Why won’t Lean commit to the Demand Chain

The Supply Chain has matured to the point where many things are understood and acted on very quickly. Few of us are making substantial changes anymore and even fewer can use their existing supply chain as a marketing differentiator or as an instrument for increased revenue (unless your Amazon).

Why won’t Lean commit to the Demand Chain the way it committed to the Supply chain? I have been addressed this issue in blog posts (Can Service Design increase Customer demand? and Is Lean and Six Sigma a waste of time?) and other discussion groups and have found it baffling to me that most Lean practitioners resist this thought and either ignore it or try to tie sales and marketing to internal improvements. You would think most practitioners would be eager to apply their skills and Lean to the demand side. Unleashing the power of continuous improvement to the immature field of sales and marketing should not frighten anyone, it should inspire them. Addressing the demand side of the equation is the single most important improvement effort and game changer that can take place at a company today.

What is holding organizations back? Why would you not leap at the opportunities? I believe it stems back from the fundamental way that continuous improvement and quality has been developed. It has developed from the field of engineering which is laden with logical, step by step thinking processes. We find a problem define the solution and so on. It has worked very well on the supply chain side but the demand side is anything but logical and seldom follows any pattern. Value Stream Mapping the demand side may identify numerous waste opportunities but which one would you remove? Why should 50% of your marketing fail? is not folklore it is a true statement. It just does not match up to the logical thinker.

Can you apply continuous improvement or Lean to the supply chain? I think that you must. However, you must fully commit to it and be willing to develop new skills. These skills are already being practiced in disciplines such as Service Design and with a toolset familiar to Design Thinkers and explained in Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset. It will not be the same engineer that led the quality revolution; it is the Designer that must lead on the demand side. The designer understands collaboration, open innovation and co-creation. He knows that it not only functionality but it is also about design which incorporates the look and the feel. These attributes are the differentiators in products and services.

Will your organization change to meet these new requirements? Will you fully commit to applying continuous improvement on the demand side? Will you hire designers or engineers in the future? Will that baton be passed from the engineer to the designer?

Related Information:
Lean needs Marketing, more than Marketing needs Lean!
Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset
The New Names of Marketing are still PDCA
Lean Sales and Marketing and the iCustomer

Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business

USERS, NOT CUSTOMERS

Forrester predicts that by 2012 half of all consumer purchases will either be transacted online or driven by online research and word of mouth. To succeed in the digital marketplace, it’s no longer customers that matter most, but users—anyone who interacts with your company digitally. Keep users happy, and customers follow.

The Business901 Podcast guest, Aaron Shapiro CEO of digital agency HUGE in Users, Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business, shows why today’s most critical driver of success is usability excellence.

"Today’s most successful companies organize their business around users and building user satisfaction," writes Shapiro. To make users your growth engine for your customer base and for your entire organization, Shapiro introduces a comprehensive approach to refocusing every aspect of your operations on users including sales, marketing, HR, and organizational structure.

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Based on his experience helping some of the world’s biggest brands evolve to meet the challenges of rapidly changing technology and evolving consumer habits, Shapiro outlines the seven things every company needs to change in order to survive in a digitally driven economy. Shapiro's analysis also includes a study of the Digital Leadership Set - companies in the Fortune 1000 that most effectively utilize digital across all aspects of their business. These companies, including Best Buy and Zappos, attract customers by providing appealing digital experiences. And they're rewarded with rising stock price and performance. You'll learn how digital leadership has brought huge profits to companies large and small including:

You don’t need to be a techie to master a user-first management philosophy. You just need to accept that the people who interact with your company online are what's most important.

Related Information:
It’s the Who, not the Why @simonsinek
It’s not about the things we make, it’s how we use the things we make
The Zappos Culture Defined!
Do you understand where demand comes from?

Do you understand where demand comes from?

Maybe the better question is can it be created? Most of us believe it is though better or more marketing or sales. Where it really comes from is understanding your customers better! That should come as little surprise to the readers of this blog.

My recent posts:
Deming was just simply wrong about variation…
Why won’t Lean commit to the Demand Chain the way it committed to the Supply chain?
It’s the Who, not the Why @simonsinek
Can Service Design increase Customer demand?
Work on demand, ‘It’s the demand side, stupid’

In the recent book, Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It by one of my favorite authors, Adrian Slywotzky, he explains how what he calls Demand Creators think. He outlines the process in a Six step process:

1. Make it Magnetic: It’s not the first mover that wins; it’s the first to create and capture the emotional space in the market.
2. Fix the Hassle Map: Map the hassles and fix them. This will provide a path to explosive potential demand.
3. Build a Complete Backstory: Till this in place and all the dots connected in the hassle map, demand simple does not happen.
4. Find the Triggers: Always experiment, always search to turn fence sitters into customers.
5. Build a Steep Trajectory: Continuously innovate.
6. De-Average: Constantly improve product fit for varying customers.

The author goes on to say that the Demand Creator is always in search of the next hassle map for the customer. However the most important trait is when confronted with – Where will tomorrow’s demand come from? They don’t point to anyone, they simply look in the mirror.

Author’s page: Books by Adrian Slywotzky

I highly recommend this book. It demonstrates each point through at least 2 case studies. An example is on Finding the Triggers: For Zipcar, it’s density--and just a short walk to the car. For Nespresso, it’s taste and trial in a fancy boutique. For Netflix, it’s waiting 1 day for a movie to arrive instead of 6. Smart companies recognize that each product has its own trigger--and that discovering these triggers is the key to creating demand.

Evolutionary Change thru Kanban

David J. Anderson is credited with the first implementation of a Kanban process for software development, in 2005. David leads a management consulting firm focused on improving performance of technology companies. He has been in software development nearly 30 years and has managed teams on agile software development projects at Sprint, Motorola, Microsoft, and Corbis.

David was a founder of the Agile movement through his involvement in the creation of Feature Driven Development. He was also a founder of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), a founding signatory of the Declaration of Interdependence, and a founding member of the Lean Software and Systems Consortium. He moderates several online communities for lean/agile development.

He is President of David J. Anderson & Associates, based in Sequim, Washington, a management consulting firm dedicated to improving leadership in the IT and software development sectors. Last year he authored the defining book on Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business.

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Kanban is becoming a popular way to visualize and limit work-in-progress in software development and information technology work. Teams around the world are adding kanban around their existing processes to catalyze cultural change and deliver better business agility. This book answers the questions: What is Kanban? Why would I want to use Kanban? How do I go about implementing Kanban? How do I recognize improvement opportunities and what should I do about them?

As a pioneer in the agile software movement David has managed teams at Sprint, Motorola and Corbis delivering superior productivity and quality. At Microsoft, in 2005, he developed the MSF for CMMI Process Improvement methodology – the first agile method to provide a comprehensive mapping to the Capability and Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI).

David can be found at AgileManagement.net

Related Information:
Kanban, could we call this podcast anything else?
Lean Kanban lessons from a Software Developer
Marketing Kanban
Kanban too simple To be Effective?

Lean Marketing Lab to Open!

The virtual world of the Lean Marketing Lab will open its doors. A gateway for this online community has been created to further the cause of Lean in Sales and Marketing. Reviewing this slide presentation will give you the background on the project. Hope to see you at the Lean Marketing Lab. – Joe  

Lean Marketing Lab

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Related Information can be found at Business901.com

In Lean Marketing start with Journey Mapping vs Value Stream Mapping

Value Stream Mapping is process most consider an exercise for finding and removing waste. It is a foundational Lean Tool that typically gets introduced early in a Lean Transformation. A Systems2win Excel template is depicted below: In Sales and Marketing you will utilize a Value Stream Mapping process on a project by project basis but it is typically limited for an internal process. It is a difficult correlation for customer facing experiences and as a result seldom used. The preferred method of mapping the customer experience is through a journey map. I prefer two styles one just a basic Excel Template that is very similar to a typical Swim Lane chart commonly used in Lean.

From Smart Cities - A guide to using Customer Journey Mapping

Another being a more circular method demonstrated by the Lego Wheel. Lego uses tool called a ‘customer experience wheel’ to map an existing experience. “We understand what is and what is not important to the customer in that experience and then we design a ‘wow’ experience to improve it.” Though I like the wheel better I have not found a program that could make it easy for me to draw and distribute. The advantage of creating this map utilizing the Excel template is that you can easily add notes and drill down further down into a process by adding columns and rows. Drawing in Excel is rather easy once you understand how, Become Proficient Drawing with Excel in 30 minutes! and remember you can do MATH, CHARTS and everything else you already know about Excel. If you want more information on how to create a journey map below is an excellent slide show describing the process. If you want to learn more about Value stream Mapping, drawing in Excel or Swim Lanes, I would recommend downloading the trail templates at Systems2win.com.

The Journey Mapping Guidance Cabinet Office[1]

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A good post on discussing some of the pros and cons of different types of Journey Maps can be found at Visualizing the customer experience using customer experience journey maps. You may also want to consider viewing the Lean Marketing Game presentation. It is based on extending the journey map through out your organization.

Related Information: Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers (Columbia Business School Publishing) Can Service Design increase Customer demand?

Is Zappos the next Toyota?

Toyota has led us through the turn of the century and beyond establishing “Respect for People” as one of the most important ingredients of the Toyota Production System and Lean Thinking. This has led to establishing a culture of Servant Leadership versus the more traditional command and control type organization. This type of thinking in conjunction with Kaizen (continuous improvement) is the bases of Lean Culture.

However, the age of process and improvement methodologies is starting to fade as the customer experience comes to the forefront. The methodologies of Service Design and Design Thinking are moving at a rapid pace. Lean due to its core concepts of going to Gemba or viewing things from the customer perspective is the one process methodology that is in position to readily adapt to these new forces. The Lean Startup and Agile Movements are excellent examples.

Customer Experience is at the forefront of not only marketing but organizational structure as evidence by the corporate shifts such as IBM to a more Customer-Centric structure. Zappos may be the shining example and the organization to emulate in this new culture.

What about this? Is Zappos to Customer-Centricity what Toyota and Lean was to the process movement?

I have just competed reading The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW. Joseph Michelli takes you through the Zappos company culture revealing what occurs behind the scenes and showing how employees at all levels operate on a day-today basis while providing the leadership methods that have earned the company $1 billion in annual gross sales during the last ten years. Michelli breaks the approach down into five key elements:

1. Serve a Perfect Fit—create bedrock company values
2. Make it Effortlessly Swift—deliver a customer experience with ease
3. Step into the Personal—connect with customers authentically
4. S T R E T C H—grow people and products
5. Play to Win—play hard, work harder

Not exactly PDCA, but it may be the future of organizational culture.

This could serve as another example for the new Customer-Centric organization approach. It was highlighted in another book on a similar theme by Joseph Michelli, The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary.  The principles are:

1. Make it Your Own - objective is to get a lower level associate functioning in an entrepreneurial fashion
2. Everything Matters - you have to get those DETAILS right.
3. Surprise and Delight - create dedicated professionals .
4. Embrace Resistance - look upon criticism as an opportunity to learn from the person doing the criticizing
5. Leave Your Mark - contribute positively to our communities, and our environment.

Again not exactly PDCA, but it may be the future of organizational culture. What do you think?

Related Information:
When Efficiencies and Innovation no longer work, is Customer Centricity the answer?
Job-Centric Innovation is Rethinking Customer Needs
Lean needs Marketing, more than Marketing needs Lean!
Customer Experience more powerful than the Supply Chain?

Lean Canvas for SALES EDCA/PDCA/SDCA

SALES PDCA is the framework I use for the process that takes place in the customer groups. It is nothing more than a standard PDCA cycle except the SALES part of the framework is where the sales team gets its directions and coaching from the team coordinator and value stream manager. Within the actual PDCA stage the sales team is empowered to make their own choices and determine their own direction to accomplish the goals of that cycle. This framework is introduced in the Marketing with PDCA book.

Continuing with my Lean journey and the development of the Lean sales and Marketing platform, many of the PDCA cycles became standardized and SDCA was introduced. Graham Hill had mentioned the concept of EDCA (Explore-Do-Check-Act). Graham was the head of CRM at Toyota Financial Services. He stated that:

Marketing in highly competitive markets is about exploring new propositions on the innovation fitness landscape. The environment determines where to start and complex marketing environments need EDCA. EDCA = Explore, PDCA = Plan, SDCA = Standardize, marketing operations are all about moving along the EDCA>PDCA>SDCA pathway.

Out of this was the further refinement into three separate distinctive cycles of SALES EDCA, SALES PDCA, SALES SDCA. Viewing your value stream/marketing cycle in this manner creates endless opportunities for improvement. It is also much easier to handle the team concept of sales and marketing with this thought process. The sales and marketing team is a cross-functional group whose number and expertise are derived from the decision-making path of the customer. You must first have established directives for a particular marketing cycle and a structure to match it. Are you looking for creativity (EDCA), problem resolution (PDCA), or tactical execution (SDCA)? Once you have established the objectives, you choose a team structure to match it. Without this process you may have creative teams working on tactical execution or on the other hand a problem-solving team working on a creative solution.

The question remained how do we make this knowledge explicit? Several years ago, I would have just framed this as an A3 report and placed the SALES on the left side and the ECA/PDCA/SDCA on the right side. However I have decided to use the terminology of a canvas versus an A3n following the concept developed in the Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder. The BMG Canvas has its roots in Design Thinking which provides a better conduit for focusing outside the organization.

Lean Canvas for SALES EDCA/PDCA/SDCA

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In the upcoming week, I will blog about the individual Lean Canvases and Standard Work templates. But for now this slide show will serve as the introduction to the concept.

Related Information:
Successful Lean teams are iTeams
Lean needs Marketing, more than Marketing needs Lean!
Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset
The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing

Drawing with Excel in 30 minutes!

Using Microsoft Excel as a drawing tool is a surprise to most of us. When we think of using Excel, we think of creating a spreadsheet and maybe if we are adventurous creating a graph. But there is a hidden power contained in Excel, the ability to draw. One of my most popular blog post of all time, Draw your Value Stream Map in Excel includes a You Tube video of the rendering of a Excel drawing depicting Transformer (You remember the Children’s heroes). If you need proof take a look at these drawings from The Spreadsheet Page:

It turns out that Debbie is an artist, and she uses Excel as her primary drawing software (now that's odd!). The figure below shows an example. The image on the left was scanned from a catalog. The image on the right was created by Debbie, using Excel's drawing tools. The drawing consists of hundreds of individual shapes, combined together

.

According to Debbie, "Most of my drawings do not take longer than two hours or four hours max to get the outlines done and the fill colors put in. I often use photographs that I've scanned and inserted into Excel, then I use the drawing tools to change the photographs into drawings. As you have already noticed I've become quite proficient at drawing on Excel, so it doesn't take me as much time as it did when I first started, now that I've figured out all the tricks.

I have a tendency to use other more “graphic” software packages in lieu of Excel but I am amazed at the simplicity of using Excel once you start. Why should I care? Most of the tools of Lean are visual in nature. In fact, one of the sayings that have been very common in Lean is “If you’re not visual, you’re not Lean.” However, in Lean and with any continuous improvement methodology metrics are important. So, if you want to be successful you cannot divorce the visual aspect and the metrics. Excel offers the marriage between the two.  Listen to the advantages described by Dean Ziegler of Systems2win:

Can you become proficient in only 30 minutes? Watch these Systems2win videos to learn how:
Types of Drawing Objects
How to Select Objects
How to use Excel as a drawing tool

Data Driven Problem Solving Program

Steven C. Wilson, one of the leading Lean Six Sigma trainers in the state of Iowa has released a new program, Data Driven Problem Solving. The entire program can be downloaded as a PDF and MP3 on IowaQualityTraining.com.

Data Driven Problem Solving includes a 100 page book with over 4 hours of audio. In addition, a copy of Lean Six Sigma for Leaders book is included. The Data Driven Problem Solving program is a result of material covered in a 2-day workshop presented by the author Steven C. Wilson. It was created to support the training both before and after the class. It provides many of the questions people had about problem solving utilizing DMAIC. They need not fully comprehending the tools of Six Sigma. With an understanding of Data Driven Problem Solving, it will allow more participation in your organization’s problem solving efforts.

Data Driven Problem Solving uses activities based approach and is comprised of multiple separate sessions, which follow the Six Sigma DMAIC approach without the need of the typical Black Belts, Green Belt hierarchy associated with Six Sigma organizations. It is presented in a unique question and answer format providing information about how to use and implement a problem solving methodology in an organization.

Topic that are covered:

• Process Improvement Basics
• Roles and Organization – Teamwork
• What is Our Quest? – The Define Phase
• How is the Current Process Performing? – Measure Phase
• What are the “Deep Dive” Causes of a Problem? – Analyze Phase
• What will We Change? – Improve Phase
• Are We There yet? – Control Phase

About: Steven C. Wilson is the host of Quality Conversations and can be found at Wilson Consulting and Training Services, Inc (WCTS, Inc – www.stevencwilson.com). Wilson has over 20 years of experience applying quality improvement tools, methodologies, and principles in a variety of industries that include automotive, healthcare, logistics, distribution, education, and numerous manufacturing venues. He has dedicated himself to the cause by training/coaching over 600 Six Sigma practitioners in over 70 companies with an emphasis on getting results. Wilson possesses a very engaging style of leadership, training and consulting, and provides an experienced eye for companies on the road to organizational improvement.

Program is also available on Amazon:
Ring Bound:Data Driven Problem Solving
CD Format: Data Driven Problem Solving

Related Information:
Is Continuous Improvement Continuous?
Marketing with PDCA.
Pair Problem Solving in the Workplace
Sustaining Lean using Continuous Improvement: The Toyota Way
Continuously improving thru PDCA

Work on demand, 'It's the demand side, stupid'

Working on supply side economics is not putting people back on the payrolls. Commentator Robert Reich has another idea: Work on increasing demand for goods and services here at home. Listen to this audio:

I am not arguing political issues, I am just trying to build supporting evidence for why supply side solutions are not working in the economy and are not working in marketing your product and services. It’s just simply about the Demand!

Related Information:
Lean needs Marketing, more than Marketing needs Lean!
Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset
Lean Sales and Marketing and the iCustomer
The Death of PDCA
What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 2 of 2

Service Innovation – Rethinking Customer Needs

True service innovation demands that you shift the focus away from the solution and back to the customer. To achieve this shift in your business--one that takes you from making educated guesses to building a clear model to guide service innovation—Lance Bettencourt instructs on the finer points of how to rethink your approach to the customer's needs: how the customer defines value in a product or service.  Among the numerous key ideas and practices are:

• Insight on understanding the different types of clients you serve—and how your products deliver value to them
• Ways to design specific frameworks for discovering service innovation opportunities for new, improved, and supplementary service products
• Practical guidance on staying focused on the "fuzzy front end" of service innovation
• The fundamental elements of a winning service strategy

We did not get to all of these points in the podcast with Lance. You would have to read his book,Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services to find all of them. But we did begin the conversation discussing Job-Centric Innovation, an idea that Lance is an expert on.

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After several years on the marketing faculty at Indiana University, he began his career as an innovation consultant with Strategyn. His book is a melding of his personal skills and passion for services and innovation. He is currently an independent innovation speaker and trainer, providing executive education to many of the world's leading companies.

Related Information:
The Service-dominant Logic of Marketing: Dialog, Debate, And Directions
If all of us need to be marketers, what’s the framework?
7 Principles of Universal Design & Beyond
The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing

Lean needs Marketing, more than Marketing needs Lean!

In The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing edited by Robert Lusch and Stephen Vargo they present the case to use SD-Logic as a foundation versus a total integrative marketing method. I believe that Lean viewed through the lens of PDCA as a knowledge creation platform can serve as the vehicle for implementation of this Logic. The principles of SD-Logic cannot be implemented in various silos of an organization, just as the basic principles of Lean cannot. It requires a cultural and fundamental shift within the organization placing the customer and user experience becoming the center.

Let me start by listing the foundational principles of Service Dominant Logic described in the before mentioned book:

1. The application of specialized skill(s) and knowledge is the fundamental unit of exchange: Service is exchanged for service.
2. Indirect exchange masks the fundamental unit of exchange: Micro specialization. organizations, goods, and money obscure the service-for-service nature of exchange.
3. Goods are distribution mechanisms for service provision: "Activities render service; things render service"
4. Knowledge is the fundamental source of competitive advantage: Operant resources, especially know-how, are the essential component of differentiation.
5. All economies are services economies: Service is only now becoming more apparent with increased specialization and outsourcing; it has always been what is exchanged.
6. The customer is always a co-creator of value: There is no value until an offering is used—experience and perception are essential to value determination.
7. The enterprise can only make value propositions: Since value is always determined by the customer (value-in-use), it cannot be embedded through manufacturing (value-in-exchange).
8. A service-centered view is customer oriented and relational: Operant resources being used for the benefit of the customer places the customer inherently in the center of value creation and implies relationship.

My premise is that if you are Lean Zealot and understand Lean as a knowledge Creation machine versus a waste reduction machine these principles are not only compatible but harmonious. There is little or no difference.

I asked Dr. James Womack this question in a podcast:

Joe:  Most people don't think of Lean as, a capturing knowledge mechanism. Do you?

Dr. Womack:  Well, of course. That's what the whole idea is. It's an experimental process that you try things. They are right. Deming most famously captured it in PDCA. But again, Deming didn't exactly think of science. Hey, let's give Galileo a little bit of credit.

Now look, it's by design and experimental process. By the way, Kaizen is nothing but an experiment. There's a plan based on grasping the situation, I hope, which is to say what is the issue? Then you do it, and that's to run the experiment. You can run a valid experiment because you have baseline data on how the current state works. So then you change something in a future state, and you measure the difference and decide whether that's a good or bad result and whether to standardize it or not.

The entire idea here is to capture knowledge in books of knowledge and the product development system in a progression of A3s which, of course, we talk about a lot at LEI. But A3s are really nothing but a way to put an experiment in context. You put PDCA in context and so they become their own book of knowledge as time moves ahead. If you're not trying to learn something and not trying to cumulatively learn something, so you don't have to do the same experiment over and over, as I often see in companies. Well then, you need some sort of a way to write it down. To standardize it so you can sustain it as well as discover it.

I find a striking resemblance in the Economic Pyramid model (on right) of Pines and Gilmore (The Experience Economy) and the Toyota Supplier hierarchy (on left) depicted by Liker and Meier (The Toyota Way Fieldbook).

Lean offers a guiding light for implementation of Service Dominant Logic or maybe a more correct and broader term would Customer (User) Experience Centric Platform. This change is occurring and Lean can be part of the solution for many companies. It is a platform that is well understood and readily accepted. But with that understanding emanates a platform of internal focus based on a waste reduction mentality. This focus may actually hinder the growth of the Lean Methodology into the higher culture that it professes to emulate.

Related Information:
Customer Experience more powerful than the Supply Chain?
Why the Lean SALES PDCA Cycle was Created!
Will Lean always internalize the customer?
The Service-dominant Logic of Marketing: Dialog, Debate, And Directions
Profiling the customer by knowledge gaps
Does Lean Marketing deliver what the customer wants?

What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 2 of 2

In the Business901 podcast, What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2 we looked at a more strategic view. In today’s podcast, we looked at the tactical practices and how they related not only to a political campaign but to a typical marketing campaign.

Derek A. Pillie has served public and political candidates for over 15 years. He has served on the staff of Indiana’s Third Congressional District, most recently as District Director for just over a decade. In that role, he oversaw Indiana operations of the office; including constituent outreach and helping taxpayers solve problems with federal agencies. He also worked on crucial economic development projects and was heavily involved with advising the office on online media and marketing decisions.

After his federal service expired Derek started working at Cirrus ABS, an online marketing and technology development company. He currently manages their business development efforts. Cirrus ABS has added political campaigns to the portfolio of industries they serve since Derek joined the team, and he continues volunteer efforts on behalf of candidates he supports.

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Related Information:
Preview of Political Campaign Marketing Podcast
Political Campaigning – Strategy Update
What political campaigns can teach business
Lean Six Sigma for Government

Job-Centric Innovation is Rethinking Customer Needs

Service Innovation requires that shift the focus away from the solution and back to the customer. In the podcast, Service Innovation – Rethinking Customer Needs, my guest Lance Bettencourt discusses how to rethink your approach to the customer’s needs: how the customer defines value in a product or service. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Service Innovation – Rethinking Customer Needs

His book, Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services lays out a road map for developing a winning service strategy.

Related Information:
The Service-dominant Logic of Marketing: Dialog, Debate, And Directions
If all of us need to be marketers, what’s the framework?
7 Principles of Universal Design & Beyond
The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing

What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2

Looking for immediate business? Is it taking too long to build a brand? Many of us look toward marketing to be our silver bullet, but seldom is it. We sometimes tire waiting for that marketing message to take hold and search for the latest and coolest gimmick to grab our prospects attention. Though I consider myself on the leading edge of these trends, I have come to appreciate that slow and steady wins many of the times. Driving home that consistent message is far more productive than being on the leading edge of every new marketing angle.

In my research I have also come to appreciate, What political campaigns can teach business. Few marketing processes do a better job of creating immediate business. With these thoughts in mind, I pursued Derek A. Pillie a leading political analyst for a Business901 Podcast. The interview lasted over an hour. Part 1 is a strategic view of political campaigning and part 2( Will post tomorrow) is from a tactical viewpoint.

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Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Political Campaigns, Part 1 or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.

Derek has served public and political candidates for over 15 years. He has served on the staff of Indiana's Third Congressional District, most recently as District Director for just over a decade. In that role, he oversaw Indiana operations of the office; including constituent outreach and helping taxpayers solve problems with federal agencies. He also worked on crucial economic development projects and was heavily involved with advising the office on online media and marketing decisions.

After his federal service expired Derek started working at Cirrus ABS, an online marketing and technology development company. He currently manages their business development efforts. Cirrus ABS has added political campaigns to the portfolio of industries they serve since Derek joined the team, and he continues volunteer efforts on behalf of candidates he supports.

Related Information:
Preview of Political Campaign Marketing Podcast
Political Campaigning – Strategy Update
What political campaigns can teach business
Lean Six Sigma for Government