February 26, 2009

BE DiFFERENT Business Strategy Table of Contents

Section Two - BE DiFFERENT Business Strategy

Section Introduction 49
Dumb It Down 51
How Big Do You Want to Be? 55
Who Do You Want to Serve ? 59
How Will You Compete and Win ? 63
The Strategic Game Plan Statement 67
Dumb It Down: The Execution and Accountability Plan 70
Dumb It Down: Team Workshops 75
Dumb It Down: The Progress Review 78
Focus. Focus. Focus. 80
Cut the Crap 83
Be Anal about Execution 86
Plan on the Run 88
BE DiFFERENT Strategy Roadmap 92
Section Two Learning Points 95

Posted 2.26.09 at 07:24 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 26, 2009

BE DiFFERENT Strategic Imperative Table of Contents

Section One - BE DiFFERENT Strategic Imperative

BE DiFFERENT Context 1
BE DiFFERENT or be dead, There is No Other Choice 15
BE DiFFERENT: Price or Value? 18
The Only Statement: The Birth of Differentiation 22
The Only Statement: Fact or Fiction? 33
Benchmarking: A BE DiFFERENT Enemy 35
Look in Every Nook and Cranny for Your Edge 38
Section One Learning Points 44

Posted 2.26.09 at 07:20 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 20, 2009

Customer Learning Tool - Twitter

In Chapter Twenty Three of my book, I talk about the BE DiFFERENT practice of Customer Learning. In contrast with the more traditional marketing Market research tools, Customer Learning is a continuous process of communicating with and learning from your customers. Its about opening up your organization and letting your customers come in to advise you and guide you in your journey to be successful and survive. Rather than using external research firms to enhance your understanding of what your customers need and expect from you, Customer Learning is treated as a core competency and is not outsourced; employees are active participants in the process.

In my book I outline the many sources a company can use to feed the learning process; the one I want to discuss here is Twitter. Individuals are using Twitter more and more as one of their social networking tools in addition to Facebook, Linkedin, Palaxo and so on. But I am more impressed with Twitter’s capabilities as a Customer Learning tool for businesses and other organizations.
In fact Twitter in my opinion surpasses other in terms of the business application.

Many organizations are now catching on to its value and it is interesting to see which are capitalizing on its Customer Learning power. Organizations such as Ford, Southwest Airlines , Marriott International Hotels and Resorts , the Chicago Bulls NBA team , Starbucks and The Red Cross have ‘twitterers’ activley pursuing a number of exciting learning applications:
- announcing company events
- releasing company news
- taking customer complaints
- receiving customer suggestions for improvement
- responding to customer account enquiries
- solving customer problems
- putting out fires when service breakdowns occur
- communications channel for the organization’s leaders

I have decided to become an active Twitterer and you can follow Roy on Twitter. I am going to use Twitter as a way to keep you all updated on current activities around my book and seminars I am doing. I would welcome your engagement and dialogue with me on the events, book content, your experiences in terms of the topics I raise in my book and on any other matter you want to open for discussion. I f a certain topic garners a lot of interest I would certainly write a more in-depth piece on it and post it on my blog. Cheers, Roy Osing

Posted 2.20.09 at 10:08 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 18, 2009

BE DiFFERENT or be dead: A Student Tutorial

One of my fondest memories is the time I spent presenting to business students what the ‘real world’ of business was like, answering their questions and explaining my views on the value of a business education as one advances their career. My University major was Math and I would always get the question: ‘When did you last have to use a differential equation to solve a business problem?’ Well…. Never!

It has been some time since I had the opportunity to present real business world ideas and concepts to business classes. I hope to change this with the publishing of my new book.

I believe students would benefit a great deal from being exposed to my work, and would see it as a valuable supplement to the formal business curricula offered by any institution. BE DiFFERENT concepts and ideas are not only backed by sound business principles, they have been road tested and have delivered successful results in real complex businesses by real people.

What a great combination: sound theory accompanied by a portfolio of examples where the theory has been executed successfully in a variety of businesses. I have always had an issue with hiring MBA-type people who have a sound grasp of what should be done and only a case study background of how to actually do it. To be productive in a business, students need more than just a taste of practical experience. They need to be submerged in the practical stuff for a prolonged period of time to get infected with an execution bias.

My book offers the potential of enhancing the student’s appreciation for and understanding of concepts that work. Through customized BE DiFFERENT seminars and workshops students will deepen their knowledge of creating success and survival approaches in Business Strategy, Marketing, Sales and Serving Customers (known by the rest of the world as ‘customer service’).

In a class room format each student will get the experience they are used to and more. A lecture is given on the many BE DiFFERENT concepts and learning will be re-enforced with break-out sessions where students get the opportunity to work with the lectured material.

For you business students thirsting for insights from an experienced senior executive ask your professor/teacher to ,Contact Roy for one of my sessions. It will be worth it! Or when you read my book and you have questions,contact me Cheers, Roy Osing

Posted 2.18.09 at 07:57 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (1)