FACEBOOK : THE ANTHEM OF THE 21st CENTURY YOUTH..…

Facebook has revolutionised the way people connect, communicate and socialise around the globe. With over 900 million users as of May 2012, Facebook has more people than most countries in the world. It is the mostly actively used social networking site in the world today.

Facebook founded in 2004, it has grown exponentially surpassing all other competitors. FB was not meant to be a company but provide the user with the best user experience. In his own words Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook said, "Simply put: we don't build services to make money, We make money to build better services."  Today, Facebook is already generating a highly profitable annual revenue of over one billion US Dollars and is valued over 50 Billion US Dollars, a proud achievement for a company aged under 10.

Here is a look at things that make Facebook so successful:

Socializing
Facebook has become the new means for socialising. People can connect, communicate and share events about their lives on facebook. It has become a way people express themselves.

Focus on Users
Facebook is a tool that gives the user a freedom to share his thoughts, events, opinions with the rest. It is built around the user. All the services and usability aspects are user centric and that makes FB so popular.

Smart ways to connect people

One of the smartest algorithms devised by FB is to connect people who know each other. The intuitive and smart features make FB popular. The recommendations are based on similar preferences, likes and interests. Like-minded people can communicate with each other easily and develop their social networks effectively. This enables millions of people with diverse interests, backgrounds and cultures to interact with each other.

Simplicity
Facebook has a simple and elegant user interface. It is very intuitive and requires very little effort on the part of the user to use it. It has a consistent layout and good graphic design which makes it appealing to the users.

Dynamic
While Facebook was started in a dorm room, it has certainly lived up to the growing needs of the users. The initial idea was to allow campus students to communicate freely with each other. However, with strategic insights and promotions they built an exponential user base. The Facebook team has been dynamic and adaptive to the growing user base and its needs. The FB timeline, tickers and several other features are prime examples of the dynamic nature of FB.

Entertainment
Facebook has become the ultimate source of entertainment for the youth. There are many games that have become increasingly popular due to FB. Farmville, Backyard Monsters are just some of them. The games coupled with social networking provide a fun filled platform for the youngsters.

Facebook Ads

Digital marketing campaigns are revolved around FB users. A lucrative user base of more than 900 million attracts advertisers and companies. The Facebook ads are shown based on the likes, comments and profile of the user, making advertising more relevant.

Facebook Pages

Most of the fortune 500 companies have a Facebook corporate page. It allows them to talk about their products/services, interact with the users, get a real world feedback and enable communication. Most of these companies regularly update their pages, post relevant contents and offer something for the end users too. Facebook pages have become an effective way of engaging potential customers. It has become a social business tool too. 

Facebook Aps:

Facebook has created an amazing eco-system with lakhs of applications being built by third part developers which help in engaging the members.Facebook has devised a unique win-win system that enables the third party developers to not only further the user experience and engagement levels on this fantastic social media portal, but also enables them to successfully monetise them depending on their popularity.

Today, with over 800 miliion users world wide and average user engagement levels spanning the highest number of hours per user for any online platform, Facebook nation could be the third largest and the richest nation in the world.

LINKEDIN- THE POWER OF BUSINESS NETWORKING..

LinkedIn is the world’s largest community of professionals across the world. Its website says “LinkedIn is a networking tool that helps you discover inside connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners. It strengthens and extends your existing network of trusted contacts."

Founded by Reid Hoffman in December 2002, Linkedin remains the strongest marketing channel for professionals around the globe. There are over 50 million LinkedIn members in over 200 countries. In short, LinkedIn is an ultimate business networking platform to drive businesses and connect professionals.

An estimate study says that over 10% of the world’s professionals are already on LinkedIn. And with the speed the professionals are signing up, it wouldn’t be long before LinkedIn will have a major share of the remaining 90% too.

A look at what makes linkedIn the most successful social networking site for the professionals:

• Freemium Model
  LinkedIn allows the user to create professional networks free of cost. It is a place meant which provides professionals with networking opportunities and career opportunities.
• Network with professionals.
  Whether it is a company looking for a good candidate or a candidate looking for a good opportunity. LinkedIn combines them both and provides a great platform for job seekers, job providers for networking.
• References.
  It is a place where you get companies/professionals with qualified references from professionals. The referrals and recommendations provide a powerful means of increasing credibility.
• Knowledge about Employers or Clients.
  A great deal of information about potential employers and clients can be obtained from the profile. It enables one to make informed decisions whether is recruiting a candidate or making a business decision. An employee can get the latest company updates and industry news.
• Search
  The LinkedIn Search facility makes its easy for someone to find specific services from a company or for a company to find employees with relevant skill sets.
• Publicity
  It provides a network and groups to promote articles, blog post, or research papers. There are user created groups on linkedIn, which provide a segmented audience.
• LinkedIn Answers
  As a professional you can showcase your expertise and receive exposure and credibility in your field.
• Find Events. Use LinkedIn Events to find conferences, workshops and other types of events that would be useful to you, based on your professional profile. You can also see who else within your network is attending!
• Promote Your Event.
  LinkedIn Events can promote your event to potential attendees based on their profile information. It will also add the events to your professional profile so that others can see that you have presented at conferences or events.
• Company Page.
  It provides a tool to create a corporate page, which can act as a vehicle for driving quality business leads for its products/services, attract professionals and company news. It helps one create a brand presence and awareness about the company. 

WALMART- THE POWER OF STANDING FOR SOMETHING.. FOCUSEDLY..

World’s largest discount retailer shows the importance of ‘Standing for something’…

Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, grew up in a farm community in rural Missouri during the Great Depression. The poverty he experienced while growing up taught him the value of money early in his life. Sam Walton opened the first store in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. Today Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries, under 55 different names. It is also the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the word and also one of the largest globall companies with an annual revenue of over  US$446 Billions.

Many companies have tried to replicate the model of Walmart but none of them have succeeded in coming close to it. There is something about Walmart that makes it unique. Walmart started with a simple philosophy by Sam Walton: Offer shoppers lower prices than they get anywhere else. This basic strategy has shaped Wal-Mart's strategy and drove the company's growth, making it a phenomenal success..

WalMart’s slogan “our people make the difference” depicts the importance of an individual worker.  Their philosophy of maintaining the highest customer service is shown with their three critical elements of the “sundown rule,” the “ten-foot rule,” and the “everyday low prices” rule. 

Offering the lowest prices everyday, will increase the volume of sales, as well as bring added value for the consumers. With huge volumes of sales across the categories. Walmart is in a position to bargain for tremendous concessions from the vendors, which help it to offer the lowest  yet profitable prices to all its customers, thus making it win-win for everyone.

Sam Walton's followed simple values focused on providing best service to its customers at lowest prices. They are:

 i)  Treat the customer right.

ii) Take care of your people.

 iii) Be honest in your dealings.

 iv) Pass savings along to the customer. 

vI) Keep things simple, think small, control costs and

 vi) Continuously improve operations. 

Some of the key principles that enable Walmart to beat its competitors and succeed are:

• Commit to your business.
• Share your profits with your associates, treat them as partners.
• Excellent Inventory Management.
• Powerful Distribution Network.
• Focus on low cost to the customers.
• Operate at least margins.
• Focus on Volume of trade.
• Striving for excellence in all operations.
• Leverage Technology to gain the edge.
• Plan and control to stay ahead of competition.
• Rich Customer Experience.

Today Walmart has achieved a sense of invincibility among the organizations globally  and yet continuously strives to be the best in its business. 

MICROSOFT-.DOMINATING THE TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE..

MICROSOFT - Dictating the Technology agenda for the 21^st Century organizations..

The technology story of the world would never be complete without the mention of Microsoft. Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft in 1975. Microsoft is the largest software company in the world with an annual turnover of over US$ 68 biliions.

Microsoft started with the audacious vision of the founders to have a ‘computer at every desk and every home’

Microsoft windows is now more or less an integral part of people’s computer related work.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen studied together in high school. In Lakeside Prep School, they had their first interaction with computers. Both of them were hooked. They loved programming and spent hours working in front of the computer.

The turning point for them came when Allen brought a magazine where they came across an article about Altair 8000, a mini computer. The duo approached the manufacturer to launch a programming language for Altair, even though they did not have any exposure of Altair. The manufacturer was busy and gave them 8 weeks for the demonstration. In these 8 weeks, Gates and Allen developed the interpreter. The interpreter worked at the demonstration and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC. This was the start of many achievements that shaped Microsoft and the computing industry.

Here is a list of things that make Microsoft the most successful software company on the planet.

Vision

The teams are guided by a vision statements for general guidance. They have the freedom to implement things their ways keeping in mind the objectives of the company. The focus is on the essentials but with a vision towards the future.

Smart people
Bill Gates has always advocated working with the best professionals to build the best products. The most important factor for building products is the quality of people involved. Microsoft has been built around the best people.

Bet Your Life

Since its inception, the DNA of the company has been to put everything into the projects. The projects are reported on a regular basis to the higher management to avoid any last moment surprises. The focus is on the results and addressing the issues at the earliest through proper communication.

Early Mover Advantage
Microsoft has shown the ability to be the first, or early, to enter a market, find and build mass markets, don't wait for perfect products but build incrementally better products in the direction of the market.

Solution rather than problem

Excuses don’t work, solutions do. The teams at Microsoft are often small and focused on achieving their results. They are primarily focused on delivering quality products and do everything possible to fix the problem.

Focus

At Microsoft, the employees are focused on one task or project. This helps them to keep away from the distractions and help them stay focused with increased productivity.

Market Dominance

The windows operating system accounts for nearly 90% of the PC market. Microsoft completely dominates markets in which it competes. Go for 100% of every market you are in. Market share is the key to success.

Results rather than Rules

The focus is on the results and not on rules. Microsoft believes that employees’ time should not be wasted on irrelevant rules and processes. Empower the employee and they will make reasonable choices and make them accountable for the results.

Ruthless Competitor

Microsoft almost missed the opportunity provided by Internet browser. However, once Microsoft had realised Internet’s potential, the company not only rapidly caught up but overtook all its competitors. In 1995 Netscape Navigator was the leading the market share with approximately 90% market share, but  Microsoft soon took over using its monopoly in the operating system market. They started bundling internet explorer with the operating system and regained the lost ground. Users no longer needed to install netscape navigator and internet explorer dominated the market.  

An eye on the future

The leaders at Microsoft keep an eye on the changing market dynamics. They do whatever is necessary to shape future opportunities in the market, and capitalize on them for Microsoft.  Microsoft has now trained its eyes on the exploding market of Cloud services with the launch of Microsoft Azure. With an aggressive strategy, it is rapidly penetrating the small and medium enterprise segment and is empowering lakhs of businesses to leverage the power of the cloud. This enables them to reduce their infrastructure requirements to take their products and services to market and hence reduces the cost of running their businesses. With more productivity of their scarce resources and investments, small businesses have a much higher chance of success, thanks to Microsoft.

How to measure the success of a company

There is no formula for measuring the success of a company. Most of the focus on measuring the success of a company deals with numbers related to the balance sheets, profits, shares and finances of a company. However, the impact of a company is often beyond these numbers. The measure of success is different for different companies, while for an early stage start-up, success is about survival. For an enterprise like Google, success is about changing the way people use information and make decisions. 

The true measure of success for any organisation depends on its goals. However, there are certain benchmarks that the most successful organisations have when it comes to success. The most remarkable companies on the planet are those that have transformed the world to be a better place. They have changed the way people do things and created a huge impact by their presence. Those companies have transformed the lives of people for the better. Google has changed the way information is consumed in the world. It has revolutionised how people search information. That is the true measure of success for a company. 

Company is an agent of change and transformation. A successful organisation creates employment, business opportunities, contributes to the growth of the country and makes a positive contribution to the society. The success of a company can be measured in terms of what it is giving back to the society.  Success of a company is the social impact it creates. Company is a responsible medium to change the lives of people around it. 

The evaluation criteria and benchmarking of a company needs a thorough study of various factors. These include the list of parameters that are taken to gauge the performance of the company. Some of the questions that need to be addressed while devising measures of success are as follows: 

What is the benchmark of success in the organisation? 

How is the success of a company measured? 

What are the parameters of measurement for measuring success?

What is the impact of the company?

Is the company doing well for its stakeholders? 

Has it been able to create employment? 

What are the timelines for measuring the goals? 

What are the targets for each of the parameters for measuring success?

CheckList

Below is a checklist that can be used as a reference by the board for taking actions to measure success of a company. While each company will have different yardsticks and timelines for gauging success, this list provides some factors that can be used for evaluating the results. The timelines used for measuring these parameters usually varies between 1-3 years and targets are set depending on the present situation and the projections by the board. 

Factor	Measures
Employee Satisfaction	Personal/Work Satisfaction, Salary, Surveys & interviews
Customer Satisfaction	Proactive communication, Surveys and accountability
Stake Holders	Performance against targets, surveys & stake holders reviews
Management Satisfaction	Corporate reputation, Profitable Investments, Surveys and questionnaires
Society	Milestones to gauge social impact & role in society
Number of Employees	Software tools for HRM
Total Assets	Tangible/Intangible  assets Products, Revenues etc.
IPR	Calculate & track the innovation in the company
Rate of Growth	Calculate sales, Revenues, product/services growth
Customer base	Use CRM tools to track customers

It is important for a company to set the goals and benchmarks to measure its progress. The most successful companies develop a process for tracking and reporting their business performance using software tools, researches and other methods. The review process examines the results for fine tuning & helps in the performance measurement for driving best organizational results. A truly successful company is the one that leaves an indelible footprint in the history of time, inspiring generations to strive for a better tomorrow with grand accomplishments.  

For any questions, please contact apoorvedubey@gmail.com

Genesis of a great company: What Every Entrepreneur must know

Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.  While every entrepreneur starts with a dream of making a dent in the universe, most end up discovering that it is more about survival. Skepticism looms large; the struggle is often tougher than expected. The challenge is to deal with the ups and downs. The initial euphoria of a new company subsides and eventually one has to face the real world, a place full of skeptics. An entrepreneur must learn to cope with all these things and still remain focused at work.

The equation is pretty simple; you need money to sustain the company but passion to start it. They say money is not the goal but a bye product of an excellent product or service. Most entrepreneurs quit when it gets tough, but those who are passionate about their work, seem to hang in longer and triumph against all odds. It is rare to find a successful entrepreneur who does not love his work. It is the joy of work that keeps one going in the turbulent times. It is about defying logic, building dreams and achieving the impossible. 
Entrepreneurship is a risky business. Things never go in the anticipated direction, almost never.But risks can be eliminated by proper planning and well measured approach. Here is a look at the things that every entrepreneur must know when he takes the plunge: 

1) A great teamA great team is a must for any company to start and sustain itself. The team should have like minded people with complimentary skill sets. Bottom line is to cover as many areas as possible. A great team also comprises people with deep knowledge and expertise in their domains. One must clearly assess himself as to what he brings to the table. A team of passionate individuals with the commitment to work and guts it out. It is important to have a cohesive team, especially when things are not going good. Passion for work is infectious, a lousy person will never move people.

2) Know your businessGreat entrepreneurs figure out the most important things that drive their business. They are as follows: Core values of the start-up.
The purpose of the company.
Envisioned future.
A detailed description of the work involved.
Team and their roles.
3) Assess Your Start-up

Ideas rule the world but only when they are executed properly.  The product or service must have sustainability, and not a me too approach. Work out the details of executing the plan. A start-up must find out its niche before venturing into the hostile world of fierce competition. Every start-up needs to answer the questions:What is your product or service? What will differentiate your product and services? Who are your customers? What they want? What is the size of the market for its product/service? Is it global or local?Is the start-up scalable? What is the investment involved in launching the product or the providing the services? 
4) Assess the competitionIt is all too easy to say that our product is unique with so many features and a great technical team etc. The acid test lies in careful analysis of the competition. Analyze the competition, before you begin execution of the idea. What differentiates your product/service? Is it feasible to compete with the existing players?  Everybody has something to promote. It is how creatively one can put his idea in the market that decides how much success it eventually gets. Be creative and promote your products/services to get maximum traction. 
5) Ego An entrepreneurs needs to ask for help, he needs to promote himself; he has to often do what is in the best interest of the company. The best entrepreneurs are driven by the best ideas not necessarily their own. Egoistic people are repulsive in nature, whereas entrepreneurs need to be magnetic. Entrepreneurship and ego do not go together. It does not matter who gets the credit, what matters is what is established.
6) Integrity Integrity is the foundation on which a company is built. If the foundation is weak, the company cannot sustain. Integrity is the consistency of actions and words; it is how a brand is built. The most influential brands are built with integrity in their actions and that is how the customers develop respect for the companies. 
7) Workforce diversity It is good to have a diversified group of people as opposed to people having the same culture or background. People from different backgrounds, culture and nationalities add to a rich team. Each individual with different background brings something different to the team and adds value.

8) Quality of the Board members

The kind of board members can directly influence the results of a company. The board members are important because of their inherent networks, experience, skills and mentorship they offer. Great companies are built around great mentors. This team includes directors, advisors, and people with technical ability to drive things. For a start-up it is a must to have a great board member team.

9) Test your Idea
It requires more than a business plan to validate your idea. Designing and developing the product is the easy part, selling is the tough one. Most entrepreneurs with a technology background often forget to ask the most important question, who cares? Is there someone who is interested in your idea? Is there a market for it? How are you going to sell it? Talk to people before you develop anything; figure out how many people are interested in your thing. The feasibility of an idea is important before taking it up. Analyze the idea, basic requirements for it and the factors needed to sustain the idea.
10) Source of Funding 
No matter how much petrol is there in the tank, the refueling will be needed at some point. Every entrepreneur must assess the funds at his disposal and figure out how much capital would be needed and when it would be needed. When a company scales it needs funds, choosing the best funding option is important to the growth of a company. It is important to know and be aware of the various ways for raising funds like Friends and Family, Self funding, VC, Banks, Angels Investors, Incubators, IPO going public. 
11) Create or cater a need
When dealing with products of services, there is no place for mediocrity. Excellence is the need of the hour. It is hard to sustain something that is not world class in the long run. Entrepreneurship needs conviction to try something new, something that does not exist. There are two ways to sustain a business either one has to cater to the need of the client or create the need. Ipod is a classic example of a product that created its need in the market, whereas eCommerce is an example of finding a new solution to an old problem. 
12) Work on the Exit Plan 
Most entrepreneurs neglect the exit option. They find it difficult to comprehend selling their business or other exit options. It is important to consider your exit strategy when starting-up. The most common selling option is to be acquired by another business, a private investor or management.  Some businesses also go for mergers and IPO as an exit option. 
13) Recruiting the right people 
A start-up is built around the initial people it recruit. Recruit people who are self-driven and are willing to go the extra mile. Hire the best talent to do the best jobs. Never compromise on the quality of people. Find experts and let them take control. Let them have the center stage and make decisions. Let the best people handle the jobs and drive things. Build a team; people tend to bring out their best when they are collaborating rather than competing with each other. 
14) Working Capital and Finances
How much working capital is required? How are the finances going to be managed? It is very important to streamline the accounts and finances from the beginning. Most entrepreneurs, especially those with a technical background do not understand finances. However, businesses cannot be run without the understanding of money. 

15) Equity of the company 
Decide beforehand about the stakes involved in the business. The start-up is a very early stage, but one needs to have a fair idea of how the equity will be distributed. Many of the start-ups fail when there is contention in distribution of the equity. The founders and the board must chalk out everything clearly before the team. A rough guideline that most successful start-ups follow for equity is as follows: 
Founder/Board/Mgmt     -33%
Venture fund                  -33%
Employees                     -34%

16) Uncertainty 
The route of a start-up is unpredictable to say the least. The people on board should be prepared mentally to go through this tough journey and deal with any sort of challenges. Whether it is a complete change in technology, financial crunch, product failure, internal conflicts, damage by nature, or dealing with people loss one cannot afford to let the situation dictate terms. 

17) Encourage failures/success alike 
Everyone is bound to fail; mistakes are part and parcel of the job. Never discourage a person for failing. Risks, experimentation and repeated efforts pave the way for success of a company. 

18) Sense of Urgency 
The clock is ticking ever second. For an entrepreneur it gets tougher to sustain with passing time. One can never take anything for granted. Each moment lost in a useless activity is a moment taken away from building the company. Everything adds up and matters in the long run.

19) Understand the Legal ramifications
Sort out the legal issues, the law etc in the planning phase itself, try and work around it. Know what is needed and when it is needed. 

20) It takes time
Even the genius of Edison took more than 25 years to make an electric bulb. It took 20 years to develop the Xerox machine. The greatest of ideas are not always magic. It takes time to build great stuff. It needs a real big effort to build something that can create an impact. Give sufficient time to try out things. However, sustaining a start-up becomes tougher with time; ultimately one must have a time out for trying things. 

21) Creating a Brand 
Even start-ups need to create brands. There are four stages included in the process namely brand awareness, which means people begin to recognize your existence. Brand quality is when they trust the quality. Brand association is the attitude or feeling towards a brand, call it affinity. Brand loyalty is when they begin to recommend your brand to family and friends. 

22) Power Distance 
Communication is the greatest asset of a start-up. When teams communicate and collaborate great things are possible, but when there is a communication gap things are messed up. How accessible is the senior management? The larger distance means that there are lot of people involved in the process and at times this may take a long time for decision making. The need is to enable communication between groups and allow the best ideas to find their way through the ranks into products and services. 

23) When to step back 
One needs a good structure to be in place to make people replaceable. It is important to have a system wherein others can take charge when the founder members step aside. A company is never scalable when it is heavily dependent on people. Co-founders leave, people quit and products fail all this is part and parcel of a start-up. The important thing is to have the system to deal with these failures without affecting the company. 

24) Pricing Strategy 
Deciding the cost for a product/service can be a tricky job. A lot of start-ups fail because they either put too much or too little cost for their products and services. A careful study of the resources spent for the job, market analysis and time spent on service needs to done before the correct price can be decided. An effective pricing strategy is paramount to the success of the product/service. 

25) Being Flexible
Life of an entrepreneur is about living on the edge. It is a very tough job. Most of them work hard, yet majority of the start-ups fail. All is not rosy. Be honest and assess hard before jumping into entrepreneurship.  One needs to have the commitment level to work tirelessly, even without results. 

Research shows that most business ideas fail. Most companies start with one idea but succeed with some other idea. They gradually find their way to a better idea or sometimes even refine the initial idea. They take a proactive approach, expect problems and find solutions in advance. Be open, be adaptive and don't hang on for too long when things are not working.

When you try long & hard for anything, eventually a moment comes when it happens. The important thing is to keep trying until that moment comes. 

For any queries, please write to apoorvedubey@gmail.com

PROCESS EXCELLENCE- A MUST FOR WINNING COMPANIES by RUPAK AGARWAL - www.rupakagarwal.com

Process Excellence for sustained outperformance 

Increasing competition, dealing with uncertainty and chaotic business cycles and an insane customer promiscuity are putting a never before pressure on business performance to reduce costs, improve revenues and enhance service. Very often, CEO's of Airlines say that their industry is no longer profitable. But what makes  South West Airlines deliver profits quarter after quarter for over 60 quarters now?

What makes such companies so different to stand out? Well, Process Excellence to say the least. Over time, approaches to business improvement has also undergone substantial evolution. In the 70's and 80's the buzzword was Total Quality Management and Business Process Improvement which focussed on  service. The 90's saw the growing popularity of Six Sigma and Lean based approaches which added a cost element to service. As we are now galloping in the 21st century, Business Process management came into being which added the third dimension of revenue. And the last 2 years, to embrace the current business challenges, we have seen the emergence of Customer Experience management. The current focus has clearly shifted from managing processes for outperformance to managing outcomes for the customer through use of technology as differentiators

	70's & 80's	90's	First 10 years of 21st Century	Last 2 yrs
Service	TQM & BPI	Six Sigma & Lean Methods	Business Excellence Management	Customer Experience Management
Cost
Revenue
Technology

Which of these is best for the business ?

Pressure to perform has never been greater at both personal and professional levels than it is today. Each of the approaches have clear merits and are a step more complex than the previous approach. Depending on the stage of the life cycle of the company and the challenge faced and complexity of operations, you can choose the right mix of tools for your business. The recent researches are however increasingly pointing to players who dominate their markets and industry and those achieving what I would say a hat trick plus in terms of Service, cost and revenue excellence are increasingly utilizing methods and approaches which fall into the Customer Experience management domain. It is for this very reason that when you look around at say the original pioneers of earlier successful approaches like Toyota and Lean, General Electric and Six Sigma, you find that they have been on a continuous process journey and are amongst the first to imbibe and internalize concepts of Customer Experience Management ( CEM) along with companies like Amazon, Best Buy, Flip kart, Virgin Group, FedEx, Citibank, Ryan Air etc.

As the economic storm battering confidence across the globe looks set to continue into 2013, business leaders who focused primarily on short-term exigencies can no longer afford to be disengaged from longer-term strategic issues and process excellence is therefore a must part of the survival kit

While there are unknown elements in the future, many of which will be challenging, the trick today lies in look at the exciting opportunities from factors such as: 'the Cloud'; new enabling technologies; new working patterns; new contact channels; capabilities being developed around "Big Data" all of which are enablers to laying strong foundations to business in the evolution towards Customer Experience management

How can I get on the Process Excellence Path ?

Process Excellence is a journey. A fine blend of certifications and best process methods need to be created to lay the foundations of process excellence in an organization. Process Excellence Governance Model is the backbone to align to strategic objectives. It starts with incremental innovations through methods impacting one of the business deliverables of service, cost or revenue and then adding to the list through methods like TQM, Kaizen, Six Sigma and then as the organization matures moves over to quantum leaps through business analytics, business excellence management to ultimately winning hearts through innovative and long lasting Customer Experience Delivery. Process Excellence is a journey. Loyalty is a destination.

CEM - What are the common themes and current challenges ?

The philosphy of CEM stresses on identifying parameters that are most valued by customers, emphasizes on implementing an approach that is customer centred and all processes developed around the core customer expectation. Employees play the biggest role in delivery and delivering experiences starts at home, focussing first with own employees. Common themes are an "outside in" perspective, alignment to exceeding employee and then customer expectations, knowledge management through best experience sharing and replication across employees, constant stretch to delivering innovative and successful customer experience outcomes and relentless focus on business success through reduced costs, enhanced revenue and enhanced service

The skills needed to successfully run a multi-channel, multi-site, multi-partner operation is becoming more and more challenging. With customers increasingly use intuitive technologies such as smart phones, tablets etc and getting more and more interactive and freely expressing views on social media like facebook and twitter, the challenges are becoming more and more complex with every passing day. Mixed-model operations are hugely important and are becoming increasing recognised by boards globally, particularly where mergers and acquisitions are becoming the norm. Big Data is the emerging new trend in Process Excellence implementation which has the potential to outstrip competition for sustained performance just like six sigma did a few years back for companies like Motorola and General Electric. Harvard Business Review reported that companies have collected more information from customers since 2007 than was ever collected prior to that date

Process Excellence is quite simply, a better way to do work and stay ahead in the minds for the 21st century's successful corporations!

Send in your comments to me at rupak.agarwal@gmail.com