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Billy Mays-Death of a true salesman

The passing of Michael Jackson had overshadowed all other news but I thought we should not miss out celebrating Billy Mays. I find Arthur Miller's play somewhat unkind to the sales profession and thus the "true" for Billy Mays. Billy Mays was a true salesman and a great pitchman on TV.

What makes personal selling so effective is that when you speak directly with a prospect,face to face and one to one, it has the biggest impact on closing the sale.To do so via television is very difficult and Billy Mays was very good at it . You wanted to believe him and put out the $20 or so that he suggested you spend to acquire a product that sure looked useful.He did the "convincing that it is useful" really well. To do so for a mass TV audience is a rare and remarkable skill.  My guess is that Billy Mays was not only able to sell the products he pitched but the products "stayed" sold. Probably customers who bought Billy Mays pitches returned less product as he upped the satisfaction levels right at the sell stage.

Here is a clip from the Tonight Show to learn enthusiasm from Billy Mays:

MBA lessons from GM Bankruptcy

MBA classrooms across the world will reverberate with lessons from the GM Bankruptcy for future MBA's. Strangely though,since MBA's starting working for GM  in the 1970's the lessons were already there!  For example, MBA's  in the seventies knew that moving with changing customer needs was  the simplest way to win. But fuel efficiency and smaller cars was a "no-no" for Detroit. Important stakeholders like the Unions clung on to expensive health and retirement as the sun set on US auto as the world literally turned and changed.

As an industry old timer told me, it was plain arrogance, complacency and the unwillingness of managers to speak up,in time. It was easier to deride the Japanese automakers ( ha imports) rather than emulate them, at least in part.

On the labor front the UAW is reduced to   a shadow of its old belligerent self.  This probably gives no pleasure to retired auto managers who were given such a hard time when they wanted to change things when there still was time.

This blog has been talking about the US auto industry for some years but academics have been writing about key problems for decades. US Auto is forever changed - the question is -will managers really learn in other industries?

Will Budweiser change?

The news that InBev has taken over Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion is a major event for both marketing and the supply chain.Although,initial reports suggest that the big benefit of the merger is the enormous brand power and marketing muscle  of "Bud" in the US market,it seems likely that the new management will review  some of the traditional advertising  that Budweiser has been known for.Also,a focus of the American entity will be to cut supply chain costs by $1.6 Billion.

College classrooms will suddenly find the enormous marketing teaching material developed around the "Budweiser" brand outdated. Marketing clubs routinely discuss the Superbowl ads, dominated by "Bud" and things may change there as well.Similarly the famous supply chain beer game will probably need some reworking.

In fact, the merger will throw up enormous opportunity and challenges,not only for the merged entity but entire armies of consultants,speakers,professors and students will suddenly have to take a fresh look at global alliances, in this case a merger, and it's impact on something we assumed would never change viz. Budweiser and it's larger than life dominance in the American psyche.

For starters, consider the InBev website's brand section that asks you your country of residence and date of birth while the Anheuser-Busch website asks you if you are over 21 and simply assumes US residence. All this will start changing as "Bud" becomes truly global.Similarly, before making any marketing changes in a great marketing formula, the new A-B-InBev organization should sure tread carefully lest we have one more "New Coke."

The Conceptual Age - reporting from ISM 93rd Conference St. Louis

Just returned from a wonderful conference - the ISM 93rd at St. Louis. St. Louis is a nice place and the conference center was great as was the metro train transportation which I used to check out a surprisingly great Indian Restaurant, Rasoi.

There were many great sessions throughout the conference and I will probably allude to them in future posts. However, Daniel Pink as the lunchtime speaker on Monday simply resonated with me and many other participants. Pink did not probably say something totally new but did manage to convey his message really well.

In a nutshell, Pink said that three things were changing our world, particularly in the developed West. These were Abundance, Asia and Automation.  His illustration of abundance was rather neat in that the rather new self storage industry is for the extra "stuff" we have gathered and the self storage industry exceeds 22 B $ and is larger than Hollywood. Asia  and the impact of China on manufacturing and India on services is well known as are the burgeoning markets and aspirations in these countries.  But it is automation that is the clincher of  the "conceptual age". If it can be codified and written down it will be either outsourced or automated, preferably automated. Interestingly, it is not Indian accountants that took over all the tax returns but the 29 $ software you can buy at Wal-Mart to file your taxes. Why would you pay 100+ $  to a tax preparer ??

This leads to Daniel Pink's thesis that it is necessary to have a prepared left brain that is analytical, sequential and is geared to doing well in the SAT. However, the left brain alone is not enough because by definition what the left brain can do, can be codified,written down and then outsourced and finally automated. So beyond the left brain is developing the "conceptual" skills of the right brain that 's about synthesis, modeling and innovation in your field of expertise no matter what your "left brained" expertise is. Very interesting and provoking and so thought many of the participants I talked to.

Happy Earth Day -"Green" Value Chain and Clorox

Today is "Earth Day" and here is to wishing readers a very happy earth day! The Earth day movement has an interesting timeline  and there is much to celebrate in terms of the progress we have made globally. However, much needs to be done. I had written about how B2B folks can help with greening the supply chain. Essentially consumers have a preference for "green" today if prices are comparable. Marketing and Sales Managers being closer to their own customers can start with one product and work with their supply management and supply chain to introduce green. Many organizations in the grocery business are doing exactly that.

An  intriguing example corporate green initiatives is the "Green Works" initiative from Clorox. One would think that Chlorine is bad for the environment but the company has gone natural and here are their definitions. I have not got around to using their "green " products but I am sure impressed by the competitive prices and great in-store displays across different segments of retailers from Home Depot to Wal-Mart.

Upcoming KPO/BPO learning opportunities in Florida and New York

I am really glad to see the surge of recent interest on knowledge process outsourcing and the shared service domain. End of March you have the Orlando Florida event where you have the eminent strategy guru Ram Charan  leading the proceedings.  On a more applied and "what I can I do with this KPO thing specifically"  note is the nice event at New York on April 29 and 30 .

The KPO summit is chaired by the noted Duke University Professor Arie Y. Lewin . Talks include  financial sector KPO by Andy Eftathiou ; types of KPO including business,investment and legal research by Suresh Yannamani ;the India advantage by Ron Somers, and a KPO best practices panel discussion  with Vasant Bennett , Ken Cutshaw EVP and General Counsel of Church's Chicken and Ranjit  Dua of  Dua Associates.

On April 30th we have Julio Ramirez  on finance and accounting KPO, Marcia Mcleod of Williams Energy on contracting, Lawrence A. Schultis  on risk management in contracting, Jack Diggle    of Prince OMC   on managing human resources in KPO,  A group  from CPA Global  ( Bhaskar Bagchi, Inder Duggal and Susan Hanstad) with an operational KPO  case study; comparing India,Ghana,Philipines and Eastern Europe for KPO with Harry van Geijn of Fortis Insurance International; a case study of managing the "stay behind" workforce by Steve Hosle of AOL followed by Fauzia Zaman Malik  of Accenture  on captive vs build operate and transfer (BOT) models and finally  Frank Cocuzza of Penske (check out this story here) on relationship governance for KPO. Those new to BPO and KPO might like to attend the pre-conference sessions by  David Perla of Pangea3 LLC to prep for the main event.

KPO has indeed  come a long way from my various efforts since  2005 on "Global Outsourcing of Knowledge Based Services"!    

GNHCC Business Expo 2008 with AMA-CT ,Google and Seth Godin

Last year I had spoken at the GNHCC Business Expo and the expo  was great. This year I was unable to attend but requested my Internet Marketing and E-Commerce class to attend and also help out with the AMA-CT booth. It was really nice of the students to attend the expo and also listen to the excellent  talk"Web 2.0: Trends in the Digital Landscape" by Mandy Gardiner, Team Manager Google Inc. And here are the photos.....

Clearly, the organizers of the Expo have moved into Web 2.0 marketing as they had got Seth Godin, Web 2.0 Marketing Guru to be the lunchtime speaker. Tod Kallenbach the AMA-CT President gave me Seth's new book "Meatball Sundae" and I just finished reading it. Fascinating......

NECON 2007 my Knowledge Based Services - Low Cost Country Sourcing talk

The NECON Conference is a great event and will be will be inaugurated   by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley  with a whole lot of great speakers. NECON is a collaborative initiative of  the Boston and North Shore Chapter of APICS ,The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, the CSCMP New England Roundtable, the NE Supply Management Group  and The Purchasing Management Association,Boston.Richard G. Weissman's blog on Purchasing.com has started the buzz for the event that is between September 30 to October 2, 2007 in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

My own talk is on Tuesday afternoon and an abstract appears here. I am  working on delivering a really useful and enjoyable workshop!

Toy recall , tire recall and the supply chain

Tell me frankly- if you have children are you worried about brain damage caused by lead paint from toys ? If you changed a tire recently, did you look for the "Made in" label - discreetly but anxiously.Globalization is really catching up with everyone and I feel bad for the supply chain managers at Mattel and Fisher and Price and their marketing folks and Chinese suppliers.

I can't believe that the toy specifications did not have a "no lead paint" clause in early versions. What must have happened is that marketing must have gone on pressurizing for lower costs and the supply chain managers, being less influential than marketing in organizations, must have passed on the cost pressures to the supplier who in turn passed it on to their Tier 2 paint supplier. Thus, according to CNN, one toy supplier committed suicide while the paint supplier who was in the same compound has gone missing. The paint supplier, according to the story was a friend of the toy maker and the visuals showed some of the thousand workers who became  jobless. At the consumer end, people are frantically checking toy boxes and are being advised to get the blood lead content checked for their children, and be worried only if the lead content is high. There is talk of  medical monitoring  and a fund to meet the costs of all these testings. What a mess!

For supply chain managers to have instituted lead paint checks in acceptance quality checks is ludicrous because if you live in the US lead paint is so obviously a "no-no." So why is there such a large disconnect between buyers and sellers ? Obviously because there are tiers of suppliers and everyone on the US side depends on written specifications and controls. On the Chinese side of multiple tiers in a highly context driven culture things like lead paint do not seem like  a big deal. In addition,communication,trust and an ability of suppliers to say no to unreal lower prices and an inability of buyers to understand the ground reality of overseas costs, legal and cultural environments are probably culprits here.

No amount of quality controls, PLM and SRM software, visible supply chains, can overcome this situation. A change of orientation in supplier management is called for.In the meanwhile, this situation will continue to unfold.

India Happy 60th Birthday-why a great global knowledge partner

As I watched Dr. Manmohan Singh, India's Prime Minister first pay traditional tribute at the Raj Ghat, the memorial built for Mahatma Gandhi the father of modern India and then unfurl the Indian flag I was struck with a sense of awe. Awe because India has achieved the seemingly impossible, built a democratic open society with a population of over 1 Billion diverse people with multiple differences in languages,religions and culture. I guess Gandhi figured out the moral path in an absolute brilliant fashion. His model was "Ram Rajya" the Hindu ideal kingdom of Lord Rama where the king and Lord Himself is extremely careful about public opinion and carrying people along with both government and personal actions. By being able to dovetail modern western democratic notions to ancient Indian ones the Mahatma formed the foundation that allowed Dr. Manmohan Singh an Oxford Ph.D. in Economics and a minority Sikh to become Prime Minister and be acceptable to a bunch of sometimes difficult coalition partners. Awe because India's President is a woman Pratibha Patil who replaced Dr. Abdul Kalam a rocket scientist who is  also a muslim. Awed because the President of the ruling Congress Party ( the Mahatma's party) is an Italian catholic Sonia Gandhi who dresses in a saree and had given up the chance to become Prime Minister, thus striking a chord among India's masses because this is exactly what the Mahatma would recommend and Lord Rama would approve!

On the ground however, poverty is still widespread and Dr. Singh emphasized that there was no success without ensuring basic living for all. He talked about healthcare and pensions for the 65 plus who are below the poverty line. Dr. Singh referred to the need for electricity and roads that have become, with drinking water, the top priority for Indian democracy in contrast to the more basic food,clothing shelter theme of  the eighties. Dr. Singh  was silent  about controlling corruption  but then the multiple newspapers and media have a great time  doing "sting" operations to catch politicians and officials  on the wrong foot as does the vibrant Bollywood film industry.

I wonder whether it  is just the sixty years or the ability to dovetail traditional democratic values, that makes democracy work in a relatively poor and populous country. In any event , democracy does work and Dr. Singh announced opening up of many more schools and Universities to thunderous applause. The goal was to eventually provide opportunities for low cost college education to 20%  of the people. Just being able to read and write was not enough according to Dr. Singh, people needed to do better on the knowledge front to be able to contribute to the new global order.

So what has this got to do with India being a great global knowledge partner? Simply this : that an open democratic society allows other global partners to know what is going on with minimal effort.
For example,  a few emails or well placed skype calls might get you a fast "on the ground" view from an Indian partner's friends and enemies! The picture may not be always pretty but at least you get the picture - not something you can say for partners in other countries with more closed political systems.