Customer Experience Manager a Hot Job Title

In October 2007, Gartner surveyed more than 250 business and IT leaders who influence the CRM strategies in their businesses in preparation for the 2008 CRM Summit. They told Gartner that their top three business issues revolved around creating a customer-centric enterprise, managing organizational and cultural change for CRM success, and managing and improving the customer experience.

The importance of focusing on the customer experience was further highlighted in all three award presentations as well as by the fact that all the presenters had this term in their job titles:

• At Fiat, Giorgio Cavalieri Is Senior Director Customer Experience

• At Philips, Arjan Burgers Is Director Consumer Experience Management and CRM

• At SBSA, Rolf Eichweber Is Director of Customer Experience

Courtesy - Dale Wolf, Perfect CEM

Retailers, get ready for the magic of CRM

“International giants entering India in a big way was an impending trend only waiting to happen.  If you haven’t prepared for the tussle yet, this is your chance. Indian retailers are set to impress customers and increase their bottom-line with the aid of the right CRM”

It’s ironic that while the retail sector in India is estimated at US$350 billion, organised retail is estimated barely at US$8 billion. The upside is the expected growth rate. By 2010, organised retail is expected to grow up to US$22 billion, an estimated 40 percent compounded annual growth of return over the next few years.

Numerous international retail giants from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are entering the Indian market with enormous hope and investments. Retailers in India so far only prefer to increase the number of outlets within a city or to other regions as a part of their expansion drive. But they will now need to fight the burgeoning retail space with many new shopping centres and growing new markets like the kids’ retail revolution in apparel. To manage the tremendous volume of transactions and to beat international competition, Indian retailers have an immediate need for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools.

CRM will happen. It’s simply a question of how long it will take and in how many ways retailers will benefit. Customer Relationship Management is important, especially for your repeat customers and for them to feel camaraderie with the retailer. A good CRM will provide the right framework to retailers so that they can personalize merchandise purchases, services and responses across all communication channels for the customer’s satisfaction and for increased sales.

Low cost, high value

But before retailers embark on any CRM software, they need to ensure it comes at optimal cost, with minimal risk, high value, and a higher return on investment (ROI). It should install quickly, interface readily with existing systems, be easy to learn and to use, and deliver uncompromising performance.

Driven by changing lifestyles, strong income growth and favourable demographic patterns, the Indian retail market is growing at compounded annual rate of five percent and expected revenues of US$320 billion in 2007, according to a report by AT Kearney and the Confederation of Indian Industry. And big international and domestic retailers have realized this growth.

To sustain competition from the giants, Indian retailers must differentiate or brand their business. Customers expect retailers to do this is by personalizing products and services. And this is where a rightly implemented CRM comes into play.

Growing Communication Channels

India has more than 129 million mobile communication subscribers and the number is expected to go up to 300 million in 2008. This is a strong marketing channel retailers cannot afford to miss. “Truly loyal customers can’t imagine doing business with anyone else. They are your best means of advertising because they’ve become advocates for your company. They bore their friends with stories of how great you are,” write Shaun Smith and Joe Wheeler, authors of Managing the Customer Experience.

To implement the right CRM, retailers need to analyze customer preferences and trends, and then merge analysis with inbound and outbound calling via CRM technology so that customers can communicate with the retail chain by fax, phone, web, SMS and the like. The CRM framework links and integrates these channels to individualize the customer’s experience and ensure satisfaction.

Similarly, competition must be kept under a check. If a retailer offers volume discounts, its competitors must likewise offer comparable value to the customers. If a retailer has tools to reach more customers with personalized purchase offers, or to process orders faster, or with fewer errors, or more efficiently, other vendors must adapt or gradually surrender market share.

But unfortunately, only 30 percent of companies worldwide have actually implemented a commercial CRM software package. And most of these are only a year old. Of this minority, 54 percent have implemented just one part of CRM. With so much room for improvement in meeting customer demands, CRM can only help.

Contact centres form an integral part of CRM because they directly impact how customers feel about the retailer’s products, services and business. With an efficient system at the contact centre, retailers can help customers buy what they want and need. For instance, retailers are yet to utilize the opportunity of selling daily needs to a population that is using the latest technology to purchase almost everything.

If you are looking at moving to customer-centric marketing, this means that all customer functions are subject to CRM’s analytical processes. This helps retailers understand both how the customer base is presently segmented and, for the future, according to what retailing values. Other analyses identify new services, evaluate their ROI, shift focus from less to more profitable customers, etc. The outcome from CRM analytics is better service, improved planning and profitability, and more appropriate pricing.

Customer Analysis

CRM analysis can help retailers make a smooth shift to a customer-focused enterprise by allowing processes like differentiating customers into segments, discovering precise needs of customers and redesigning compensation and rewards to effect behavioural changes. This process establishes the context that stimulates the customer to shop and buy. Hardcore marketers make their own analytical understandings with the help of a CRM to evaluate what their customers need.

Improved Sales

Better services imply the customer’s improved ability to make purchases. They will make informed decisions and be happy with their purchase. Such efficient shopping will only mean a patronizing customer. For the retailers, this means higher transaction rate, increased revenues, and a wider profit margin.

Smart retailers are looking up new and critical CRM tools like the unified agent desktop that allows customer service agents to respond faster and with greater accuracy and consistency every time a customer picks up the phone, accesses e-mails or chats. The unified agent desktop brings the customer into focus at the desktop and turns the agent’s screen into a hub that can access all enterprise applications and databases necessary to respond rapidly to the customer.

The result is increased quality and decreased operating costs, leading to one of the most handsome ROIs in the industry. It also eliminates data redundancy like repeating customers with the same requests or relying on agents to recall the correct systems to enter a new customer record or service request.

Questions to ask about any CRM Framework:

• Does it allow the supervisor or manager to access and process analytical data online? Preferably through a web portal?
• Does it use just one screen to manage all customer channels – e-mail, voice, chat, fax, web self service – so that agents stay productive and don’t get lost in the transaction?
• Does it offer a universal view of your retail CRM data on a single screen – contact information, history of recent activity, knowledge base, workflow interaction, resource management?
• Does it make efficient use of your and the customer’s time by minimizing clicks so that managers and agents don’t have to toggle to other screens or other applications while the customer waits impatiently?

Google's OpenSocial Platform Will Rule Techie Minds by 2010

Though the platform will take another six months to gear up and to prove itself as a well-defined and flawless system for the global software vendors, says one of the first users of OpenSocial Platform.

In Nov. ’07 when Google launched a unique system, OpenSocial, to bring all the social-networking sites and applications under one set of specifications, many companies were not very sure about its success. And, the platform — which facilitates various social-networking sites to function on a defined and consistent software platform — still needs a well definition. Despite that many such as Impetus, an outsourced software product engineering services company, went ahead and opted for the platform to write its applications. However, the company had some doubts initially. But this platform also enables the software-developer community to write applications for social networks, which would be inter-operable as well.

“While opting for the system, we were sure that in future every software company would want to embrace it. Because the biggest advantage of the system we noticed was that you have a bigger community talk with the only worry that the platform was new and ill defined. It encouraged us to assign five to eight software engineers at Impetus to work on it. Initially, we worked very closely with Google when we started with version 0.5. In fact, since the introduction of the platform, we have a team to write applications on OpenSocial. Now that we are using it increasingly, we have formally launched our team for this platform,” says Sanjeev Khodaskar, Manager, Software Engineer, Impetus Technologies.

For the last seven months Impetus is actively using OpenSocial to write its applications for commercial purposes, and the company has recently launched its internal dedicated practice group for Google's OpenSocial platform and its related technologies. This small group of five to 12 software engineers (with between one and five years of experience) is incubated as an initiative from Impetus’s R&D division, iLabs, and will focus on pursuing the technology and business aspects of the OpenSocial platform. The group with its expertise in writing OpenSocial Applications, OpenSocial widgets and Collaborative Application will help the company to create new paradigms for the social-networking domain. The company has also collaborated with one of its customers to showcase OpenSocial products for renowned technology events such the Orkut Hackathon, Web2.0 Expo.

“As of now, the group has written three applications, including a Web-based video conferencing and a game on social-networking Website, by using OpenSocial Platform,” Khodaskar added.
“As we are actively using this system at Impetus, I believe that OpenSocial Platform will rule the global software industry by 2010. Though the platform will take six months to gear up and to prove itself as a well-defined and flawless system for the global software vendors. Another drawback is that even though a lot of business is coming out of this, not many people are aware what ‘OpenSocial’ system is,” concluded Khodaskar.

Courtesy - Imrana Khan, Global Services Media

Outsourcing and Green Initiatives: Can they co-exist?

Traditional models of outsourcing are not conducive to promoting green initiatives, energy or operational efficiency, according to Tim James, director of green IT evangelist, sustainableIT.

James has determined that outsourcing relationships are largely not designed for efficiency, and this does not assist in driving green IT within the outsourced customers concerned. "Whilst on the face of it, outsourcing initially reduces costs and improves services through a more efficient outsourcing vendor, over a period of time, the service becomes more expensive in many instances," James states.

James points to a number of instances whereby the nature of the contract drives a relationship of inefficiency, with scant regard for the environmental impact. Outsourcing agreements are typically structured and charged on the basis of the concept of baselines, for example supporting 100 servers will cost you Rx, he says.

The dichotomy arises when you introduce new sustainable technologies such as virtualisation. Let’s assume now that through virtualisation you can consolidate down to 10 servers, a massive saving in energy and certainly a saving in terms of resource cost and real estate. In reality, this is not in the outsourcer’s interest, as it reduces their revenue stream and the baseline reduces, he elaborates.

Another example he points to is energy efficiency. The energy used to run services in the data centre is usually covered in an outsourcing agreement, and the utility bills are serviced by the outsourcer, but what about the end-user environment?

"The end-user environment, ie workstations and monitors, is the big hitter in terms of energy reduction, using as much as 39% of total energy in the IT environment, according to Gartner," James says. This is almost always paid by the end-user or customer, despite the fact that the outsourcer runs the service. There is no pain for the outsourcer to reduce energy in this environment and hence the customer continues to pay for inefficiency.

There are a number of other examples, all driven by baselines. Another is print output, the more you use, the more you pay for and the list goes on. It is in the outsourcer’s interest to get you to use more as this increases revenue. Outsourcers do not want you to become efficient as it will drive down their revenue. This is the fundamental problem with outsourcing and green initiatives.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. James is of the opinion that customers embarking upon renegotiating outsourcing agreements or signing new relationships need to take cognisance of green IT and build efficiency into the contractual vehicle.

"Writing clauses into the contract that promote and reward efficiency is probably the easiest way to overcome this dichotomy. Doing more with less, reduce, re-use and recycle as well as energy efficiency clauses should all be considered when signing a new agreement. New technologies may also need to be deployed that allow the measurement of baselines geared to drive efficiency, which do exist," he concludes.

Courtesy - Computing SA

Winning the SaaS Platform Wars

A new generation of SaaS-driven platforms is redrawing the enterprise software battleground. Here’s what vendors must do to emerge victorious.

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry continues to grow rapidly. Over the past three years, revenues of the top 20 SaaS companies grew at close to 50 percent and 2007 saw several new IPOs in the space. The industry has also matured significantly in recent years. Both vendor offerings and business models have become more robust, while SaaS adoption has spread from small and medium businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises. Estimates indicate that the SaaS market could grow to more than $35 billion over the next five years, with significant penetration of SaaS in all major software categories.

The success of SaaS is driving broad change across the software industry. One of the most significant implications of this broad-based change is the emergence of a new kind of software platform. The increase in SaaS application consumption and development is driving the need for a new set of platform technologies built specifically to support SaaS.

As with the evolution of technology platforms in the past, we are beginning an exciting time for the industry, as a host of megavendors and startups engage in the emerging SaaS platform wars. This excerpt from our new report, “Emerging Platform Wars in Enterprise Software,” outlines several factors that will drive platform success. Software companies need to consider incorporating these elements into their offerings in order to win this next-generation battle.

Read Further at SandHill

The New Math of Customer Relationships

It's the E=MC2 of customer loyalty.

Deeply satisfied employee = deeply satisfied customer = lifelong profit.

Harvard Business School professor emeritus Jim Heskett and professor Earl Sasser have pursued this seemingly simple equation in books including Service Breakthroughs (with Christopher Hart) and The Service Profit Chain and The Value Profit Chain (with Lenoard A. Schlesinger). Some of the ideas go back to Heskett's 1986 book, Managing in the Service Economy. A new book, The Ownership Quotient, is underway, written with Sasser and Wheeler.

These works have come to deeply influence how managers think of customers, and introduce the idea that not all customers contribute equal value. Concrete examples illustrate the self-reinforcing nature of the connections between employee loyalty and customer loyalty; and between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

We asked Heskett to update us on the new research and on the impact of these works on practice.

Sean Silverthorne: It's been five years since The Value Profit Chain was published, and ten years since the arrival of its predecessor, The Service Profit Chain. What kind of impact did the books and their themes exploring links between satisfied employees and satisfied customers have on practitioners?

Jim Heskett: While we don't spend any time tracking the impact, Earl and I (as well as our coauthors who, over the years, have included Chris Hart, Len Schlesinger, Gary Loveman, Tom Jones, as well as Joe Wheeler) have been reminded of it in various ways.

First, of course, there are those organizations known to us that use the ideas for a range of purposes, all the way from guiding their marketing and service efforts to providing a cornerstone for their overall business strategies.

Then there are large and small organizations with whom we've had no previous contact that get in touch with us to check up on the latest thinking that they say has influenced their management over the past decade or so.

Finally, the service profit chain turns up in annual reports such as that of Westpac, one of Australia's leading banks. The ideas are reflected in remarks by managers, whether or not the actual terms are used.

In many respects, they have become generic, which I suppose is the ultimate mark of usefulness. In all fairness, they are the product of the work of many practitioners and researchers. We just happened to have packaged and measured the relationships in a way that made sense to a lot of people.

Q: Many companies approach creating a good customer experience as a discrete action: a customer satisfaction program, for example. But your books detail an integrated set of actions and corporate values involving almost everyone in the company. How difficult has it been for organizations to adopt this all-in approach?

A: Service profit chain concepts are deceptively simple. They require an integrated set of management initiatives to achieve. The initiatives have to address employees first, then customers. And they take time.

So it's not surprising that not all of the organizations that have implemented parts of the concept have utilized it as a driving force for an entire business. Hardest of all is the cultural change that you mention. It requires that organizations identify values, behaviors, and measures that help reinforce service profit chain relationships.

"Service profit chain concepts are deceptively simple."

But it also requires actions. That is, when managers are not managing by the values and cannot be admonished or retrained to do so (which rarely works), they have to go. That's a difficult step for many organizations to take.

Q: Which of the companies that you profiled continue to shine today? Any notable exemplars from the past that have lost their way?

A: Identifying exemplar organizations is somewhat foolhardy. Every organization hits rough patches. We've been fortunate to have a reasonably high "hit rate" over the years. Among those that have inculcated the ideas, whether they use the terms or not, that we identified early on have continued to do well are companies like the Vanguard Group, the Omnicom Group, and Southwest Airlines.

One organization that has encountered challenges has been ServiceMaster. To cope with market challenges, the company divested itself of some of the businesses that provided its cultural core.

Q: Will you update the books? If so, which new companies would you add to your list of examples?

A: Earl Sasser and I are updating the books with a new one titled The Ownership Quotient. In it, we highlight organizations like Harrah's Entertainment, Rackspace Managed Hosting (a Website hosting service), Baptist Health Care, and Wegmans (a regional grocery chain). At Harrah's, a former HBS colleague and coauthor of ours, Gary Loveman, has led a remarkable period of growth by installing service profit chain concepts throughout the organization.

These organizations have been able to achieve what we might call SPC.2 by creating "owners" out of both customers and employees. By owners, we mean people who are not only loyal and willing to recommend the organization to others, but who make referrals, influence others to join as customers or employees, test new products or services and provide suggestions for improvements, and are willing to help in the selection of new employees.

At Harrah's these customers are called Diamonds and Seven Stars. They have the highest lifetime value to the organization and, in addition, exhibit a much higher willingness than other guests to help Harrah's improve its business. Interestingly, this kind of approach helps explain many of the successful behavior patterns in "New Age" Internet-based businesses such as Rackspace Managed Hosting, and for that matter Google.

Q: One of the most powerful ideas presented in the books is the realization that not all customers produce equal value—in fact, companies should consider "firing" the less profitable customers. Has this concept taken hold in practice?

A: When we observed a number of organizations leading to the original articulation of the service profit chain, we found a common behavior among the most successful ones. In various ways, they "fired" customers who either were abusive in their relationships with employees or were just difficult to serve, perhaps because they fell outside the core constituency (target market) identified in the organizations' strategies. In some organizations, this is a way of expressing support for employees. In others, it is a way of preserving the organization's strategic focus. This is typically not something that an organization advertises. But it is standard practice in a number of organizations today.

For example, at ING DIRECT, the fastest-growing financial services organization in the United States over the past seven years, the company, in as personal and amiable a way as possible, asks 10,000 customers to close their accounts every month. It's important to point out that this is out of a current base of about 6.5 million customers who give ING DIRECT the highest marks for satisfaction out of all U.S. banking organizations. The company fires customers who are especially "high maintenance" because they are unusually high users of the time of its support center personnel. This both preserves a low-cost base for its targeted customer base and, by the way, reduces a source of frustration for employees.

Q: Increasingly, companies are riding the coattails of globalization to send their offerings around the world. Is it more difficult for multinationals or other global companies to practice service profit chain management given this dispersing of resources?

A: Service profit chain concepts are global, subject only to local cultural practices. Early morning group exercises for employees are the Chinese equivalent in some ways to the daily shift huddles at Build-A-Bear Workshop in the United States. Companies like Wal-Mart and UPS have been able, over time, to export service profit chain practices globally. Further, non-U.S. companies such as Bouygues Telecom in France and Westpac, the Australian bank I mentioned earlier, have utilized them as cornerstones of their successful operating strategies. So the ideas travel quite well, with some adjustments necessary to recognize cultural differences.

Q: As we head into what appears to be an economic slowdown, what should companies be considering in terms of the service profit chain? Can it be a tool for competitive advantage in a cooling economy?

A: Relationships between customer and employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity become even more critical during times of economic stress. During such times, the most important advice that one can give is first remember that the service profit chain starts with employees—therefore, preserve that resource; second, consider dividing jobs at lower pay rather than laying off customer-facing employees;third, seek economic ways of making both employees and targeted customers know that you value their loyalty—this doesn't require a lot of money; and fourth, work even harder at creating "owners" by eliciting suggestions from employees and customers alike about ways of cutting costs while enhancing customer service.

About the author - Sean Silverthorne is editor of HBS Working Knowledge.

Transactional vs. Experiential Leaders

Most executives are 'transactional leaders'. They believe employees are hired labour and see their relationship as a transactional arrangement at best with little loyalty on either side. Transactional leadership tends to deliver compliance but not commitment. If you want people to stay you have to bribe them through increased pay and perks. By contrast, Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad, who was speaking at the conference, believes that a company today is like a social network that has 'temporary custody of talent', and that you have to build in social links to help unite that talent around a common purpose. In other words you have to create an environment of learning and fun if you want people to stay with you.

In Robert's view, it is absolutely fine if your people leave to advance themselves, but not for any other reason. He also believes that 'recruitment is the most authentic form of advertising' and so goes out of his way not to 'sell' the Geek Squad to candidates but to tell it like it is as part of the recruitment process - the need for dedication, devotion to duty, hard work and obsessive attention to speed and quality.If we look at how market places evolve and companies compete over time, the centrality of belief in shaping reality becomes clear. A good example is MP3 players. If you believe that they are purely functional, then that is how you will compete and your culture will mirror that, focusing on costs and features primarily. You will tend to manage by the numbers. If you believe that you can add value through service, as Apple did with iTunes, then marketing assumes greater importance and brand loyalty and market share will be your focus.

If you believe that customer experience is the greatest differentiator, as I do, and Robert Stephens does, then the culture you need is likely to be more engaging and emotional (EQ rather than IQ) and experiential itself. In this case measuring the customer and the employee experience become the dominant focus. This is where Apple is heading with its retail stores.

Coutersy - Shaun Smith, Perfect CEM

Indian legal offshore biz up as US slumps

The legal outsourcing market in India is still a baby compared to other offshore models

Bad times for some American companies is turning into good times for India’s legal offshoring industry.

For reasons largely economic and partly cultural, India’s legal process outsourcing, or LPO, services providers have seen a sizeable uptick in business since the US economy has faltered. In particular, firms that handle support functions, such as reviewing documents and researching witnesses for US litigation, have enjoyed the biggest increases amid mounting disputes over who knew what and when in the mortgage and related markets meltdown. /Content/Videos/2008-05-21/190508Mitra on Legal Offshoring.flvf9018228-267d-11dd-82aa-000b5dabf613.flv

Their business has seen a “more than 100% increase”, says Sanjay Kamlani, co-chief executive of Mumbai-based Pangea3 Llc., which does US litigation support business. “We had planned for that kind of growth spread throughout the year, but we didn’t anticipate that kind of growth in the first quarter.”

One driver for increased business is the generic pressure for companies in a slowdown to cut costs, including in legal departments which don’t generate any revenue.

A technology client of Pangea’s, for example, recently requested the firm to double its dedicated staff of India-educated lawyers—bringing the total to 10—because it didn’t want to hire any new attorneys in the US.

Meanwhile, as the economy slumps, the number of lawsuits typically go up. “Arguably everyone gets more litigious in a recession,” says Kamlani. “A combination of the cost pressure on in-house counsel coupled with the tendency for litigation in the US to increase in recessionary times, (leads to a) substantial increase in litigation support.”

Pangea is not alone in seeing a business windfall.

“The same firms that wouldn’t take our calls six months ago are now coming to us,” says Paul Mandell, president of US operations for legal process outsourcing provider Clutch Group. “We’ve seen a dramatic shift that came along with the subprime mess.”

In the past few months, Pangea has picked up work on 12 new lawsuits and doubled its staff size in litigation support to 100. Clutch, which has seen a 25% boost in its litigation support business, won work from an information technology company that picked up a “sizeable” document review from its domestic law firm and offshored it wholesale, according to Mandell.

The legal outsourcing market in India is still a baby compared to other offshore models; 2006 revenues stood at $146 million, and are projected to hit around $640 million (Rs677.73 crore then) by 2010, according to an industry report by Valuenotes Database Pvt. Ltd. But LPOs are still bucking the trend of their sibling offshorers. Outsourcing analysts say that, while business process outsourcing firms haven’t experienced any major impact in terms of a slowdown, customers are hesitant about their offshoring budgets.

“What we see is most clients are in a phase of ‘decision pause’,” says Sabyasachi Satyaprasad, a senior director at the outsourcing advisory firm NeoIT. “They are waiting to see if there is an economic downturn before making outsourcing decisions.”

In the case of law firms, necessity and a growing familiarity with the industry are forcing them to warm up. When a Fortune 500 oil and gas company told its law firm in the US to use Pangea on a document review project, the law firm held a two-week “strike” in protest. By the time Pangea finished the review three weeks later, according to Kamlani, the firm hired Pangea to continue working on the case.

US law firms also have begun approaching LPOs to jointly pitch for new business. “Law firms are saying, ‘Clutch Group, we want to partner with you, we can partner to reduce litigation costs,’” claims Clutch CEO Abhi Shah. “Now law firms are seeing this as a strategic advantage and can use it to drive their business.”

But, pressure from clients—the only reason legal offshoring shops could take off in the first place—still forces some law firms to make the switch. One of Clutch’s onshore law firm clients initially rejected the idea of sending any work to India. After costs spiralled and the client pushed, the firm moved about half of the work—worth around $2 million—to India.

A Pangea client dumped its law firm and switched to one that was more comfortable with using offshore lawyers, claims Kamlani. “Just yesterday, we had the general counsel of a leading Silicon Valley company here,” he says. “They always ask: ‘Who are the law firms who work well with outsourcing?’”

Courtesy - Aruna Viswanatha, Livemint

Social Media Releases In Action

Courtesy - Brian Solis, PR 2.0 

I recently ran "The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases," which has received some great feedback. Thank you everyone!

Even though it's a blog post, it doesn't mean that its shelf life is merely limited to the brief period of time in between new posts. I'd like it to live on and evolve over time as we learn more about SMRs. And, you're a big part of that evolution.

I was planning on letting that post sit up there for the week, until I received an incredible comment yesterday from Steve Kayser. It's worth spotlighting and sharing as its own post as he has done what many have been asking for, present a real world case study of the effectiveness of Social Media Releases across various wire services.

It's nothing short of insightful, and most importantly, it will serve as a guide when considering how and where to distribute SMRs.
As you know, my favorite distribution method is creating, hosting, and channeling a new breed of SMRs through customized blog platform. While it sounds complicated, it really isn't. And it perfectly complements a traditional wire release by providing comprehensive and consistent findability and visibility across traditional search and blog (social media) search engines and also social networks.
Please note, if you haven't yet read the previous post, please do so prior to reading this.
Without further ado, here is Steve Kayser's report on Social Media Releases in action...

----

Hey Brian:
Nice post. A lot of great points.

As to the question you posed:

And, is this what reporters and bloggers really want and do we really need them?

Are SMRs created for journalists and bloggers and is it what they want?

I was asked this question last week by a marketing manager after having released three test SMR’s. Here’s my answer to the question you posed – and a point.

I care – but not too much.

If you deal in a “complex sale” environment (which we do), a high-dollar product or solution sale (usually over $150,000) requiring buyer evaluation committees, made up of 10-21 people of different functional business groups, it’s more important to make sure our news and content value is “Findable” for those people on the committees when they begin their due diligence. The ‘user”, the “IT person” the “business manager,” “Business decision-maker,” Legal, HR, etc., etc., all have their own unique and specific information needs, which by default includes specific language and terms they use to search for (keywords – key phrases etc.). Sure we want journalists and bloggers to have whatever they need to write their story. We want to be a trusted and valued source. But ... no begging or buying is going to happen for them to write about us. No time for that. The hierarchy has changed. Now for us is - first the buyer’s information needs – then the bloggers, media, analysts, etc.

To stay competitive in the tech industry today you have to be

• Findable
• Believable
• Credible
• Prove Value

... just to get into consideration for the complex sale.

Once you’re findable, believable, credible, then you have to prove value – quickly. The SMR is a great tool to help promote those goals. Most buying committees have their researchers start due diligence on the web. Our internal research shows over 93% of our B2B buyers do it that way.

The SMNR helps us be more “findable.”

That’s good. But it also needs to be well-written because a well-written SMR can help us be “believable.” The opposite is also true. Poorly written corporate gobbledygook (to your point in this post) can make you look incredibly unbelievable. Which negates you ever getting into the due diligence buying process. However, good writing is not as easy to do anymore as a lot of folks out there think. (It’s complex to write simple these days.)

“Credible” follows after they do more research. Or not.

MARKETWIRE SMR

I tested Marketwire’s SMNR last week on a Smalltalk Application Development Language press release.

Now ... it’s not great, not brilliant, not a literary piece in any stretch of the imagination, but it’s functional, having included some of the keywords/key phrases for this product group’s audience in the title/subtitle and first 100 words. It’s a highly niche and passionate community.

A U.S. SMR VIEW

Costs:

My view (from the U.S.) is that costs for SMR’s are relatively high. The ability to include the additional informational in the release via the related links section that ads value, ups the word count – which ups the cost because after the first 400 words almost all wire services typically charge you $1.00 a word (or somewhere close).

Multi-media assets:

Being a tech SMB – with a couple hundred million in revenue and producing about 100 press releases or so a year in the US – having video/audio assets available for SMR’s from all the product groups becomes a constant challenge. The marketing and product managers almost have to be evangelists/zealots and do a lot of the video and photos themselves. Some are hip to it. Others resist it like the plague. And, the more video / images / multi-media you do use -- the more the cost goes up.

But having said all that, Marketwire's release delivered exceptional results for us. It got pulled into a lot of our target pubs. It was visually and graphically appealing. The live links in the webosphere section started slowly then gradually grew and continue to do so. I think over 10,000 links now. Google keeps on building, “Live” keeps on building, Yahoo actually started higher (79 links) then declined. It has now shrunk to 1 link. I think that's because their news algorithm churns them into the archive – but I’m not sure about that.

One thing I really liked -- the “comments” section. It was valuable and eye-opening. Comments on a press release valuable? Yes. Several had in-depth insights, past experience comments with the product and questions about the future direction. A lot of the questions were about the topic of the press release – but I had probably 20 emails questioning me about the format of the release itself, which was interesting. But it also caused me more work. I had to write an explanation about the new format for our internal employees, detailing the components and the value of the new format. Then I had to send it to marketing, product and pre/post sales managers that weren't involved in the tests.

Many warmly received it.

Many didn’t.

One great comrade-in-arms, when describing the mindset that did not warmly receive the message and is leery of change, sent me a quote from a Mel Brooks movie – I can’t remember the movie, but do remember the quote.

“It looks dangerous Master … you go first.”

EUROPEAN VIEW

I also used Webitpr.com in the UK last week for a different SMR about a Healthcare Software Application.

First of all, Webitpr.com is a great company to work with. They’re on top of it – especially monitoring the blogosphere. I met them through, of all things, a blog posting on PR-Squared’s blog about the SMR. They saw the posting, responded to me about the content of the post in a courteous, non-obtrusive professional manner and now we're setting up an overseas account with them. Actually released two English press releases and one German press release over the last several weeks. Adam Parker, Jonathan Dolby, Stephen Davies, -- super service. They knock it out quick, -- use the SHIFT template pretty much – have a different distribution reach, but very effective. I think they’re going to be a major player in this field. Hope so anyway. It’s nice to work with people who are passionate, positive and proactive. Cost is competitive, but the U.S. dollar decline might pinch them a bit.

TRACKING ISSUES

Marketwire SMR’s don’t show up on our reporting dashboard like a typical MW release does. This will cause me (and other PR folks who use Marketwire) some issues trying to reconcile cost/value metrics for upper management. The webosphere link tracking is excellent though. Might even have to create a couple new metrics. Something along the lines of “number of comments, actions or emails” on the PR. I’m not sure yet, but we need to be able to prove the value of our PR efforts. I know this is new ground being plowed – but once the seeds are planted eventually some crops better come up.

WEBITPR.com does have tracking that I can easily append to my other tracking efforts - I use VocusPR for tracking and Marketwire as our main distribution service. WEBITPR’s tracking is easy to view, understand, use and pretty cool to boot. The guys over the pond have done a nice job of building their offering. Pretty impressive actually. Hats off to them.

SMR CHALLENGES

One of the major challenges I see though is downstream distribution. The way these SMR’s are rendered and displayed. They are ripped up and displayed in a gazillion different ways. Almost every news site displays the SMR differently. The best you can hope for right now I guess is to get it right where you have control – like for example, Marketwire – or Webitpr – or whatever your distribution vendor happens to be.

However, though seemingly a small issue, “downstream display and rendering” I guarantee you this question will come up when cost-justifying the SMR to internal budget committees - “Why do it if doesn’t get rendered or displayed the correct way. Isn’t that a waste of money?” So, be prepared to cost justify with results.

Few examples:

Yahoo does okay - renders graphics – but no video.

MSNBC – images and video at bottom.

IMPORTANT NOTE

PRXBuilder.com was the best.

And there’s a reason for that.

I developed all my SMR’s on PRXBUILDER first and then uploaded them. Shannon Whitley at PRXBUILDER is superb to work with. Knowledgeable, helpful, courteous, goes the extra step. His PRXBuilder tool can really help people get their minds around the SMR concept easily and quickly. It’s simple, easy-to-use and you can be up and running in a few minutes with it. Plus, it gives me the ability to use the same press release content and deliver it in 4 different formats

• Traditional Release
• Social Media Release
• Multi-media Release
• New Media Release

This is helpful as we gradually ramp up use of the SMR format – I can still do it the old way if need be for some recipients who need it in different formats.It would be great if Marketwire accepted the PRX Format. I know PRNewswire accepts it – but they’re a little pricey right now for this type release.

Thanks for your post Brian.

Great work as always.

Best,

Steve Kayser

------
Steve, thank you very much for taking the time to document your experiences. I believe that it will only help guide marketing and PR professionals as they look to navigate the murky and unchartered waters of Social Media. I look forward to your future experiments.

social media media2.0 media+2.0 2.0 pr2.0 pr public+relations communications publicity promotion marketing social+media+release socialmediarelease smr smpr hrlease press+release news+release media+release google yahoo technorati blogpulse webitpr prxbuilder msnbc todd+defren shannon+whitley steve+kayser

Gartner: Top 30 offshore locations for 2008

India might not be the only country that comes to mind when considering outsourcing work overseas, according to Gartner, which Tuesday unveiled its list of the top 30 leading locations for offshore services in 2008.

India might not be the only country that comes to mind when considering outsourcing work overseas, according to Gartner, which Tuesday unveiled its list of the top 30 leading locations for offshore services in 2008.

Countries such as Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand could take the some of the spotlight off India as the offshore industry darling, according to the research firm, but India remains in the list of leading locations. The location selection is a key factor companies need to consider when thinking of sending work overseas, Gartner says, and the city they choose will impact the success of the offshore engagement.

"Whether you have a country-led or vendor-led approach to offshore services, you must understand the offshore location landscape," according to a presentation by Gartner research vice president Ian Marriott.

Gartner evaluated 30 countries in three world regions that could address enterprise companies' outsourcing needs. Considering 10 key criteria, Gartner scored the potential of numerous cities to provide the right mix of English language proficiency, local government support, infrastructure and technical considerations such as data security and privacy. The research firm released the data at its Outsourcing & Vendor Management Summit it is hosting in Washington, D.C., this week.

Gartner indicated Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay as the key locations within the Americas. In the Asia/Pacific region, Gartner listed Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Gartner selected Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Northern Ireland, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine.

The 10 criteria Gartner used to rate countries ranged from language proficiency and availability, including written and verbal competency, to the local government support of offshore business to the potential labor pool available in the country. The infrastructure of the country including roads, rail service, air travel and ports into and around the country is also a key consideration, and the quality of the country's educational systems were also considered in Gartner's evaluation.

Costs of labor and other compensation, real estate and other considerations such as labor rate should be considered, as well as the political and economical environment, Gartner says. Companies considering offshore services must also consider cultural compatibility and the global and legal maturity of the country they choose to locate offshore services. And lastly, Gartner says data and intellectual property security and privacy must be considered from the effectiveness of legislation around data protection and privacy as well as the country's enforcement of such legislation.

"Determine which vendors are the right fit for your organization," Marriott advises in his presentation. "Don't just seek the leaders."

Courtesy - IDG

Guided Selling and Product Configurator Available with Cincom Acquire

Cincom Acquire helps complex manufacturers create effective sales configuration

Worldwide software provider Cincom Systems announces that its Guided Selling and Product Configurator is the first component to be made available of its new enterprise sales portal software, Cincom Acquire^TM (http://www.cincom.com/acquire). Cincom Acquire is the leading enterprise sales portal solution for companies that sell complex products and services. It is designed to fill the gaps in traditional CRM- and ERP-based systems such as guided selling, channel and distributor collaboration, sales and product configuration, quotation and proposal management, project and bid management, and contract and order management.

Cincom Acquire’s Guided Selling and Product Configuration component enables complex manufacturers to capture and deliver critical application, product, pricing, and process knowledge to the point of sale in real time—ensuring the optimal fit between manufacturers’ product offerings and customers’ needs.

Specifically, it provides:

• Opportunity management
• Customer needs analysis
• Guided selling and specification
• Product and service configuration
• Quotation and proposal management
• Proposal and document generation
• Rule-based pricing
• Detailed cost and margin analysis
• Order submission
• Workflow automation

Cincom Acquire has helped manufacturers selling complex engineer-to-order or configure-to-order products successfully streamline their sales, design, and proposal processes by delivering critical product and sales knowledge to the point of sale, while significantly reducing “quote to cash” time. Cincom has helped manufacturers reduce proposal generation time from five days to 15 minutes, decrease time to close a sale by 80 percent, and cut lead times from 14 weeks to six weeks.

Built on the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server architecture, Cincom Acquire makes use of the Microsoft tools that employees use every day such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Project. It also easily integrates with “out-of-the-box” Microsoft Dynamics CRM and other Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems.

Cincom Acquire’s Guided Selling and Product Configurator component is also available as a stand-alone product (marketed as Cincom’s Sales Configurator™) with specialized versions that integrate easily with certain SAP, Salesforce.com and Microsoft products.

Cincom Acquire was nominated for Microsoft’s 2008 Office Business Application of the Year.

Today’s announcement was made at the Cincom Cinergize 2008 customer conference. For more information about Cincom’s products and solutions for complex manufacturers, visit http://www.cincom.com/manufacturing.

Strategies for Quickly Building an Audience with Social Media

Easy Web 2.0 Internet Marketing:

The Web 2.0 social media revolution is in full steam. Are people finding your website?

As an entrepreneur, how do you make your business website stand out among 435 million other websites and more than one million blogs competing for your audience's attention?

It's not as hard as you might think.

To begin, let's look at the demographics of Web 2.0 social networking sites, Myspace.com, Facebook and YouTube.com. This will give you an idea on how to position your message in the Web 2.0 world.

The Web 2.0 Social Networking Revolution

Web 2.0 is a real revolution on the Internet. And these aren't just college kids.

• 62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25 (40% are 35+), and 83% are making over $30,000 a year. Nineteen percent (19%) are making $100,000 and up.
• On Facebook.com, 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+, but they've got deep pockets. Eighty-eight percent (88%) make more than $30,000 and twenty-three percent (23%) make $100,000 or more.

In the years ahead, these numbers will get ridiculous.

• Social media giant Facebook is currently ADDING a million 25+ (non-student) adults per week to their rosters. That's 52 million new users a year.
• YouTube.com gets over 50 million unique visitors per month. That equals over half a billion a year.
• Facebook and MySpace have the equal daily traffic of Google. Experts predict within the next year they will DOUBLE the daily traffic of Google search.

So your prospects are there. The traffic is there. The spending power is there. So NOW is the time you want to establish your presence on the social networking websites.

Web 2.0 Strategy: Why You Should Be a Maven, Not a Marketer

• As a website owner, how should you position your message in the Web 2.0 world?
• The increasingly savvy buying public will quickly shun marketers. Internet readers want information from the Internet. They don't want advertising, marketing, or a “pitch.”
• According to Schefren in his “Attention Age Doctrine,” the solution is to become a social media “Maven.”
• A Maven is a trusted authority, like a friend, on the social media websites. As you gain their trust, your audience will return to you over and over again wanting to invest in your advice.

Five Steps to Becoming a Social Media Maven

• Social Media Maven Step 1: Get in the Game - Begin blogging immediately. Create a video explaining how to solve a problem and put it on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook with links back to your main website. Just those two things alone will establish more Web 2.0 presence than 90% of your competition.
• Social Media Maven Step 2: Share Your Passion -Build your Web 2.0 website around your passions. Thirty-two-year-old Gary Vaynerchuk transformed his wine knowledge to his video blog, http://Tv.Winelibrary.com. It now has thousands of subscribers and does $50 million a year in wine sales.
• Social Media Maven Step 3: Be Controversial - Your audience will remember you more when you challenge the status quo. Controversy sells. Think like the tabloids and the local news channels here. For example, Web 2.0 Business Coach Rich Schefren challenges traditional marketing wisdom in each release of his Attention Age Doctrine special reports at http://www.attentionage.net/doctrine.
• Social Media Maven Step 4: Create World-Class Content -  You will drive repeat traffic to your website by offering top-notch “how to” information. Gary's wine tastings are highly educational on the benefits of wine, how to cook with wine, and how to choose a wine for your special occasion. Rich's reports teach Web 2.0 marketing principles. Remember, as soon as your audience feels that you are “pitching” them, you've lost them. So provide content not advertising.
• Social Media Maven Step 5: Engage in the Conversation - Web 2.0 is a dialogue not a monologue. Internet businesses profit more when they observe and listen to their communities first before they broadcast their messages. Savvy mavens such as Gary and Rich encourage their audience to ask questions. The answers to these questions then become part of their user-generated content.

How Marketing in a Web 2.0 Social Media Environment Is Exciting 

• Visualize it like a big radio or television station or movie screen where you're the star. You're building a fan base so you need to entertain, inform, and deliver consistently for your audience.
• You have more publishing power at your fingertips right now than at any time in history.
• So use it.
• Share your passions.
• Reveal your trials and tribulations.
• Tell your story.
• And, watch how quickly your audience builds.

About the Author:

Master Copywriter, Gary Smith (www.rightbraincopy.com) has taught thousands of entrepreneurs how to write copy that persuades, motivates and inspires prospects to buy. He strongly suggests using Web 2.0 Internet Marketing Strategies revealed in Richard Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine. Get it now for FREE at: http://www.attentionage.com/doctrine and discover never-before-revealed Web 2.0 tools and techniques to win in the Attention Age.

Courtesy - Gary Smith, Expert Access

It’s just a wake up call for the IT industry

It would be pessimist and unfair to assume that we could no longer be the greatest providers of outsourced software services for the world. The industry simply needs to evolve to grow into a bigger industry with larger targets. At the same time, the country needs to prepare as a whole to provide an appreciable environment to overseas customers.

The country is fretting over what seems to be a not-so-bright-future for the Indian IT industry. For those making the bucks, India’s fairytale story can’t seem to go bust so soon. And it might not. Yes, the IT industry is being met with serious challenges that it needs to address immediately. But the good news is there is still a chance and all we need is to prepare for the future. Going by the past trends, the IT industry has always seen it ups and downs. Concluding anything on the Indian IT ITeS industry would be premature. A recent interview with NASSCOM president Som Mittal, in which he stated that the IT sector expects to meet or even exceed its software export target of $ 60 billion and overall software and services revenue goal of $ 73-75 billion by 2010. So dismissing these numbers would not be appropriate.

However there are surly certain issues that require a thought or considerations. On the surface, there seems to be a downturn in India’s bright and booming IT industry. To start with, there is the appreciating rupee against the Dollar. The Indian rupee has strengthened 15% against the Dollar the last one year. But America being the primary provider of outsourced business to India’s IT companies, their dipping economy fares trouble for companies here.

Another twist to this tale is the reduced spending on IT services by American companies as their economy slows down. Not only has this caused a drop in the rate of salary hikes and hiring, American firms are also passing on and creating lesser work for Indian’s IT companies. As the bulk of work lessens, India being the largest provider of low-cost outsourced services, the impact is reflected surely and poorly.

As Infosys Chief Mentor and Non-Executive Chairman Narayan Murthy has constantly pointed out, another bottleneck the Indian IT space faces is India’s clogged infrastructure. Any foreigner, who steps down at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi or the Bengaluru International Airport for the first time, will not get the best first impression. For a country that opened its doors for other countries almost a decade back, there is poor development.

Our airports need serious makeovers. Let’s hope the new ones will provide the extraordinary experience that a visitor deserves. If you walk down the road from Bangalore’s airport to the city’s best-known hotel Leela, the traffic and pollution are stifling. Similarly, if you land at Delhi or Mumbai’s international airports, there is nothing welcoming about them yet. The efforts are on, but it needs speed and urgency. Or we are bound to lose work to competitors like China, Eastern Europe and Russia, who not only provide low-cost services but also better propriety. With new fiscal budget awaited in near time I would advocate for policies that would aid to sustain the India IT shining story. The Government will also need to look in continuing the tax holiday to smaller STPs beyond 2009

Competitors are another major threat to Indian’s IT industry. While the industry might not be as organized in countries like Russia and China, they are on their way. And they are also producing quality engineers, comparable to India. Even countries in central Europe are not very far from achieving what we have been bloating over. Emergence of these countries in the IT space has already started impacting our client’s preferences and margins.

India needs to stabilize the way IT firms are working. The talent is there but we still fall short of the demand. If we want to continue supplying work to firms abroad, we need sufficient talent within the nation to meet the demand. Engineers don’t simply need to provide outsourced services that mainly involve testing services. If the industry wants to survive, it will need to train professionals to do substantial tasks that will help firms move up the value chain.

Even companies that are outsourcing work to us now want to pass on more evolved work to India. They will soon be automated and we will be forced to take on other work. We need to prepare our systems and professionals for a future that involves different work like developing systems and solutions for foreign clients including diversifying in the various other geographical regions. Companies like TCS and Infosys have taken the clue and are already undertaking work that will help them grow from a service provider to a policy enhancer with larger foot print. Besides, the kind of outsourcing services we are providing right now might become redundant very soon.

At the same time, despite what the scenario looks like, salaries are being hiked at tremendous rates. Salaries of those higher up in the ranks is soon likely to match of those in the United States. This is not a positive sign for the low-wage advantage that we currently offer. Cost arbitrage may very soon not be considered as a differential factor but a hygiene one.

Fortunately, this is not the end of the story. So far, Indian companies have been providing peripheral work to foreign firms. But times are a changing and any IT firm that wants to keep evolving at the same rate will have to grow to be able to provide higher margin work like consulting. We need to the move up the value chain to sustain the advantage that we are currently offering to the world. In the recent NASSCOM leadership forum there was a great talk or recommendation to the India IT ITeS company to move up the value chain to sustain the competitive advantage.

With annual growth rates of nearly 30% in the past ten years, Indian IT industry has been resting in peace. We have provided a bulk of talent and spearheaded some of the greatest software development any country has provided. The stats for future does looks encouraging provided the industry works together to over come the hurdle to reverse the IT down turn. It’s time to gear up. If we don’t change, and fast, we may very well be headed for a fall.

The fundamental business model of Indian IT industry of earn is $$ dollar and spend in rupees would prevail in the coming years with amendments of Earn in Yen, Euro, Pound, Dollar…..and spend in Rupees based upon cohort effort of the industry and industry + government.

How to Get Prospects to Choose You

Market Your Business Like a Bottle of Pomegranate Juice

by Financial Advisor Coach, Jim Dew MBA, ChFC

Do you own a business like the financial-adviser industry where …

• We all sell the same products. 
• We all sell them for the same price. 
• We all offer our clients good service. 
• We all have a good handle on how to help our clients best.

So how do we get a prospect to choose us over someone else?

How to Get Prospects to Choose You

Well, we can all take a great lesson from how billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick marketed over 100 acres of unwanted pomegranates.  All the way up to 2002, pomegranates were rarely eaten in the US.  Less than one in 20 people had ever bought a pomegranate, and most of those people used them for decorations instead of eating them.

So the Resnicks had a problem ...

they had lots of a fruit that very few people wanted. 

So what did they do? 

They created a fantastic USP. 

Five years ago, they began selling their pomegranates as juice in unique double-bulb bottles, at four dollars a bottle.  It was a smash hit! They took a fruit from utter obscurity to charging four dollars a bottle and had people buying it by the case.

How?

They simply did their homework.  They framed the pomegranate juice as the healthiest drink available to the US public.  I don't know if you've tasted it, but the stuff is awful.

The Resnicks flooded the market with information about how healthy pomegranate juice is.  It cures heart disease, ED and more. You name it. Pomegranates cure it.  It became the new, must-have "super food." 

So what can you learn from this example?

Go out and give advice that is the completely opposite of what everyone else is providing in your industry?  Yes, if you can.

Unfortunately, that is probably not an option.

For example, the advice the financial industry gives is generally very good advice.  But let's think about this for a second.  All fruits are good for you.  You can find the "super food" characteristics in any type of fruit.  All the Resnicks did with pomegranates was showcase its particular attributes, versus trying to be the "me too" of fruits.
So, here’s what you should be doing now.

How to Find Your Unique Selling Proposition

You need to find the thing that makes you better than your competitors. For example, if you’re a financial planner …

• Maybe you are an expert on "green" funds. 
• Maybe you're an expert on the stocks of companies ran by women. 
• Maybe you understand the need for financial planning for families with special needs.
• Maybe you are an expert on the retirement plans of a large corporation in your city. 
• Maybe you're an expert on Medicare part D.

There's a high likelihood that you are already an expert on a particular topic.  You may not require a whole heck of a lot more research than you've already done.  Sit down and figure out what it is that you know more about, than your competition.

It doesn't matter what it is, just become an expert. 

Three Ways to Become an Expert and Gain Instant Celebrity Status

1. Write articles and submit them to targeted print and online publications. For submitting articles to the top websites, ezines and article directories, I use PR Leads Article Marketing Experts. They also have a great A to Z product that will teach you how to write articles at www.BroadcastYourArticles.com.  

1. Issue press releases to your local papers, radio and TV stations. You can also submit press releases online using services like PublicRelationsSoftware.com.
2. Make sure groups that may be interested in your expertise know that you and your expertise exist.

By being the expert on any issue, you tell your prospects that you are different from your competition.  You give both your clients and prospects something to hold onto—a handhold that describes who you are as a financial planner.

Your Next Steps

Take a hard look at your practice and ask yourself the question, "Why would someone work with me, versus my competitor?" 

If you don't have a very specific answer to this question, you are doomed to mediocrity.  You are always going to be looking for your next client.  You're always going to be spending money on marketing.  You're always going to be losing some of your clients to competitors.

The only way off the gerbil wheel is to become an expert.  When you are an expert, people seek you out rather than you endlessly seeking them out. 

Don’t you think it’s time to make yourself into an expert so you can lock-in your difference and bury your competition?

About the Author
By becoming an expert, Top Financial Advisor Coach, Jim Dew MBA, ChFC, made over $3MM last year helping financial advisors just like you grow their businesses exponentially. Now, you can take his free quiz and receive an individualized report back within 24 hours detailing your strengths and weaknesses.  Then use this report to boost your marketing and profitability to the next level.  Take the quiz now at http://www.300financial.com. 

Courtesy - Expert Access

India Inc Grows Socially Responsible

Corporate Social Responsibility has grown from mere debate to concrete actions on the part of Indian companies. While many are still vacillating between to do or not to do, numerous corporate are willing to give back to society

Every organization has an impact on the society and the environment through its operations, products and services. Also through its interaction with the key stakeholder groups including employees, customers or clients, investors, suppliers and the local community. There was a point in time when emphasis was given to the purely economic aspects of any activity being carried out. But now, issues like environment, ethics and society are given equal emphasis by India Inc.

At the same time, it stands true that it will take a while for many organizations to equate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with value creation. It’s a continuing debate that can continue for as long as one wants. The proponents as well as the critics of CSR are unyielding. The good news is, things are taking a turn for the better.

A growing number of commercial profit makers, who are adding to corporate trash everyday, accept that they can and should manage their social and environmental impacts in ways that benefit both the organization and the wider society. According to N. R. Murthy, non-executive chairman and chief mentor of IT firm Infosys, “Corporate Social Responsibility is really about ensuring that the company can grow on a sustainable basis, while ensuring fairness to all stakeholders”.

Corporate India has done it in different forms. A cement factory in Southern Gujarat planted numerous seedlings atop its chimneys to reduce pollution. This was decades ago. CSR has turned a whole new leaf since. The latest entrants to India Inc., IT companies are also hopping onto the virtuous model. Cincom Systems, for instance, runs an iMAD program with an NGO named Society for Rural Urban & Tribal Initiative (SRUTI).

Talking about iMAD, or I Made a Difference, Cincom director Pantulu Avasarala says, “This association will help both organizations to work closely for the betterment of the society and sustain community empowerment. We accentuate the power of helping others internal or external to the company”. As part of this initiative, Cincom has already donated 15 computers to schools operated by SRUTI for underprivileged children living in slums and backward areas.

According to a study released by Oracle Corporation and the Economist Intelligence Unit, 85 percent of executives and investors rank corporate responsibility as a central consideration in investment decisions. This trend, it said, is being driven by factors like the erosion of trust in large corporations, the globalization of business, the corporate-governance movement, the rise in importance of socially responsible funds and sheer competitive pressures. The last factor, however, does not necessarily imply that firms emphasizing Corporate Responsibility will beat the competition.

CSR brings about intangible benefits such as brand value and greater investor confidence. But one cannot measure what benefits it adds to the balance sheet. On the contrary, there are costs associated with CSR that can very well be calculated. Reports say that a full-fledged Corporate Responsibility program at a large multinational can cost tens of millions of dollars, or as much as 2% of total revenue.

It is often believed that evolved economies have moved the more polluted industries to parts of the world where environmental and social standards are less stringent. Simultaneously, enthusiastic supporters of free markets debate that an organization should not turn away from its primary goal which is responsibility to shareholders and so they should not be thinking of wider good but should think only about their profits.

In his book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman argues that, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

Critics feel that advocates of CSR are wrong in implying that there is something shameful about companies making profits. They feel the conviction that redemption lies only in these companies also being a moral “corporate citizen”, is incorrect. They propound that CSR moves companies away from their primary aim of making profits, throwing global capitalism out of gear with increased regulation and sundry costs to eventually burden stakeholders worldwide.

Corporate Responsibility is difficult to pin down in a company’s growth cycle, more so because it costs a bomb and there don’t seem any immediate returns. This could also explain why the most important stakeholders, after customers, are the traditionally important employees and shareholders.

With no real studies conducted on CSR, it is also difficult to notify exactly what standards a company should follow and how far they should go beyond the laws to claim beneficiaries to the society. What we really mean by “responsibility” is still under debate. There lies the biggest problem. It’s at the discretion of companies what they want to do and how they want to go about this intangible mode of value creation. Or if they care to venture there at all.

The punch of the debate is that the negative effects industries have on the environment we breathe in cannot be denied. It is true that they are constantly depleting natural resources and contributing to environmental hazards like pollution and global warming. Fossil fuels are said to contribute to global warming, and there is both governmental and societal pressure on corporations to adhere to stricter environmental standards. It might as well that they give back to the environment in some form. Fortunately, there is no denying that CSR has become an important issue facing the global business community and one that promises to grow in importance over the coming years.

While it is fair to say that unnecessary intrusion into a corporate’s working can harm the benefits it accrues to society by means of wealth creation, it is also true that companies need to return something as an entity by itself. Companies have long been criticized for the disruption they cause to the environment. It is time they value what they have and give back to society, some bit in return

Cincom Delivers Suite for Customer Experience Management

If you will pardon me for bragging just a bit on one of the products that I work on, Ventana Research has just released a review of Cincom Synchrony. This is the latest in a string of positive awards and reviews that at least give me personal satisfaction that we are providing a solution that improves the experience for customers who connect with contact centers using our offering.

Ventana Research reported: At the heart of Synchrony is what Cincom calls a unified agent desktop. Its basic function is to bring all applications into a single desktop.

Cincom's Unified Agent Desktop saves agents from having to sign on separately to multiple applications and from manually navigating through menus or across applications. By hiding these interfaces, smart tabs and resource links allow agents to concentrate more on their jobs.

To read the full Ventana report on how Cincom Synchrony makes it easier for contact center agents to serve customer needs and to deliver a better customer experience -- click here.

To see first-hand how Synchrony enables agents to improve contact center productivity.

If you would like to receive some of the marketing campaigns I help create for Synchrony, send me an email and I will put you on our list.

By Dale Wolf, Perfect CEM

Technorati Tags: contact center,Customer Experience,unified agent desktop,Ventana Research

It’s just a wake up call for the IT industry

It would be pessimist and unfair to assume that we could no longer be the greatest providers of outsourced software services for the world. The industry simply needs to evolve to grow into a bigger industry with larger targets. At the same time, the country needs to prepare as a whole to provide an appreciable environment to overseas customers.

The country is fretting over what seems to be a not-so-bright-future for the Indian IT industry. For those making the bucks, India’s fairytale story can’t seem to go bust so soon. And it might not. Yes, the IT industry is being met with serious challenges that it needs to address immediately. But the good news is there is still a chance and all we need is to prepare for the future. Going by the past trends, the IT industry has always seen it ups and downs. Concluding anything on the Indian IT | ITeS industry would be premature. A recent interview with NASSCOM president Som Mittal, in which he stated that the IT sector expects to meet or even exceed its software export target of $ 60 billion and overall software and services revenue goal of $ 73-75 billion by 2010. So dismissing these numbers would not be appropriate.

However there are surly certain issues that require a thought or considerations. On the surface, there seems to be a downturn in India’s bright and booming IT industry. To start with, there is the appreciating rupee against the Dollar. The Indian rupee has strengthened 15% against the Dollar the last one year. But America being the primary provider of outsourced business to India’s IT companies, their dipping economy fares trouble for companies here.

Another twist to this tale is the reduced spending on IT services by American companies as their economy slows down. Not only has this caused a drop in the rate of salary hikes and hiring, American firms are also passing on and creating lesser work for Indian’s IT companies. As the bulk of work lessens, India being the largest provider of low-cost outsourced services, the impact is reflected surely and poorly.

As Infosys Chief Mentor and Non-Executive Chairman Narayan Murthy has constantly pointed out, another bottleneck the Indian IT space faces is India’s clogged infrastructure. Any foreigner, who steps down at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi or the Bengaluru International Airport for the first time, will not get the best first impression. For a country that opened its doors for other countries almost a decade back, there is poor development.

Our airports need serious makeovers. Let’s hope the new ones will provide the extraordinary experience that a visitor deserves. If you walk down the road from Bangalore’s airport to the city’s best-known hotel Leela, the traffic and pollution are stifling. Similarly, if you land at Delhi or Mumbai’s international airports, there is nothing welcoming about them yet. The efforts are on, but it needs speed and urgency. Or we are bound to lose work to competitors like China, Eastern Europe and Russia, who not only provide low-cost services but also better propriety. With new fiscal budget awaited in near time I would advocate for policies that would aid to sustain the India IT shining story. The Government will also need to look in continuing the tax holiday to smaller STPs beyond 2009

Competitors are another major threat to Indian’s IT industry. While the industry might not be as organized in countries like Russia and China, they are on their way. And they are also producing quality engineers, comparable to India. Even countries in central Europe are not very far from achieving what we have been bloating over. Emergence of these countries in the IT space has already started impacting our client’s preferences and margins.

India needs to stabilize the way IT firms are working. The talent is there but we still fall short of the demand. If we want to continue supplying work to firms abroad, we need sufficient talent within the nation to meet the demand. Engineers don’t simply need to provide outsourced services that mainly involve testing services. If the industry wants to survive, it will need to train professionals to do substantial tasks that will help firms move up the value chain.

Even companies that are outsourcing work to us now want to pass on more evolved work to India. They will soon be automated and we will be forced to take on other work. We need to prepare our systems and professionals for a future that involves different work like developing systems and solutions for foreign clients including diversifying in the various other geographical regions. Companies like TCS and Infosys have taken the clue and are already undertaking work that will help them grow from a service provider to a policy enhancer with larger foot print. Besides, the kind of outsourcing services we are providing right now might become redundant very soon.

At the same time, despite what the scenario looks like, salaries are being hiked at tremendous rates. Salaries of those higher up in the ranks is soon likely to match of those in the United States. This is not a positive sign for the low-wage advantage that we currently offer. Cost arbitrage may very soon not be considered as a differential factor but a hygiene one.

Fortunately, this is not the end of the story. So far, Indian companies have been providing peripheral work to foreign firms. But times are a changing and any IT firm that wants to keep evolving at the same rate will have to grow to be able to provide higher margin work like consulting. We need to the move up the value chain to sustain the advantage that we are currently offering to the world. In the recent NASSCOM leadership forum there was a great talk or recommendation to the India IT | ITeS company to move up the value chain to sustain the competitive advantage.

With annual growth rates of nearly 30% in the past ten years, Indian IT industry has been resting in peace. We have provided a bulk of talent and spearheaded some of the greatest software development any country has provided. The stats for future does looks encouraging provided the industry works together to over come the hurdle to reverse the IT down turn. It’s time to gear up. If we don’t change, and fast, we may very well be headed for a fall.

The fundamental business model of Indian IT industry of earn is $$ dollar and spend in rupees would prevail in the coming years with amendments of Earn in Yen, Euro, Pound, Dollar…..and spend in Rupees based upon cohort effort of the industry and industry + government.

Business Intelligence - Business Growth Enabler

The BI space in India is witnessing an interesting change. In addition to the conventional industries that are heavy users of BI technology (i.e. IT, banking, telecom and manufacturing), new areas such as retail and financial services are also keen to adopt BI. In fact, today we find several small and mid-sized retailers, brokerage firms, pharmaceutical companies, and financial services companies, evaluating BI needs for their operations. This apart, the market is also expanding to Government agencies that have now started adopting BI to manage spend, gain visibility into progress made and tracking internal processes and performances—all aimed at serving citizens better, cutting costs and exceeding organizational goals.

Gartner predicts Business Intelligence (BI) software revenue for the Asia-Pacific region to reach $399 million this year, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.5 percent to hit $577.6 million in 2011. India has been the fastest growing BI platforms market in Asia (including Japan). It posted a growth of 35.6 percent in 2005-06—from $12.1 million in 2005 to reach $16.4 million in 2006. All these figures are indicative of the significance of BI for organizations across sectors.

Moreover, in recent years, companies have invested in transactional systems like ERP, CRM, HCM and SCM—to run various parts of the business. These systems generate and capture enormous amounts of data, creating an opportunity for greater insight into business performance.

George Varghese, General Manager, Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and BI, Oracle India, revealed that BI is regarded as the number one priority for CIOs across Asia Pacific as BI and EPM enables the management to link strategy to plans and execution, monitor financial and operational results against goals, and apply analytics to drive enterprise-wide performance improvement.

SMBs too produce tons of data, but lack the kind of analytic capabilities that would enable them to use data to make decisions, and they are hunting for affordable BI.

BI trends

From a trends perspective, organizations today are looking to institute more reliable and accurate processes for monitoring and managing performance both from a strategic and an operational perspective. IDC observes that successful implementations of business performance management (BPM) solutions such as consolidation and budgeting also include a robust BI strategy to integrate and deliver quality information.

Joyer Mascarenhas, VP, Asia Pacific and Japan Professional Services, Cognos stated, “One cannot deliver full BPM solutions without BI, and SOA is an underlying technology through which BPM is delivered seamlessly to the user community. This makes BI a crucial component in BPM and SOA.”

Pallavi Kathuria, Director, Server Business Group, Microsoft India, revealed another interesting market trend for reasons like faster decision-making and better performance management—organizations are making appropriate business data available and visible to all employees at every level rather than just the top management. Therefore, today BI deployments and usage is spreading broadly across organizations rather than being restricted to the top management.

Solution-based focus

Organizations also find it problematic to deal with different vendors, consequently the latter are moving from tools-based focus to a solutions-based focus.

M&A in the BI product space may make companies align with specific tools and technologies. The main reason behind this is that companies may want to align with the product vendor’s BI vision to get ample vendor support in product upgrades, product enhancement and availability of trained resources to implement the solutions. “However, there will continue to be companies who will support best of breed BI architecture to make the most of the individual strength of specific point BI tools for reporting, data integration, analytics, mining and making scorecards,” stated Ramanan R V, Head of Global Delivery and Chief Software Architect, Hexaware Technologies.

Ashit Panjwani, Director-Marketing, SAS India mentioned that CIOs today prefer to purchase their BI solution from an independent vendor and not an application or database vendor. He said, “Customers have multiple ERP systems and warehouses like SAP, Oracle E-Business, JD Edwards, Siebel, Peoplesoft, Microsoft, IBM, and Teradata, and they have other data sources such as XML, Excel, and blogs. They also have a mixed bag of infrastructure like portals, security systems and application servers and as they acquire and merge with other companies these scenarios become even more complex. Customers need an independent performance layer that fits into their enterprise infrastructure and that sits on top of all of their applications and data sources.”

Courtesy -  Vinita Gupta, Express Computer