Category Archives: Consulting

March 6, 2015 · 11:55 am

Indian Food And Your Team

It’s Foodie Friday and what has my attention today is an article in the Washington Post Wonkblog.  Anything titled “Scientists have figured out what makes Indian food so delicious” has my full attention. After all, anyone who cooks wants to learn some secret to make everything taste better, right? As it turns out there was a business secret in there as well.

English: Thali

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As reported in GeekWire:

The researchers broke each dish down to ingredients and compared how often and heavily those ingredients shared flavor compounds. What they found was the less often dishes “shared” flavor compounds, the more delicious they tended to be. “The unique makeup of Indian cuisine can be seen in some dishes more than others, and it seems to be tied to the use of specific ingredients,” they reported. “Spices usually indicate dishes with flavors that have no chemical common ground.”

In other words, in the West many of us try to find flavors that “go together”.  The MIT Technology Review put it this way:

The food pairing hypothesis is the idea that ingredients that share the same flavors ought to combine well in recipes. For example, the English chef Heston Blumenthal discovered that white chocolate and caviar share many flavors and turn out to be a good combination. Other unusual combinations that seem to confirm the hypothesis include strawberries and peas, asparagus and butter, and chocolate and blue cheese.

And of course, as with so many things in this world, that’s a right answer, not THE right answer.  The lesson from Indian – and as it turns out many other Asian –  cuisine is that more flavors with less overlap makes for a better dish. And that is a great business point too.

Many of us build teams that are way too homogeneous.  In our effort to hire people who will “fit in” to the team, we don’t optimize our flavor profiles – how well the team functions.  The team would be much better with people who have less overlap.  You need members who will challenge ideas and not just go along.  More perspectives, more skills, more voices equals a better product.  Just as what makes a great chef is the ability to get those contrasting flavors to mesh so too is the test of a great manager how well he or she can bring together a diverse team of strong people.

Recipes as a network – who’d have thought that?!?!

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February 24, 2015 · 9:27 am

Self Delusion

An article caught my eye the other day. Big headline – Consumers Actually Like Airline Fees, Analyst Contends. You can imagine my skepticism but you also know I’m a staunch advocate for keeping an open mind until we learn all the facts.  Turns out my instincts were pretty good but let’s see what you think.

Stewardess, circa 1949-50, American Overseas, ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An analyst from Wolfe Research named Hunter Keay wrote a report called Every Time a New Fee is Announced, a Fairy is Born.  In it he states the following:

Inconvenient truth: customers like fees. Maybe that sentence would be better received if we had said “customers like paying only for what they use.” Well, guess what…that’s the same thing.

He goes on to chide the airlines for not being more like Spirit Air (on whose planes you couldn’t pay me to fly) which charges relatively low base fares and then proceeds to layer on fee after fee.  Mr. Keay believes it’s a huge missed opportunity for airlines to improve their bottom lines.  As one report about this notion said

There is certainly some logic to the idea of saving consumers money on base airfares by stripping away everything but the seat you are required to sit in (though some carriers have discussed making passengers stand), but the problem with this a la carte approach is that the fees rarely match the savings.

In other words, we have yet another example of someone advising businesses to focus solely on their bottom lines rather than on their customers.  I think we’re all aware that fuel prices have dropped.  Anyone heard about an airline revoking the “fuel surcharges” they put in place when prices were sky high?  That’s because they haven’t.  Imagine how you’ll feel when you’re charged a fee to offset the costs of the pilot and flight attendants, much as a restaurant might charge a fee to help cover the costs of service.  Of course in the latter case the need to tip usually goes away.  You won’t see lower fares.

I hope some airline follows this analyst’s advice so we can see how well it works (or doesn’t).  His shining star – Spirit – is consistently rated as the worst US airline and is one of only two airlines flying in the US – Cubana being the other – with a two-star rating.  Profits over people has turned this analyst self delusional.  Customers don’t like fees.  They like excellent service at a reasonable price.  Value, in other words.

That’s my take.  Yours?

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February 18, 2015 · 12:57 pm

CX

Maybe this customer-centric thing is starting to sink in.  I’m encouraged by the results of a study put out by the eConsultancy folks in conjunction with SDL which explores how retailers are addressing customer experience, or CX for short.  From the results it seems that many retailers have figured out that price is just one factor in the purchase decision and that it is outweighed these days by how customers interact with the brand.  In fact, the report states that providing an exceptional customer experience is the single most important strategic choice that retailers can make now and in the years ahead. 89% of the retailers surveyed for this report agreed or strongly agreed to the statement “Our customer experience is our brand.”  It’s a good point for any business, retail-based or not.

Think about it.  A quick visit to a search engine can usually produce pricing comparisons but that same search engine tells you little or nothing about how the customer is treated.  If you’re researching a product, how complete and truthful are the product listings?  If there is a problem with your order or you have a question as you purchase, how helpful and responsive is the customer service?

Every business (even mine!) has customers of some sort.  Their experience with you begins with their first encounter: maybe your website, maybe some content you’ve issued, maybe the response to a form they filled out or maybe someone answering a telephone enquiry.  There is one thing I found surprising in the study which is that only 12% said “company culture” is a barrier to successful customer experience management.  If that’s true it’s incredibly encouraging and represents a big shift.  I’m not sure I believe it however.  Many companies still put way too much emphasis on pushing merchandise that provides the highest margins or which is aging over the needs and wants of the customer.

If your product has been commoditized (read that as “if your primary selling point is price”) than you are going to have a hard time competing from my perspective.  A great customer experience differentiates your brand.  I’m glad to see that way more folks are agreeing with that and investing in that differentiation.  Is that something you’re doing?

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