February 16, 2009

BE DiFFERENT Businesses Whistler, BC

While I was researching my book, I came across some amazing companies that exhibit BE DiFFERENT practices that separated them from their competitors.

The Spaghetti Factory has a ‘Service Recovery’ culture that seems to come naturally. I provide a personal story in my book that illustrates that this organization clearly understands what has to be done when there is a service breakdown. They didn’t merely fix the problem that they had created for my family they went well beyond to ‘fall over backward’ and dazzled us. I have told this story again and again. Go visit them the next time you are in Whistler. Hats of to Marlys Clemiss and her team!

The Fairmont Chateau is a much larger organization but has an instinct for cultivating and nurturing deep relationships with their customers. This is always difficult for any large service team. I truly believe that the Fairmont does have the ‘Spirit to Serve’ value for its employees, but I also believe that the people in the organization get it instinctively. It is an innate thing they have to care of you. Visit the Mallard Lounge and Terrace some time and enjoy the efficient and caring service provided by Sarah Wark and her team of service professionals. You won’t want to leave!

Stay tuned for more examples of BE DiFFERENT organizations that I feature in my book. Cheers, Roy Osing

Posted 2.16.09 at 01:46 pm by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 11, 2009

BE DiFFERENT ideas for General Motors - Part 2

Here are more suggestions for GM strategists and planners:

Get off the product flogging kick. Your success will not depend on the products and technologies you push on your customers; rather on the extent to which you are able to address an unmet need or desire better than anyone else. Or at least if you talk about your ‘going green’, hybrid, electric car or fuel efficiency programs be explicit and tell how they will translate into unique customer benefits that only you will provide.

Cut the CRAP. You really need to get serious about dumping the things that do not align with your Survival Plan. This includes product lines and markets. Maybe you can’t be successful in North America! No one will thank you by staying in markets where you can’t make money. Your investors expect you to make tough decisions. Do you really need 15 hybrids by 2012 or is this product mania with no market reality?

Reassign or release employees currently associated with non-strategic activities as dictated by your Survival Plan. Beware of Managers of irrelevance in your organization who will only infect the rest of your workforce with change inertia if you leave them unattended.

If you want to sell anything, sell trusted relationships with your customers rather than flogging your technology aspirations and products on them. You are dying and need to re-establish trust with the market. This will only come if you get customer obsessed and deal more with what you are doing for them to be a healthy vibrant competitor.

Focus on execution. Don’t spend copious time trying to inch perfection out of your Survival Plan. The law of diminishing returns is at play here and it is more important to get on with it and not dwell on a 100% perfect plan (which doesn’t exist anyways). Your struggle back from potential demise rests in how well you execute a ‘good plan’; flawless execution in the trenches will win out in the long run.

Look at costs after you have devised how you intend to address the market not before. Consider the BE DiFFERENT profit equation as a guide. Here it is: Cost = Revenue - Profit. Determine how much revenue your Survival Plan will yield then subtract your profit expectations to get how much you can afford to spend operating the business.

Time to move on from GM. I hope they listen. Cheers, Roy Osing

Posted 2.11.09 at 06:30 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 8, 2009

Hyundai - A BE DiFFERENT Approach

I was very interested to read recently about the Hyundai Assurance Program developed to specifically respond to, among other things, these tough recessionary times.

Their plan is quite straightforward. It’s promotion material states ‘Hyundai is the first automaker in the U.S to offer a vehicle return program that allows you to walk away from your loan or lease without having to worry about negative equity. It lets you return your vehicle in case of certain life-altering circumstances. That’s the Hyundai Assurance’.

Brilliant. It recognizes that people run into unforeseen events (losing a job, physical disability, international employment transfer self-employed personal bankruptcy and accidental death) and offers a solution to make it easier to purchase a Hyundai.

No question that this is a BE DiFFERENT move! How long do you think it will take for the others to copy it? First of all they aren’t that quick and second they should try to outdo the Hyundai move rather than duplicate it. In this case a copy strategy will not close the BE DiFFERENT gap between Hyundai and its competition, it would merely bring them up to Hyundai’s level and allow Hyndai to move ahead again.Being good at copying is NOT a winning strategy.

Well done Hyundai and we’ll wait to see what other automakers respond with (don’t hold your breath). Cheers

Posted 2.8.09 at 01:02 pm by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 31, 2009

BE DiFFERENT or be dead General Motors

OK. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the full page GM ads trying to convince us that they are ‘worthy’. The ‘I’m for GM’ campaign in Canada is a classic PR spin trying to convince people they are a company with redeeming value (not market success). This is a typical ‘I want you to feel good about me’ pitch with a desired outcome of people saying they are for GM in conversations ‘... with friends, in the lunch room, or around the dinner table’. If you talk about them positively GM will feel they are ok. Apparently it matters less that they deliver positive returns to their shareholders.

The ad read ‘What does it mean to say, ‘I’m for GM’?’ It goes on to thank the various Governments who agreed to bail them out on behalf of their ‘... company, employees, suppliers, dealers and ...partners.’ In particular they thank governments for the confidence shown in GM’s commitment to their restructuring. Pandering PR at its best!

They go on to list numerous promises they are making for the future. They describe what GM plans to supply: green technology and 15 hybrids by 2012, an electric car, fuel-efficient technology, green R&D, better quality and safety ratings, and investments in new Canadian vehicles. As an aside, why a 15 hybrid product line over the next few years?

They then go on to list a number of awards and achievements marking their change progress. Looks impressive to the naked eye, but if they are so wonderful why is the Company failing? Nice they achieved the North American car of the Year award; product elegance perhaps with no market. Reminds me of awards given out to Advertising Agencies where success criteria is the creative produced rather that market response.

Finally, they thank their customers for buying more GM vehicles than any other automaker in Canada. If they were the market share leader why couldn’t they make a go of it? Sounds like the telecom business: we had 100% share of the local dial tone market and lost our shirt at it because local service was priced below cost and was subsidized by long distance. At least in our case we could say that this pricing philosophy allowed everyone to have telephone service. What does GM say? What value do their customers get from their market share position?

It’s all very well to criticize but I do have some BE DiFFERENT suggestions for GM. Stay tuned for my next blog. Cheers, Roy Osing

Posted 1.31.09 at 09:18 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)