Five thoughts ... one blog

Long time no blog ... been very busy, which is great!

Just wanted to put down some short statements that I always use with clients, colleagues, friends related to the power of information.

1) You can't sell pink basketballs... The fundamental driver of business growth is the quality of your company's value proposition and how authentically (see http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want.html) you execute it. You can build great management methods, execute your operational processes to perfection, use advanced analytics in all parts of your business and do it all for nothing if your customers don't like your value proposition. Great companies deliver great value to their customers. Facing the facts on this one is a hard thing to do.

2) If you want to increase revenue/profit ... start right now... in the words if Nike Corporation "Just Do It". Integrate advanced analytics and your operational processes... you could be a matter of weeks away from top-line/bottom-line growth. Change is scary but the results are worth it. You have a 100% chance of success applying analytic insight. Read the books "Freakonomics, Supercrunchers, Competing on Analytics, Smart Enough systems,....".

3) Companies don't have relationships with their customers. I don't know anyone at the bank, telco, insurance company, retailers I do business with. We don't trade family pictures, vacation... Getting hung up on the terminology of relationship I believe is dangerous. Again, customers seek value propositions. Offering an authentic value proposition is the secret sauce, understanding what customers value and informing them of the value propositions you offer is key. Doing this in a profitable manner is critical. Customer insight ... yes! Creating a great value proposition(s)... yes! Executing brilliantly ... yes! Marketing, promoting and operationally executing your value propositions ... yes! Track the results of your operational processes ... yes! Analyzing your processes to create insight and execute better ... yes! If all these are the definition of a "relationship" then yes! .... but not the dictionary definition of relationship.

4) Stop seeking the silver bullet. Execute your business model. It's boring... you have to work harder... if you're a bank, be a bank (not some high risk investment house), I find it hard to imagine that you could ever lose money being a bank or insurance company. I think executives seek the silver bullet and end up straying from the core business and lose the ability to execute the core business model well. The hamster on the treadmill wins. Always has, always will ...

5) Test and learn ... conduct experiments every day ... measure the results of those experiments and improve your operational processes. The current business paradigm makes operational changes once every decade and rides the process until it fails. Continuous tweaking is the right way... approve 1000 loans randomly, underwrite 1000 policies randomly and see what happens. Build a new loan approval or underwriting model from the results and see if it significantly different than your current model.

That's it for now. Would love your comments...