape, the way customers consume and expect to consume our products and services.

This is the exact opposite of the underpinning ideas of social media allowing anyone and everyone to have a voice.

This heightened level responsibility puts more power into the customer’s hands. If we do not recognise this and adjust our business will fade to extinction. Blockbuster video (vs Netflix) is a good example of a change in customer value not being met.

Another unfortunate by-product is bad press, this creates mistrust with customers. “Well if company A did it, they are all doing it….” All businesses get tarnished with the same brush….

So if you think this is a tough environment get ready for the NEXT SHIFT. It is already happening.

The next shift is moving from Customer Value to Community Value. Seriously, we see this shift already taking place.

Community Value will be the next litmus test for business success.

Look at the Social Media concerns that are being addressed through Facebook right now. Looking primarily at the fake news arguments and the responsibility of Facebook. It is clear that the community feels that Facebook should be doing more to validate what is being shared.

This is the exact opposite of the underpinning ideas of social media allowing anyone and everyone to have a voice.

We are seeing similar outcomes in the Royal Commission, they are looking at loans that were not necessarily illegal but clearly been working to a different morale compass than community now expects.

In these cases the focus is not on legality but morality, not on customer services but on the impact to the community at large.

The direction of the future is for businesses to be responsible for morale decisions of each and every employee, and for each and every transaction. KPI will change to be morality and community focused.

Only those businesses that can link their strategy to the community and encourage the right behaviour of their staff will thrive in this new environment.

How will you make the change in your business?

About the Author:

Brad Horan is the Founding Director of Lucrature – Financial Peak Performance.

  • He is excited about helping mid-sized businesses achieve profitability growth by getting the right management infrastructure in place to ensure every decision made within the business is 100% focused on the business goals.
  • Although professionally trained in Finance and Operations Brad has a passion for the psychology of business and how financial measures can be used to drive positive behavioural outcomes.
  • Brad believes that when you get the right mix of KPI, communication and action across all staff levels that your business starts to run itself, leaving the business leaders to focus on what they do best – being an Entrepreneur.

Join the conversation @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/UnboringFinance/

Is your business suffering from Information Overload?

Smartphones started a trend that has seen us bombarded with more information than ever. Studies have shown we read 100,000 words a day and that over 50% of white collar workers are overwhelmed at work due to the sheer volume of information they must consume. Make sure you business is not at risk. This video will show you how.

What my 2 year old taught me about business last weekend.

When we get the right help and support we can be far more productive, effective, and successful than we would ever be on our own.

I have a 2 & 1/2 year old boy (Jaden) and 1 year old boy (Zane) and girl (Mia) twins.  Yes it’s a very busy household…
Both the boys are walking with the older one running and climbing, but Mia is a little behind.

Typically the boys play pretty rough together whilst Mia doesn’t want a bar of that aggressive behaviour.

Last Sunday morning I noticed something unusual happen. The youngest boy Zane was still sleeping as he had been a little sick the day before. So it was just the older boy Jaden and Mia hanging out.

Jaden was crawling with Mia trailing behind, that was strange as anyone who has kids knows that once they conquer one hurdle (i.e. walking) they just don’t go back to the previous stage. But this morning he was crawling with Mia trailing closely behind, they were both giggling and having a lot fun.
Then Jaden stopped, communicated with Mia in some form of gibberish and once he had her attention he leaned against the wall and slowly stood up. She copied, and low and behold stood up also leveraging the wall in the same way.

He was coaching her, he is the expert out of these two and he is showing her a trade secret (how to stand up) – the 1st step in walking. He joked around a laughed a little which seemed to take Mia’s mind off the task at hand and relaxed her, in a few seconds she took her 1st steps.

This exchange of skills was rapid, without ego or expectation and yielded fantastic results.

I thought about my life and wondered how many times (particularly in business) I had not  accepted advice, I had not to an expert that could help me accelerate my skills. I also wondered how many times I was the expert and had not offered assistance to others. We don’t always recognise ourselves as an expert or we let our ego get in the way of effective skills transfer.

What do you need to be able to get these types of results in our own lives? I put it down to 3 things.

  • Expertise – in your field that does not mean you have to know everything, rather you need to have depth of knowledge and experience in specific areas and recognise you have something to offer.
  • Trust – you must genuinely want to help others, for them not for yourself, and provide real results they can see and touch.
  • Lastly and perhaps most importantly, we must recognise we cannot be expert at all things, we also need help and support in the things we are not expert in. Getting that help being on the receiving end will help us understand what it is like when we are providing advice to others.

One thing is for sure just as was the case with Mia, when we get the right help and support we can be far more productive, effective, and successful than we would ever be on our own.

Although this seems obvious, often in business we forget to offer or ask for help, we try to do it all ourselves rather than recognise that we can all do better by leveraging other skill sets and experts in the field.

Who can you help in business this week?
Who can help you in your business this week?

How to be a Successful Entrepreneur

How to be a Successful Entrepreneur

There are 3 People every CEO and Entrepreneur must sleep with to be successful.

Firstly I am not referring to how a CEO and/or Entrepreneur gets to be in their position, rather how to be a successful Entrepreneur once they have the position and are steering the business into the future.

I also want to be clear that I am not talking about a one-night stand or a casual fling here. A long-term, intimate relationship is required for success.

Managing any intimate relationship is tough. Here we have 3 people in this intimate relationship, and they know about each other. As you can imagine all 3 will be competing for attention and resources. No one person can be ignored or be seen to be favored over another.

We must be a master of relationships and strike a balance across these 3 people.

I had a particular priority for these 3 people which I lived by for many years, however recently I discussed this with several very successful CEOs and Entrepreneurs and they each had a different view based on their own philosophy and business model.

It is clear to me now that priority is not as important as balance.

The Customer – it is important to recognize that the customer here relates not only to existing customers but also potential customers and therefore the broader society. To be a successful entrepreneur you must know your customer intimately. What they like/don’t like, and how they expect us to act when we interact with them. Customers expect us to listen and change, although surprisingly they are often not the most demanding of our sleeping partners.

When we don’t respect our customers they leave, new customers become harder to attract and more expensive to acquire. Unhappy customers generally lead to negative interactions with “The Employee” (impacting another key person we must sleep with) and if they are unhappy enough they will impact our profitability which will impact our relationship with “The Funder”.

Note: I have never heard of a business failing because they focused too much on the Customer.

The Funder – Traditionally the Funder is a shareholder, stockholder, or anyone else that provides funds to the business (e.g. Banks). However, I also include spouses and family here, they are not funding with money but with our time. Funders are looking for some type of reward for their funding. They are often the most jealous and controlling of the 3 people we sleep with, they are generally needy and require constant reassurance they are high on our priority list. They often don’t appreciate the time we spend in bed with Customers and Employees.

We need to manage Funders very carefully, if we don’t respect them we may run out of resources as they tighten the reigns. Typically businesses focus heavily on funders, when they do that at the expense of customers we almost always see catastrophic results – Enron, Blockbuster video, Vodafone are classic examples where focusing too much on Funders at the expense of Customers had major impacts on the business resulting in closure or at least significant restructure.

The Employee – In many industries, these are the most expensive of our sleeping partners. They take up space, need computers, cars, phones, sick days, tea & coffee, it all adds up. Typically they are key people in front of our Customers and we really need them to be making our customers happy.

Unfortunately, when the Funders are unhappy the first group they target is Employees. When the Customers are unhappy Employees are the first port of call to unleash their fury.

Plenty of research shows that engaged employees are great for your business however it is important to recognize that every person is different and not everyone will be a fit in your business. Unhappy disengaged employees can be cancer in your business – Government departments can be a good example, they typically struggle with staff engagement leading to poor customer service. Once the low engagement is ingrained (and has become the norm) it can be very difficult to change the work environment without a total and costly restructuring.

Like most things in life, there is no silver bullet to magically make all of our sleeping partners happy. It takes hard work and careful expectation management. As the business grows the ability to understand and manage these relationships becomes more difficult.

Only CEOs and Entrepreneurs with Actionable Management systems that provide an early warning of relationship rifts before they happen can avoid the pitfalls that slow growth, cost money, and can ultimately destroy your business.

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Lucrature – Business Advisory | Chartered Accountant.

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