Telecom “CRM” Spectrum, A©rmed for Voice & Data Battle

Dears,

The telecommunications industry is engaged in a number of different battles, each one with a particular history and strategy. At present we have at least two very important battles in place: the voice battle and data battle between wireless, wire line, cable and satellite. The situation inside each battle is very chaotic and complex to analyze. However, we can identify some significant trends inside each battle.

The voice battle

In the voice battle, we can identify at least two very important worldwide trends. The first trend shows the movement from the corporate market to the mass market in the wireless industry, and the second one shows the substitution of wire line by wireless. The movement toward the mass market has been creating cost challenges and changing the CRM processes structures. Many carriers will have to enlist the aid of complex and expensive database CRM tools simply to identify their customers, now concealed among the masses. Now the wireless companies are using many CRM and sales strategies (prepaid, Postpaid,one-rate plans) to acquire new good customers and to deepen the relationship with them. However, one of the most important effects of this movement is a decrease in average revenue per user (ARPU), forcing companies to try to increase their wallet share.

In developing countries the numbers tell the same story, showing that these countries are leapfrogging intermediate technology, going straight to use of state of the art wireless technology and following developed-country trends. One of the effects of the prepaid strategy is the difficulty companies have in identifying prepaid customers. Many times billing systems do not store data about these customers, transforming them into huge anonymous segments. This means that these customers will be harder to identify when carriers try to market news and information services (wallet share improvement campaigns) or unified messaging (fax, e-mail and voice mail). Those add-on applications will be necessary to increase minutes per use, which have been declining.

The data battle

The data battle is the most complex and may be the most important. The complexity of this battle starts with the huge number of players, including wireless, wire line, satellite, cable and companies from different industries such as the IT,Telecom,Hitech industry, all trying to define the standards. The data battle is probably the most important because if we consider voice transmission as a particular case of data transmission (IP telephony, cable phone), this battle could include part of the voice battle. We can split the data battle into two sub-battles, the first focused on mobile data transmission and the second on no-mobile data transmission. To get a better sense of the mobile data transmission sub-battle, imagine a salesperson or an executive, out of the office, trying to connect his or her notebook with the company intranet. He or she can use wire line or wireless technology to make this connection. Forecasts are showing an exponential growth for this kind of mobile data transmission. In the no-mobile side we can imagine a similar person trying to access the Internet from home or from the office. In this case, he or she still has the same first two options (wireless broadband for instance) but technologies like ISDN, DSL, cable modem or satellite dishes (PC Direct) can also be chosen to make the connection.

Telecommunications companies around the world have been trying to adapt themselves to every new market force, constantly changing their organizational structure in order to react quickly and remain competitive. They expect that the changes will stop and the chaos will decrease in the short term. However, this is unlikely to happen, so companies need to continue to adapt. We suggest that a necessary condition for success is to optimize core CRM processes and establish a competitive advantage in each one. The four core CRM processes are:

• Wallet-share enhancement (increase revenue from existing customers);
• Acquisition (new customers);
• Affinity (customer loyalty);
• Retention (preventing customer churn).

Each CRM process has four steps:

• Prioritization and goal setting: deciding what to focus on and building teams that pursue those objectives.
• Modelling: performing segmentation, scoring, and other kinds of analysis that help CRM decide which campaigns to develop.
• Campaign development: choosing, creating and preparing the advertising medium and the message to be delivered to customers, as well as running tests to validate the CRM assumptions.
• Campaign execution: actually sending the messages through the respective media.

Prioritization and goal setting

The CRM process has to deal with many different sources of input, feedback and impetus. In fact, in most telecommunications firms there is so much input, from so many different sources, with so many different and contradictory objectives, that it is easy to lose control over the whole process very quickly. This step may be extremely dysfunctional in some organizations, nonexistent in others, and well run in only a small percentage of cases. Most of the major challenges to the execution of the CRM process occur here, in the area of prioritization and goal settings. During this step of the process, the major components of a CRM plan are assembled. These steps involve identification of sponsors, creation of projects, assembly of teams, identification of objectives, and identification of constraints.

Modelling

Once the project team has been assembled and financed and the objectives have been clearly stated, the team moves from prioritization and goal-setting mode into modelling mode. A model is a proposal of the method that will accomplish the sponsor's objectives and the mathematical proof that shows the proposed solution is reasonable and viable. The goal of modelling is then is to develop a plan, or a series of plans, that will accomplish the goals. The modelling process is where most of the analytical disciplines are employed.

Campaign/programme development

Once the modelling process has been completed and the decision has been made which model to use, the job of CRM shifts from the modeller to the campaign developer. Campaign developers turn the model into a specific, executable plan. There are several processes involved in campaign development.

• Media and message finalization: deciding on the specific message to use and how it will be delivered.
• Media selection and negotiation: choosing specific organizations and individuals to deliver the messages and negotiating the cost of delivery. Media selection is often influenced strongly by the time frame for the message, or the target group.
• Prospect targeting and list scoring. In the case of direct mail and telemarketing, one of the main jobs of the campaign developer is to select the list of prospects and to determine which specific people on that list will be targeted.

Campaign execution

Once the campaign for a given time period (monthly, quarterly or annually) has been developed, the marketer will be responsible for setting it in motion. It may involve nothing more than making a phone call to the advertising agency, or may be as complicated as initiating and monitoring the day to day activities of a call centre or mailroom operation. Once the message is delivered, the company is ready to analyse the results.

The Forces

To continue our effort to construct a logical structure to represent the core CRM processes we need to understand all sources of influence and how they impact these processes. We can categorize the major sources of influence in three different forces.

The support force

The support force works as a floor for the CRM processes. We can split the support force into three different components:

• Techniques: specialized processes, procedures and techniques such as optimization, data mining and data;
• Telecomms CRM skills: specialized skills needed to manage the whole CRM process;
• Technology: the systems tools and data collection necessary to make this happen.

These components could actually be broken down further into different sub-components. For example, the technology component could be divided into a query system, to include the OLAP tools, data warehouses, data-marts and all the legacy systems; analytical systems for all of the optimization, data-mining systems and tools (this subcomponent is very important for defining the optimality of many parts of the CRM process); and finally process management systems, to include systems such as campaign management. The implementation of this particular sub-component is very complex because of the complicated trade-off between the tool and the internal processes of the company. When a telecoms company buys this kind of tool it is really buying a process that often does not match its current CRM processes.

The motive force

The motive force works as an engine for the CRM process. This force is responsible for pushing the whole process forward. The more important components in the motive force are:

• Corporate strategy and goal setting;
• Competition;
• New technologies and innovations;
• Market (customers and prospects).

The influence of the motive force within the core CRM processes is both very important and difficult to analyze. Companies often construct dedicated mechanisms to help them to understand fully all of the different components and how they affect their business environments.

The spoiler force

To understand the spoiler force we need to think of the spoiler on a race car, an accessory that adds to traction and steering capabilities, but can also slow down the car's progress based on its angle and how it is used. This spoiler force can be used to help or hinder the company's CRM progress. Components of the spoiler force include:

• Regulation;
• Network infrastructure;
• Operations.

Each one of these components has an enormous influence on the CRM core processes. For example, network infrastructure can work against marketing by creating a physical constraint for any acquisition campaign, or can work as a competitive advantage, helping marketers in the same kind of campaign.

Well we can go on and on with ways and means to conquer customers in Telecom space provided we have the right CRM path and direction in place

Loving P&C

DC*

Apples , Oranges & CRM Software Selection

Dears,

Hope your job is treating you well and believe everyone is in pursuit of new project /business opportunities. In this article I like to cover the purchase of right CRM software at the right price:

As I set out in the previous article on requirement gathering, the key to selecting the right CRM software is to have a detailed set of requirements. Only having high levels requirements – or none at all – makes it difficult to distinguish between the various offerings, because the functional needs are unlikely to be fully known, and pricing proposals will be indicative estimates which may prove to be very different from what you end up paying. Having detailed your requirements, the first step in the vendor selection process is to identify a good initial list of potential technologies and suppliers.

The start list

Not surprisingly, you’re likely to make better choices if you are selecting from a group of top-flight technologies and suppliers. Conversely, if you start off with a list which is largely inappropriate for what you are looking to achieve, then you simply end up selecting the best of a bad bunch. You may note that I mention both CRM technologies and suppliers. Generally – though there are exceptions – CRM software is sold or implemented through a network of independent resellers or implementation partners, rather than the company that developed it. The selection of the reseller or partner is at least as important to success as the choice of technology itself. It’s therefore important to think in terms of these two dimensions when researching the market. And, as the ability and professionalism of resellers and implementers varies very significantly, this should be an area where you take particular care.In this respect I’d be wary about recommendations from the software vendors about which resellers they think you should use. A lot of buyers will treat these recommendations as gospel, however they are invariably based on factors that suit the software vendor rather than the purchaser, for example, if the reseller is likely to make a quick sale (rather than implement the software well), or if you happen to sit in a reseller’s designated ‘territory’.

I generally look to get six to eight suppliers lined up to respond to a request for proposal (RFP). This gives a little leeway in case a few fail to respond. We also work hard to reassure the vendors that it’s an open contest (which it always is). If vendors harbour any suspicions that the decision might already be made and that the purchaser is just going through the motions, then they are unlikely to bid. Good vendors are generally very busy vendors, and responses to RFP’s are time consuming, so it’s worthwhile making the effort to promote the opportunity to them. This may sound a little counter intuitive, after all surely they should be doing the selling, but the value of working with a great vendor over a mediocre one, massively outweighs the effort.

The request for proposal

The next step is to prepare and distribute a request for proposal (RFP) document in order to better evaluate the available options. While some purchasers are inclined to skip this stage and start directly auditioning potential suppliers, getting written submissions from vendors gives you the opportunity to compare and contrast the offerings in a much more structured and analytical way, and gives you a better basis for action should disputes over what was promised arise in the future.

The goal with the RFP document is to strike the balance between getting the information you need to make a decision, while making it as easy as possible for the vendor to respond. If you make the RFP too onerous then there is a risk of potential suppliers deciding not to bid. As I mentioned before, a good vendor is likely to be a busy vendor, and they will weigh carefully the potential for successfully winning the business against the time and cost involved in preparing the response. So it’s best to keep the latter element as light as possible.

The RFP document should set out how and when the vendor should respond, and then prompt the would-be supplier to answer questions on the following areas:

• The profile of the software and its developer.

• The profile of the software vendor/implementer, particularly in relation to support capabilities, implementation approach, and experience with similar projects.

• Cost structure, including a detailed breakdown of both vendor supplied elements, such as software, services, training, and support and maintenance, as well as any other relevant costs such as hardware and database software.

• The final element is a table referencing the detailed requirements document, asking potential vendors to explain how they deliver each identified requirement, and provide man-day estimates for any that will require customisation/development to deliver.

While some of the vendors we work with may choose to disagree, we find this approach is light enough not to discourage responses, while providing us with sufficient information to make informed judgments about suitable candidates for the next stage: creating the short-list.

The short-list

Having received the responses, the next step is to review them and reduce them down to an appropriate short-list. I tend to grade them based on the following six questions:

1. How good is the functional fit?

2. How does the purchase price compare?

3. Can this vendor deliver a quality implementation?

4. Does it appear they want this project?

5. Are they going to be easy to work with?

6. Will they still be a strong supplier in five years time?

It’s worth noting that the information supplied to you shouldn’t be unquestioningly relied upon. There will be a lot of half-truths in tender responses along the following lines:

RFP question – ‘Does your software perform function xyz’.

Response from vendor – ‘Yes’,

The truthful answer – ‘Yes, though it involves using a third party module the price of which I haven’t quoted, it will also involves a considerable amount of customization, and it only works with the enterprise version of the software (and I’m quoting you the entry level version) and actually, while the module does do what you want, it’s not the best designed piece of software and your users will soon abandon it because it is unfathomably complex to use.’

So, if you have any suspicions that you may not have been given the whole truth, particularly if it’s in relation to a key capability, don’t hesitate to question it carefully with the prospective vendor.

The demonstration stage

Having determined a suitable short-list of prospective vendors – I’ve generally found four candidates to be a reasonable number – the next stage is to arrange for the vendors to present their products and credentials, normally in the form of a software demonstration and presentation.

This demonstration phase should be treated with a little caution. I know well from my time working for vendors how easy it is to script a demonstration in a way that showcases the offering’s strengths and skates over key weaknesses.

Software demonstrations, rather like job interviews, are a somewhat flawed process. A candidate may be great for sixty minutes in an interview, but it’s no guarantee they will perform over the long term. The demonstration produces its own distortions; I’ve seen excellent products from highly capable vendors culled from candidate lists for seemingly trivial reasons, and products I knew couldn’t do the job, from vendors who I wouldn’t trust to mow the lawn, end up winning the day.

So, while demonstrations are important, the polish of the presentation or the charisma of the salesperson should not unduly influence the decision making process. In fact over the years I’ve often found that there is an inverse relationship between the slickness of the sales process and the quality of final delivery.

To counter the presenter’s ‘slight of hand’, I’ve found it useful to inject as much structure as possible into the presentation/demonstration process, in terms of what to cover, and how long to cover it for. I’m also a great fan of giving prospective suppliers specific demonstration scenarios which reflect how the system will be used in due course. This makes it a lot easier to gauge how well the software fits the processes it will potentially support in real life.

Also, given that the successful salesperson is likely to disappear to the Caribbean for a ‘well earned’ holiday when the real work needs to be done, it’s a good idea to meet the people who will be involved in the implementation, particularly the project manager. You will be dealing with this team, not the salesperson, on a day to day basis, so it’s important to check they are capable and, perhaps more importantly, people you feel you can work with over the duration of the project.

At the conclusion of the short-list presentation stage you ideally want to be in the position where you feel comfortable that you could work with any of the vendors. This gives you more options moving forward. Hopefully at this point though you can identify a preferred potential supplier, though if it’s close this could be two, and move forward to the next stage.

It’s important though that the preferred supplier isn’t allowed to become too confident about their chances of being successful, because this can significantly impact your negotiating position in due course. It’s also not that unusual to reach a dead end with a ‘preferred’ supplier and need to revisit the original short-list again. Therefore it’s important that all the candidates understand that it remains an open contest.

The next step is to verify whether the preferred supplier is indeed the right choice. As part of this, I like to visit the vendor and get a better feel for how they run their business. This is also the opportunity to discuss any outstanding queries, meet other project team members, and discuss any potentially ticklish contract terms. It’s also a good idea to establish contact with relevant members of the supplier’s executive team, as you may need these lines of communication later if issues crop up on the project.

Many people will follow this up with reference calls, though this should be treated with caution. Even bad vendors will be able to rustle up a few positive references. However, as most suppliers like to showcase their customers during their sales presentations, a more insightful alternative is to take notes and make your own enquiries without going through ‘official’ channels. This is likely to give you a much truer picture as to a vendor’s reputation.

Assuming things progress satisfactorily, you now need to finalise the price for the project. In general it’s better to get the vendor to commit to a firm price, rather have them working on a time and material basis where they are effectively incentivised to take as long as they can.

If your requirements have been defined in detail as previously described, this should be a fairly brief process. The vendor should be able to review the requirements, and, with a relatively small amount of discussion and clarification, arrive at a fixed price. If you haven’t been able to get to a suitable level of detail, then more work is likely to be involved. The prospective vendor will need to undertake their own requirements analysis work which will generally be a chargeable exercise.

The key though is to only pay for the requirements work at this stage, and not to commit to the project as a whole. If a vendor is working on finalising a price for the project, and you are already committed to them because you’ve already bought the software for example, then you have very little leverage if they decide to take advantage of the situation and ramp up their estimates.

In general I tend to be very uneasy if there’s any significant difference between the price provided in the original RFP response and that provided at the end of this process. Unless there’s a reasonable explanation, I may elect to back track a little and conduct a similar process with other suppliers, which, again, is why it makes sense to keep your options as open as possible during the vendor selection phase.

Negotiation

As a final part of the process you may wish to negotiate pricing and terms. While it’s in your interests to structure a project so the vendor can make money on it – otherwise they may try and cut corners later – trimming out any unnecessary fat can make a big difference to the final purchase price.

While this may involve negotiating down software prices or day rates for implementation work, it’s the amount of implementation work that you need to be careful of because it’s easy for vendors to pad this out if they wish to. So, if the vendor is quoting ten days to perform development work that should only take two days, you are going to be significantly overpaying, even if you’ve successfully negotiated down the day rate.

When you are looking to negotiate pricing, here are a few tips:

• Look at timing – vendors are much more likely to offer discounts at key points in their financial year, such as quarter and year ends.

• Don’t show your hand – the tendency to discount will reflect the degree of confidence the vendor has of securing the deal. If they are confident, they tend to discount less than if they feel there is a realistic chance they may lose the opportunity.

• Have options – you are in a much better position to negotiate if you have three or four viable suppliers, than if you have just one.

• Research - a little knowledge about discounts a vendor has offered in the past can go a long way to help secure a satisfactory conclusion.

• Get outside help – if you are unsure if the number of days you are being quoted for development work is fair, get independent advice from someone familiar with working with your preferred technology.

• What can you offer? – vendors are much more inclined to negotiate the greater they see the value of you as a customer. Could you be a reference for them? Might the system extend to other parts of your business? Is your decision likely to persuade other companies to buy? Is this a new market or a new application of their product? If you can communicate your full value as a customer, the keener the vendor is likely to be to secure your business.

• Don’t get pressurised – vendors love to make pricing concessions based on you ordering by a certain date i.e. 10% off if you order by 31st December. These are generally artificial devices designed to force a quick decision. A quick decision may not be in your interests however, so progress things at your own pace, the discounts will almost certainly still be there when you are ready to move forward.

Contractual terms

Getting the right price is important, but meaningless if the contractual terms are not right as well. Be aware that anything involving contracts has the capacity to take a very long time, and, if you are working to tight time-lines, the earlier you can begin the process the better. So, it’s worth making sure that both parties have visibility of any contentious terms during the RFP stage.

With respect to negotiating terms, I’m not intending to offer any specific legal advice, but the following are few areas you may wish to be mindful of when finalising an agreement:

• What does the software agreement allow you to do? – It’s important to be clear as to how many users are allowed to access which capabilities of the system. For example, most vendors have different versions of their software from say entry level to enterprise, and it’s important to understand which version you are licensed to use and what the associated restrictions are. It’s also worth checking whether you have the right to run a separate instance of the software for training or testing purposes.

• Are all the costs known? – there can be a lot of hidden costs when purchasing CRM technology. Additional storage costs can be an example in a hosted environment, or maintenance agreements that are free of charge when you buy the software but kick in heavily in future years, for on premise software. Make sure these costs are fully disclosed in the agreement, and it can also be worth negotiating a cap on a vendor’s ability to raise prices to unreasonable levels in future years.

• What are the payment milestones? – I generally prefer contract payments to be built around the achievement of specific project delivery milestones, rather than the vendor invoicing on a weekly or monthly basis. This helps focus vendors on delivery rather than billing. In terms of software, when do the licenses need to be purchased? Vendors like to invoice on order, but if the implementation time-lines are likely to be lengthy and no one is using them before they go live, then this can unnecessarily tie up capital. Equally support and maintenance agreements should ideally start from ‘go-live’ rather from the order date.

• What’s the basis for payment? – In general I prefer fixed price contracts where the costs are known in advance and there’s less scope for cost overruns, rather than time and materials contracts where there’s no incentive to the vendor to complete the project in a timely fashion.

• Who owns the intellectual property? – By default a supplier will own the intellectual property rights to any customisation or development work they perform on your system. If you subsequently fall out with them, you may find that you no longer have the right to use the software, therefore it’s important that the contract addresses this ownership issue. There are a number of options which range from you owning the copyright, which the vendor may be reluctant to grant, to having a perpetual license to use it. In working this through you may also want to consider how you would feel if your chosen vendor offered the customisation work they had performed for you to your closest competitor!

• How can an agreement be ended? – Whether the agreement is for support services, or a software as a service (SAAS) contract, it’s important to be clear how the agreement can be terminated. Ideally you are looking to have as much flexibility as you can, whereas it’s generally in the vendor’s interests to restrict you as much as possible. I particularly dislike contracts that are automatically extended unless the vendor is notified by a certain date. If a vendor is unduly focused on locking you into a contract, it’s generally a red flag in terms of their confidence in their ability to deliver a quality service.

SUMMARY
The combination of a comprehensive set of CRM requirements, and a well structured approach to the vendor selection process, helps ensure that you choose the most appropriate technology for your needs, and purchase it at a fair price. I estimate that it’s on average 30 – 40% cheaper to purchase technology with the ‘front-loaded’ requirements led approach set out above, than the more traditional approach where poorly defined requirements mean prospective vendors are unable to provide firm pricing. This approach also speeds up the implementation phase and reduces the risk of later overruns.

Loving P&C
DC*

Why Sandy got fired? The Real CRM Story

Dears,

The title looks little Bizarre, Isn’t. Well I can tell you that the most critical stage of any crm project is requirement gathering stage. If you mess up with that and for sure you will get to know soon what’s in store for you in the near future.

The conventional wisdom has it that that CRM requirements gathering consists of assimilating lists of functional requirements and then prioritizing and ranking them. On the surface this all seems very logical, but in practical terms it doesn’t work. Since this is the approach that most organizations take, I thought I’d take a few posts to explain why this approach is fundamentally flawed, and to outline a significantly better alternative. Before I get too far into solutions I’d like to use this post to illustrate the sorts of things that happen when people adopt the ‘functionality first’ approach and it goes something like this:

MERRYGO Widgets Ltd decides a CRM system is a very good idea.  Mr.Sandy , Snr Manager in Group IT is given the task of visiting users to discuss what they might require from the system. Over the course of a few weeks Sandy’s builds up a surprisingly short list of functional needs. Unfortunately most of the interviewees have not used CRM technology previously, and aren’t able to provide much in the way of feedback. Sandy conducts some research on the internet and finds half a dozen potential CRM suppliers and invites them to review the requirements and provide a pricing proposal based on their offerings.

The proposals that are received all seem to meet the published requirements, but come in at a wide range of price points. MERRYGO invites three of the vendors to come and demonstrate their products to the project team. One of the vendors stands out; the salesperson is smartly dressed, professional, and the team really take a shine to her. Their proposal is also one of the cheapest and ticks all the boxes on the required list of functionality. The order is placed and the implementation begins.

The chosen vendor embarks on some initial scoping work. After a few weeks the vendor reports back that the requirement is actually significantly more involved than they had understood from the requirements. MERRYGO are far from happy with the extra costs, and consider their options carefully, but conclude as they’ve already paid for the software and the initial scoping, they don’t have much choice but to carry on.

A month or two passes, and it becomes clear that things aren’t going to fall apart. Several new requirements have arisen as staff become exposed to the technology and start to realize the potential of it. There’s also a problem with the security functionality on the selected product. The security requirements were not defined in the original specification list, and it’s clear the out of the box functionality exposes MERRYGO to too much risk. To bypass this MERRYGO have to authorize custom development work to add new security capabilities.

The implementation work being undertaken by the vendor is now way outside the original proposal figure and the project appears out of control. The MERRYGO Managing Director, now somewhat alarmed at the spiraling costs, finds herself increasingly involved in the project and has a series of crisis calls with the MD of the CRM vendor. Under the threat of the technology being ‘thrown out’ the CRM vendor agrees to cap the price of further development work. The CRM vendor mitigates the risk of having to perform substantial free of charge work, by ‘dumbing-down’ the requirement, so that, while broadly meeting the specification, many of the functions require more mouse clicks than was originally envisaged, and are far from intuitive.

The project is now very late. The MD had promised the system would be live months ago. In order to try and get things back on track she orders the project team to cut back the user acceptance testing phase, and begin user training. Unfortunately, in a bid to reduce costs, the CRM vendor has also cut back on its in-house testing programme. There are a consequently a lot of bugs in the system and these are not even close to being resolved when user training begins.

The users exposed to a system that plainly isn’t working immediately lose interest in the new system. It’s several months before all the bugs are ironed out, and by the time the system goes properly live most users have long forgotten the original training. Six months on, few people are using the system, and it’s unclear what value the system has added. The company asks Sandy to leave, and the MD is having huge difficulty getting the board to sanction a major investment in e-commerce technology that the company desperately needs to remain competitive. The ‘failed’ project has plainly damaged staff morale and there has been higher staff turnover than normal, including a couple of the company’s star salespeople……

Anyway you get the picture. While this may all seem like a rather far fetched ‘perfect storm’, the story is based on real world events that I see played out every day. Most CRM projects suffer some or all of the issues highlighted in my fictional (?) story. Much of the fault lies is in the functionality led approach to requirements gathering.

The ‘big’ point in terms of this post is that you need to be clear about what problems you are trying to solve or what compelling outcomes you are looking to achieve. This may sound fairly obvious, but I see a lot of CRM requirements documents, and very few of them have clearly stated business goals. There are three reasons why I think being explicit about your outcomes is important. Firstly, it acknowledges that you understand that technology is a tool. It won’t produce value on its own. It needs to be used in a coordinated way to produce results, and there are many and varied ways in which CRM technology may benefit your business. Secondly, without a clear objective to guide your project from the outset it’s unlikely it will essentially generate value. Thirdly, unless you can convey the benefits of the project in a compelling way it’s unlikely you will secure the necessary financial investment or, perhaps more importantly, the necessary injection of internal attention and resources required for success.

In terms of starting to define the desirable outcomes for the project, it’s worth noting that there are two broad ways that CRM technology may improve the operation of your business:

Process automation – where you take what you do currently and improve things through better supporting technology. For example, you might have excellent processes in terms of how you attract, develop and retain customers, but these may be supported through a range of Excel spreadsheets, standalone systems and databases. CRM technology might create new efficiencies by replacing disparate silos of information, with a central system which allows customer information to be better shared and more beneficially used. In this case your underlying business processes may be adapted to CRM technology, but they are not fundamentally changed.

Process development – where the business processes themselves are re-engineered, or entirely new processes are created. For example, you might adopt a different strategy in terms of how you manage sales leads, or streamline the order management process, or change the way you handle customer issues and complaints. In this case existing processes may change radically, and CRM technology plays a key role in their successful adoption by the business.
In practice most CRM implementations tend to focus on process automation. While process automation projects can produce a high pay-back, in general the greater returns on investment are achieved through the process development approach – looking to improve and add to existing processes and use CRM technology as the means to support those changes.

In terms of finding process automation benefits, a sensible starting point is to analyse and document how business processes are currently performed and how they are currently supported by technology. By reviewing these in context of how they might operate when supported by CRM technology you should be able to flush out potential efficiencies and benefits. This does require a working knowledge of CRM technology that you may not currently have. However, as many CRM technologies are available to evaluate free of charge, and that the general concepts and capabilities of different products are similar, it is not an unduly time-consuming task to gain the necessary knowledge by reviewing some of the mainstream packages.

As I touched on earlier though, the greater rewards generally spring from improving the processes themselves. The act of documenting existing business processes often produces a few surprises in terms of how things are actually done as opposed to how it was believed they were done, which may in turn move a project away from process automation to process development. It should be noted though that improving existing processes and adding new best practices is a more challenging and time consuming activity than simply automating what you do already. There’s no single way to go about doing this, and can be a product of internal brainstorming, consulting with your customers, researching how top-performing companies perform the same processes, and accessing the knowledge of domain experts.

The output from these exercises should be some clear statements regarding the beneficial outcomes. For example: ‘By streamlining and automating the order process, we expect to reduce the time to fulfil orders by two weeks, and reduce the cost of processing them by 40%.’Once you are clear on the objectives, it’s normally worth undertaking an initial assessment of project feasibility before going too much further. By matching the identified beneficial outcomes of the project with an estimate of costs, you should be able to assess whether the investment makes commercial sense of not. Assuming it does, then it’s time to move to the next stage in the requirements definition process which I will cover in my future post.

Loving P&C
DC*

Generation C, The Reality beyond Imagination

Dears,

This is a sequel to my earlier article on Gen C. What will make these tribe a complete alien what we are today and what would be the Consumer Next will look forward & how do we service them. Let C

Human V 2.0. Thanks to the popularity and performance of social collaboration technologies and mechanisms, including social networks, voice channels, online groups, blogs, and other electronic messaging systems, the size and diversity of networks of personal relationships will continue to grow. These networks will include acquaintances ranging far beyond the traditional groups of family, friends, and work colleagues to include friends of friends, online acquaintances, and anonymous members of interest groups. Already, 49 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds in the developed countries are savvy users of social networks.

One result will be the rapid creation of fast-moving political and business pressures — such as the tidal wave of electronic interest created by Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The average person in 2020 will live within a web of 200 to 300 contacts, maintained daily through a variety of channels. Even within the family, the need for physical proximity will be reduced through increased digital interaction. Just as Facebook’s “Connect” buttons are already distributed across 80,000 websites and devices, social networks will accompany people throughout their daily activities.

Digital Consumerism People will dramatically increase their consumption of digital information, much of which will be unverified. The vast pool of information available will allow consumers to pick and choose the information they want, as well as how they want to consume it. “Nonlinear” information consumption will become the norm. And the supply of digital information itself will explode. Walmart already handles more than 1 million sales transactions every hour, feeding databases estimated at more than 2.5 petabytes (2.5 million gigabytes), according to a recent study by the Economist. Cisco has estimated in a much-cited study that it expects Internet traffic to increase 10-fold by 2013, to 667 exabytes (that’s 716 billion gigabytes). Right now, much of this information is pure exhaust — unanalyzed and unanalyzable — but it will soon be put to material economic use.

Privacy Gains. Concerns about privacy and the security of personal data will decline as consumers come to perceive the benefits of transparency as outweighing the risks, and as mechanisms to secure and process personal information become more sophisticated. The result: The availability of an abundance of real-time, personalized information on people’s presence, online status, physical location, preferred communication channels, friend networks, interests, passions, and shopping habits. Facebook, for instance, already hosts 40 billion photos of its members. The use of social networking increasingly will determine consumption patterns. Viral marketing and positive peer reviews will become essential to commercial success, which will in turn erode the value of traditional marketing and of bricks-and-mortar outlets, and ultimately the concept of brand value itself.

iCloud. As privacy concerns dwindle, people’s personal data, such as identity, payment details, shopping preferences, interests, and membership in social communities, will become widely available. Members of Generation C will be able to access their digital life from a multitude of digital interfaces and devices, because they will live in a fully interconnected world in which services and data reside online — in what’s known as cloud computing — rather than on those devices themselves. Today’s consumer electronics already show the way: smartphones, iPads, iPods, netbooks, laptops, PCs, and watches, and the list is sure to grow in the next decade. At the same time, prices for such devices will continue to fall. Netbooks subsidized by telecom operators go for as little as a penny, and they are approaching the US$200 mark in retail outlets. Wireless broadband services, however, will still cost more than $50 per month.

Continuing generation gap. The upper age limit of the digitally literate will rise, as the 50-plus age bracket broadly migrates online. At present, the average 65-year-old spends just two to three hours online in a typical week; in 2020, 65-year-olds will spend closer to eight hours online weekly — though they will remain far below the 16- to 24-year-old group, which already spends 13 hours online weekly. Older people will also continue to lag in the intensity of their digital behavior. Generation C will distance itself further, particularly in the development of its own pervasive culture of communication. That culture has led some observers to dub this group “the silent generation,” as digital communication channels have replaced much of the physical interaction typical of prior generations.



Generation C@ Work

The digitization of everything will have an equally profound effect on how businesses operate, and on how work gets done. Among the changes that will be wrought by the arrival of Generation C in the workplace will be the continuing consumerization of corporate IT. More than half of the CIOs in a recent survey said that in the next three to five years, most employees will bring their personal computers to work rather than using corporate resources. The trend of redefining employees as resident consumers will be led by Generation C, given its familiarity with technology and its expectation of always-on communications.

This trend will, in turn, encourage the increasing virtualization of the organization. As 24/7 connectivity, social networking, and increased demands for personal freedom further penetrate the walls of the corporation, corporate life will continue to move away from traditional hierarchical structures. Instead, workers, mixing business and personal matters over the course of the day, will self-organize into agile communities of interest. By 2020, more than half of all employees at large corporations will work in virtual project groups. These virtual communities will make it easier for non-Western knowledge workers to join global teams, and to migrate to the developed world. As they do, they will bring with them the innovative ideas and working behavior developed in their home territories.

Moreover, the proliferation and increasing sophistication of communication, interaction, and collaboration technologies and tools, and the economics of travel itself, will result in knowledge workers’ traveling much less frequently. The opportunity to meet face-to-face will be accorded primarily to top management, and business travel will become a valued luxury.


The Developing World


The trends that are already transforming life and work in the developed world are beginning to be felt in emerging economies as well, although the path such countries take to digitization will be significantly shortened. As the developing world increases in connectivity and sophistication, a huge new audience of people who have not yet been exposed to the consumer economy will develop outside the already connected urban centers. Between 1990 and 2005, more than 1 billion people worldwide entered the middle class, and the rate of entry is rising quickly. Their consumption of media and other kinds of content will transform the media industry. As with prior technology adoptions, these new audiences will leapfrog years of technological development and quickly emulate the behavior of Generation C in developed economies. The experience of the rapidly developing middle class in India will become typical: A member of the Indian urban middle class spends almost 30 hours per week online but watches TV for just 12 hours. Three out of four regularly download music, two out of three watch online videos, and almost half play games online.

This increasing technological sophistication will promote the emergence of skilled and innovative digital entrepreneurs in massive numbers throughout the developing world. The rise of these entrepreneurs has the potential to significantly disrupt traditional Western business models. And they will have the attention of a large, newly connected audience that can benefit from their new ideas. In urban China, for instance, 76 percent of people are already online, and 61 percent have broadband at home. Western countries currently lead the world in just two critical online services, e-commerce (Germany) and online advertising (the U.K.), whereas non-Western countries are ahead in several others: broadband (South Korea), social networking (Brazil), online gaming (China), mobile payments (Japan), and microtransactions via SMS (the Philippines).

Industry Effects

As Generation C enters the workforce over the next decade, the manner in which it consumes information, communicates at work and play, and uses technology will transform many major industries. The most affected sector will be telecommunications, which is at the very center of how this new generation will live their lives; other sectors apt to greatly change include healthcare, retail, and travel. How will these industries evolve over the next decade?


Telecommunications. Just as the telecom industry is heading toward a strict separation between infrastructure and services and applications, customers are shifting their consumption patterns, and their loyalties, away from the traditional telecom operators and toward application and service providers such as Google, Apple, and Facebook, as well as any number of smaller players. In this world, telecom players that remain vertically integrated will come under substantial pressure. Indeed, it is likely that the industry will evolve to include two types of players: The efficient utility, driven by fiber-optic and wireless access technology, and the fast-moving, customer-centric software innovation provider.

At the same time, the information and communications on which the world of 2020 will depend, and the intelligence needed to manage that information, are moving quickly into the online computing cloud. The convergence of these technologies in the cloud will only be the start, however. As more and more services migrate online, telecom, IT, technology, and Internet service companies themselves will begin to encroach on one another’s territory, as they all move toward higher-margin and differentiating applications.

The general outlines of the future created by the arrival of Generation C are clear. The question is whether telecom operators are ready for the changes already on the way and are planning now to create the strategies and business models they will need to keep growing in this more competitive future. Too many telecom operators appear to be focused on preserving sources of revenue, such as voice telephony, that are likely to decline in the future, rather than on developing new sources of revenue and opening up new markets. As a whole, telecom industry players need to rapidly change their operational and business models, the ways they interact with customers, the access and price points they establish to generate revenues, and the way they manage innovation.

We see three primary new revenue opportunities arising from the changes that the emergence of Generation C will bring about. First, the demand for ubiquitous connectivity will ultimately create the need for universal broadband access in developed economies. As a result, operators that hope to grow by offering services dependent on broadband must support national efforts to build out this next-generation infrastructure. Second, vast segments of the world’s population in emerging markets are still unconnected, and operators looking to grow their customer bases thus need to expand in those markets. Third, the ways that Generation C behaves and collaborates, and the technologies it prefers, will create opportunities in other industries; telecommunications operators should be considering how to promote the use of their services to capture some of the new value created.

Healthcare. As information about doctors and hospitals, medical treatments, and costs floods the Internet, consumers will gain real power, performing their own research; writing reviews of physicians, hospitals, and drugs; and forcing the players to compete more actively. Online services, some featuring user-generated content, will become a primary channel for medical advice, substituting in part for traditional support channels.

Widespread connectivity will boost electronic diagnosis, helping to reduce costs; digital health monitoring will become accepted practice; medical R&D will come to rely on social media such as crowdsourcing. The personalization of medicine will lead to new insurance models, and electronic medical records and national e-health infrastructures will connect with online identity and digital passport technologies.

Retail. Ubiquitous connectivity will continue to transform the retail industry, seamlessly integrating the online and offline worlds, and ultimately leading to a form of augmented reality that allows a more elaborate presentation of retail goods. Peer reviews will become a real-time decision-making tool in physical stores as well as online, and social networks will become critical for brand awareness and customer preferences. This will lead to a winner-take-all dynamic among retailers, already typical of commerce on the Internet. Electronics retailers will lose ground as consumers purchase software and services from the cloud rather than in their current shrink-wrapped store format. Social media techniques such as crowdsourcing will be used to further product innovation, and increased connectivity will generate new monetization models driven by new partnerships among retailers and manufacturers.



Travel. By 2020, business travel will decline in the face of costs and alternative meeting technologies. In the leisure segment, traditional intermediaries such as travel agents have already been largely cut out, and peer reviews have become a dominant form of deciding on vacation destinations. This will lead to increasingly individualized travel, online advice and information dictating travel plans in real time. The distinction between travel and home will blur (as the distinction between the office and home already has), and the off-the-grid getaway will become a luxury.

Even the concept of distance will be transformed, as the world becomes fully modeled in 3-D, and open for inspection by prospective visitors. The digital world will also further invade the car. For the driver, this will lead to better information on the roadside environment — another instance of augmented reality — along with improved safety through the presence of sensors that check for drivers’ sleepiness or drunkenness, and simplified car maintenance based on remote diagnostics. It will also improve the efficiency of the street network, allowing for instant data on traffic and providing the ability to determine traffic flow.

Is Your Company Ready?



There is already evidence of some of the changes that will be brought about by the coming generation of workers and consumers, and increasing speculation about the path of future change. Few businesspeople, however, have fully grasped the implications for every industry. The arrival of Generation C will have an impact comparable to that of the Industrial Revolution, but it will take place much more quickly. For managers, it is no longer sufficient to plan for the next few quarters, or even the next few years. Companies that aren’t willing to determine their strategies for the longer term — 10 to 15 years out — are putting their business models and value chains at risk. Executives must begin now to develop an agenda that includes an analysis of the capabilities and workforces they will need in the next decade and beyond. A critical step will be to make sure that the organization as a whole understands the coming changes, and that there are already people within the organization who are living these changes now, who don’t perceive them as a threat, and who can help integrate them into the organization’s business plan.

The world of 2020 will be set and governed by the members of Generation C, as they mature and grow in numbers and power. How businesses choose to cater to this coterie will determine their success — and even their ability to survive — in the coming decades.


Loving P & C
DC*

Generation “C” is next

Dears,

Are you with me, Lets time travel to 2020? What do you “C”

Steve Gates is a 20-year-old computer science student living in London with two other students in the year 2020. He enjoys backpacking, sports, music, and gaming. He has a primary digital device (PDD) that keeps him connected 24 hours a day — at home, in transit, at school. He uses it to download and record music, video, and other content, and to keep in touch with his family, friends, and an ever-widening circle of acquaintances. His apartment is equipped with the latest wireless home technology, giving him superfast download speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

Steve Gates’s parents live in different cities, and he has one sister, who lives abroad. He is close to his family, but his physical contact with them is minimal. Instead, he prefers to stay in touch virtually through his PDD, which allows him to communicate through multiple channels via voice, text, video, data — either separately or all at once. His parents would prefer that he visit more often, of course, but they are finally beginning to get used to being a part of his digital life. Still, sometimes Steve Gates feels he is too digitally connected. A recent surprise visit to his mother was ruined because she knew he was in town — he had forgotten to disable the location feature on his PDD. Steve Gates’s social life is also arranged via his PDD. He always knows the location of his friends — even what they are doing — and can communicate with them instantly.

Much of Steve Gates’s experience at school is mediated by his PDD. He can attend lectures, browse reading material, do research, compare notes with classmates, and take exams — all from the comfort of his apartment. When he goes to campus, his PDD automatically connects to the school’s network and downloads relevant content, notices, and bills for fees, for which he can authorize payment later, at his leisure. Although he prefers to shop online, when he visits a retail store, his PDD automatically connects to the store’s network, guiding him through product choices, offering peer reviews, and automatically checking out and paying for items he purchases.

Steve Gates’s real passion is traveling, preferably with a backpack. On his recent trip to Australia, his PDD kept him occupied throughout the long plane ride with music, video, and Internet access, and helped him through customs by automatically connecting to the Australian government’s network. Then he used it to pinpoint the location of the Australian friends he was planning to travel with (he had met them online through one of several social networks he uses). Once they met up, they used their PDDs to plan their route, a relatively easy task, given that with all of Australia (and most of the civilized world) mapped and modeled on the Web in 3-D, they could see every twist and turn on their path.

What Makes Gen C Special

Who is Steve Gates? He is a member of a new generation that will be coming into its own over the next decade or less may be in next 3 , 5, 6 years... Its members are typically realists and materialists. They are culturally liberal, though not necessarily politically progressive. They are upwardly mobile, yet they live with their parents longer than earlier generations ever did. Many of their social interactions take place on the Internet, where they feel free to express their opinions and attitudes. They’ve grown up under the influence of Harry Potter, Barack Obama, and iEverything — iPods, iTunes, iPhones. Technology is so intimately woven into their lives that the baby boom–era concept of “early adopters” is essentially meaningless.

We call them Generation C — connected, communicating, content-centric, computerized, community-oriented, always clicking. As a rule, they were born after 1990 and lived their adolescent years after 2000. In the developed world, Generation C encompasses everyone in this age group; in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), they are primarily urban and suburban. By 2020, they will make up 40 percent of the population in the U.S., Europe, and the BRIC countries, and 10 percent of the rest of the world — and by then, they will constitute the largest single cohort of consumers worldwide.

This is the first generation that has never known any reality other than that defined and enabled by the Internet, mobile devices, and social networking. They have owned various handheld devices all their lives, so they are intimately familiar with them and use them for as much as six hours a day. They all have mobile phones, yet they prefer sending text messages to talking with people. More than 95 percent of them have computers, and more than half use instant messaging to communicate, have Facebook pages, and watch videos on YouTube. Their familiarity with technology; reliance on mobile communications; and desire to remain in contact with large networks of family members, friends, business contacts, and people with common interests will transform how we work and how we consume.

The pace of innovation will accelerate, creating an ever more digital world, even as wireless devices become the dominant tool for trade, entrepreneurship, and Internet access. Indeed, the very rise of Generation C will help create a virtuous circle that will help stimulate economic growth, which in turn will encourage both the public and private sectors to continue to invest in faster and more widespread communications infrastructure, thus enabling even greater growth.

Although climate change and energy security will remain major concerns, stable electric power will likely be available to a substantially larger part of society, and energy inefficiency will no longer represent a hurdle to progress. High-speed broadband, whether fixed or mobile, will be pervasive and affordable. Secure online identity systems will allow reliable user authentication. It is likely that increasingly rational regulatory schemes will open up commercial activity worldwide, and that companies and individuals will be able to profit fairly from the intellectual property they generate.

Connected Consumers

The trends outlined above will have a wide range of effects on how members of Generation C — and, by extension, other generations as well — use communications technology, how they access and consume information and entertainment, and how they interact. These effects will be determined in part by the progress of technologies over the course of the next decade.

On the grid 24/7. Being connected around the clock will be the norm in Future — indeed, it will be a prerequisite for participation in society. Currently, there are 4.6 billion mobile users (67 percent of the world population) and 1.7 billion Internet users globally. By 2020, the number of people using mobile phones will reach 6 billion (nearly 80 percent of the world population) and 4.7 billion people will access the Internet, primarily through their mobile devices. Among younger population 52 percent already say they feel disconnected from the world if they don’t have their mobile phones with them, and 91 percent of all mobile users keep their phones within arm’s reach, waking or sleeping.

The Internet’s power will develop not just through its online economic might, but also offline, as a result of its cultural and political influence. At the same time, personal and business activities will mingle seamlessly, as the day fragments into a flexible mix of personal and business activities — work, commuting, shopping, socializing, and entertainment. The inevitable corollary: As “off-grid” time becomes rarer, it will become more valued.

Watch this Space for more on Gen C.

Loving P&C

DC*

B2B CRM and Supply Chain Connection- Connecting Customer Lives

Dears,

B2B CRM and Supply Chain has great value  when executed and connected right. Processing a single B2B order can cost suppliers US $100 or more, and sometimes thousands of dollars. Most of the cost is because of the number of different people who are involved in the order before fulfillment. ERP systems were widely adopted in the late 1990s by companies eager to streamline and automate their operations. Since then they have become the core of many corporate technology initiatives. ERP systems were implemented for various reasons, ranging from the reduction of inventory levels to increasing process efficiencies in the supply chain and integrating core business systems.

In much the same way that many B2C organizations have taken to aligning their business processes with CRM systems, ERP systems have frequently dictated B2B corporate procedures. This is because ERP products offer easier information sharing between different departments, such as purchasing, operations or manufacturing, finance and human resources. ERP automated key corporate functions, making general ledger systems and warehouses brimming with filing cabinets full of purchase orders a thing of the past. Key business processes that are automated include:

·         inventory management;

·         production forecasting;

·         distribution and logistics management;

·         finance;

·         HR processes.

ERP systems allow companies to automate these and other functions and also to link them together. This bringing together of disparate systems and processes enables integrated operations across the enterprise; reason enough in itself for implementation of ERP. Sales teams can access a single system to check inventory, a purchasing agent can look up a supplier's history and product managers can track defects in their products reported by the field service operation. The links between ERP, supply chain management and CRM are stronger than ever. Better knowledge of the customer means better understanding of how to build the relationship with that customer. For instance, a company's accounts receivable staff might choose not to open collections on past-due customers who have in-process trouble tickets. Likewise, CRM business users can use accounting and supply chain information to decide how to treat customers who do not meet provisioning deadlines.

ERP vendors (such as Oracle, MS and SAP) have recognized the connections between tighter, more integrated operations and business customer satisfaction and have released CRM modules that tie their core products, rendering the customer a key link in the supply chain. The Picture shows the broad range of integrated logistics capabilities that a distribution company needs to be able to deliver in order to assist their customers in optimizing the potential of the supply chain.

Throughout the supply chain, companies are expected to provide their customers, suppliers and partners with more information than ever before. To do that, they need the best databases, holding accurate and current data, and the applications and processes necessary to deliver that data (not to mention an organizational willingness to share data with suppliers and customers). The introduction of the Web as a channel has meant that key processes such as ordering, fulfillment, inventory management, and distribution all have to run at Web speed. The challenge of streamlining the supply chain is compounded by this need for speed. Data is also required internally in order to be able to anticipate demands and work with third parties to realign focus accordingly.

One of the main reasons for the growing requirements for end-to-end integration, better and more visible information, and greater speed of response is the need for some companies to act globally. Global businesses expect a global service, while maintaining the high standards they have become accustomed to at a local level. One of the main aims of B2B companies that operate globally is to anticipate customer demand at a global level while acting upon it locally.

Measurement and CRM Metrics in B2B

Until now measurement of CRM performance in B2B has been largely determined from a supplier perspective, predominantly revenue oriented: that is, reflecting not what is valued by the customer but rather what is important to the supplier. Despite this, customer satisfaction was measured in B2B companies long before CRM became the buzzword in B2B. Particularly in key account management, the value of customer relationships and loyalty have been long recognized, although it had been very ad hoc until recent years. In most cases, B2B CRM was personalized: account managers had to manage relationships effectively in order to achieve their targets. Today we are seeing that awareness and responsibility at an enterprise level.

The main metrics for key account managers until now have been:

• quarter-end revenue;
• year-end revenue;
• Customer satisfaction (mainly based on transactions: whether the goods were delivered on time, and so on).

We are seeing a move towards more appropriate relationship oriented measurement, measuring for example how many senior executives have been contacted in a given time period. Inevitably, revenue metrics (which are supplier oriented) will remain, although they will become more relevant to the customer as risk-reward and profit sharing arrangements become more pervasive. That is to say, the metrics will reflect supplier and customer shareholder value.

The 360-degree feedback approach, in which customers give feedback to their suppliers about the quality of the latter's staff, has been adopted in many global organizations, and appears to be a step in the right direction in terms of understanding the CRM performance of key individuals. The problem here is measurement: few supplier organizations are willing to reward their representatives for anything other than revenue. What is needed is a key set of human relationship metrics for CRM in B2B. In the meantime, a common approach is to ask customers at the beginning of a time period what they value and then measure CRM performance against this. Indeed this is one of the Hitachi  approach on a project-by-project basis with the pre-consulting engagement 'conditions of satisfaction' assessment, in which Hitachi asks its customers what five things it needs to do to achieve customer satisfaction on the project.

The world of B2B marketing changed irrevocably with the advent of ERP. Today, the key to improving CRM in B2B is integration with ERP systems. While ERP systems are usually characterized by use of well-established metrics, this is not so for CRM in B2B. My view is that a necessary condition for the success of B2B CRM is the adoption of metrics that make sense to customers and to staff, and support of these metrics by appropriate incentives.

 Loving P&C

DC*