Improve your Profitability using Behavioural Science
Many Australian retailers are struggling to maintain their turnover and profit margins. We constantly hear that the Internet, global competition and the Aussie dollar are conspiring to depress the Australian retail sector. In essence there are rational reasons why retail spending has been in decline.
There is no doubt that customer purchasing behaviour is not only influenced by rational thought. Behavioural science examines how customer’s perceptions of an interaction are influenced by the amounts and sequencing of painful and pleasurable experiences during buying behaviour. Insight into the pleasure and pain that customers experience directly influences spend levels and customer satisfaction.
Out of the Picture
More than just a play on words, the above title (which is borrowed from the media) really speaks to the current plight of Kodak. Just recently it has been reported that Kodak has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it tries to restructure, boost cash and importantly, stay in business. These next two years will really determine how the company operates (if at all) into the future.
On face value, this story seems like any other story about disruptive technologies changing the market and the fallout from companies who were either on the front or back foot. The real tragedy for Kodak was that the company was on both, the front foot and then the back. How could a company with over 100 years experience in essentially capitalising on disruptive technologies get is so wrong in this case?
Internal Branding – the Key to reconnecting your Customers and Employees
Customers drive sales and profitability. So how do your employees interact with and engage customers? How would your customers describe their experience? Do your customers have an expectation on how your employee will represent your brand?
So how does an organisation manage its customer experience to ensure its people, processes and culture are reinforcing customer expectations? A key foundation of customer experience management is internal branding.
Internal branding in essence is ‘living’ and ‘delivering on’ your organisation’s brand promises. It is an organisation-wide initiative that enables all employees to understand how they can personally impact on a customer’s experience and contribute to building the company’s reputation and brand.
Leadership – Taking Your Brand to the Frontline
The importance of the role managers play in infusing real change is under-estimated in most organisations. Whilst it’s true that perhaps certain leaders are born, the significant majority are developed into becoming leaders. Your position as a manager or supervisor gives you the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives. This power does not make you a leader, it simply makes you the boss!
If you Google the word ‘leader’ or ‘leadership’, there are 487 million hits. That’s a lot of information which can only add to the confusion of what leadership really is. Leadership is not the sole responsibility for ‘people at the top’, everyone can learn to lead by tapping into the abilities that lie within each of us. Leadership differs from management in that it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather than simply bossing people around.
Influencing Organisational Culture
Naturally, having a strong culture is great competitive advantage; indeed the strength of corporate culture can significantly affect corporate policies such as employment, managerial and financial structures. Organisational culture directly influences the likelihood of success for a company’s change strategies. As evidence suggests, team members are more inclined to embrace change when the organisation’s culture is aligned with the mission and goals of that company. (Ref: Edgar Schein, The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, California: Jossey-Bass, 1999)
Will you be coming back to an empty office in the New Year?
New Year’s resolutions: typically they involve trying to change oneself for the better. The New Year brings about a new resolve to improve their lives –a new diet, new exercise regime or in some cases, a new job. For any business, this time of self-improvement can come at a cost in the form of employee turnover.
Research shows that employee turnover can cost businesses serious amounts of money: Mercer Human Resource Consulting estimates the cost of staff turnover ranges from 50% to 150% of annual salary, depending on the role. At first, those estimates may seem over the top, but when you take into account the various aspects of losing an employee – time to consider the employee needed, networking, searching, advertising, interviewing, reference checking, offering employment, getting someone to cover the vacant position, getting the new employee up to speed. That is, if another person for the role can be found – in some industries, the right people are getting harder and harder to find.
Market Research: Denial is not a river in Egypt
One of the most challenging moments for market researchers and consultants can be when a client says “I don’t believe the research finding, our company is not that bad.” After taking in a few deep breaths to calm yourself, how do you deal with this type of reaction from a client? Much of the current literature on Market Research and Research Consulting offers little assistance in this area. Practitioners rather learn through experience that a balanced approach is needed where consideration needs to be given to whether such denial is derived from issues with the consultant or issues with the client and their interpretation of the findings. Make no mistake, this is not a negative moment but more an opportunity for you as a consultant and to enrich your relationship with your client.
Meaningful Employment Value Propositions for Generation Y
Generation Y is widely defined as the people born between 1982 and 2000. In total there are in excess of 5.15million Generation Y people currently living in Australia. Understanding how they view the world is critical as Employers grapple with skills shortages and an ageing population. Companies that can understand and cater for the needs of this younger group of workers will be more likely to attract and retain this critical group of workers.
In an article published by the Australian Leadership foundation Mark McCrindle explains that Generation Y’s have lived through “the age of the internet, cable television, globalisation, September 11 and environmentalism. Such shared experiences during ones youth unite and shape a generation. There is an ancient saying that bears much truth: People resemble their times more that they resemble their parents”
Brand is Image and Image is Brand….
For those that believe brand and image are separate and in no way linked may need to rethink their position. In the media recently have been two prime examples of how brand and image are closely interrelated, albeit almost the same thing. Brand in its simplest context are those attributes that makes one product or company stand apart from another. Image is how products and companies present themselves, through logos, colours and artefacts.
The definition of brand needs to go one step deeper because those attributes that make a product or company stand out from others stems from something beyond image and below the surface of what we see – that part of the iceberg that lays underneath the waterline. These are normally considered core values. That is, those values that help us create a relationship with products, services and companies so we then grow to know and trust them.
FIFO – What’s life on site really like?
Having recently completed a month long tour of 9 different remote mine sites conducting focus groups with employees I have seen firsthand what the mining boom and Fly in Fly Out is really like.
Conditions vary massively, some sites that have recently been established have temporary dongas located on portable semi-trailers so that the process of extracting ore can begin without camp construction. These sites could only be described as primitive. Dongas are very small, there is very little communication with the outside world and the people that work in these environments are generally long term experienced miners.