Educating the workforce = strategic advantage?

Yesterday I mentioned the move toward global government investment in education as a means to assume leadership status and to remain competitive in the future.  Link

Are individual companies dedicating resources for the education of their work force in order to insure future success?

There are a multitude of options available to the employer and employee in order to increase knowledge;  graduate degree programs, continuing education courses, specific industry training, seminars, conferences, short courses, books, magazines, blogs, the Internet, mentoring and travel.

How many formal or informal programs are in place at your workplace for employees to increase their knowledge?

Formal programs might include subsidies, grants, loans or co-participation in the employees education costs.  They might be specific courses run by consultants or experts, focused on improving specific skills.

Formal programs also include the participation in seminars, workshops, short-courses and other short term events.  They provide opportunities for networking, information, motivation and even a “breath of fresh air” from day to day operations.

How much money and time are set aside in your business for these education events yearly?   Why?

Who determines which events are important, and is there an evaluation as to which events provided valuable material and concrete results to the company?

Mentoring programs also provide opportunities to pass on knowledge, explore and share ideas in a “non hostile environment” and create valuable internal networks.
Informal programs for learning would include providing books or magazine subscriptions to industry press,  monitoring of industry blogs and the Internet for news and trends, attendance at trade shows and business travel.  These provide opportunities to receive new information, create dialogue, learn about trends and tendencies that are or will influence the business.

After any “educational” event, is there a formal feedback program that asks the employee “how can we implement this in our company” Link?   There is room for improvement here.

Will the continuing education of their workforce result in a more competitive future for the company, or will business always be able to “purchase” top talent in the marketplace without having to invest in education?

Related LinksSerendipity as part of business development

Maximize the impact of business conferences, seminars and special events in your organization

The future of our entry level workforce, gloomy

Our future depends on education

Our future depends on education

Over the past months I have noticed a new trend among forward thinking governments.

Massive investment in education as a tool to increase their advantage in the world economy.

The trend is on supporting education, and countries are lining up and investing in education to insure they are poised to take advantage of the future.

Read this excerpt from Value Driven by Geoff Colvin in FORTUNE.

“We’ve known for a long time that this day was coming, and now it’s here: Countries are finally realizing that their future prosperity depends not on natural resources or even on financial capital, but on human capital. Companies have been battling for years to attract and keep the best people. Now countries are engaging in the same fight”

Read the entire article here: The battle for brainpower.

For years the USA, Europe and Japan had the money, universities and jobs that attracted talent, and paid for it.

These countries are filled with national and imported global talent, and the benefits can be measured in dollars and cents, Gross National Product, number of patents, and technological leadership.

Things are changing.

What happens when this imported talent stays home?

The ability to attract or retain top talent in a country will result in more patents, more and better processes and products.

The overall increase in education in a country plus the import of talented people, will provide huge economic benefits to a country.

Future economic growth, it’s not about cheap labor anymore.

The challenge of international business

I love international business.

It’s difficult, time consuming, requires more resources than selling in the national market, it’s complicated, frustrating, complex and incomprehensible at times.

It opens my eyes to new cultures, new ways of doing things, new languages and amazing people.

It has made me realize that there are many paths to a solution, and all of them are valid.

It is a highly competitive arena.

There are no second chances.

The people in the business of selling or buying products or services across borders live with this on a daily basis.

We like it.

It drives us crazy too.

It’s the same mentality that drives people to do crossword puzzles, go rock climbing, or take on huge tasks.

It’s about the challenge, the complexity, the rush of adrenaline when it all goes well and we succeed.

I realized how different I am from others, in my desire to be involved in global trade, during a conversation between three friends.  Two of us are involved in international commerce and the third lives in the local national market.

We stumbled on an idea that involves the consolidation of various local products (overstock and outdated inventory) and selling it via an auction process to international buyers.  It was a response to a very costly and real problem  that our friend lives with daily.  As we discussed it, our blood pressure rose, our hearts quickened, we got excited.

“Sounds like a lot a work, forget it, exporting is too much trouble” was the reply of our third friend.

I’ve heard the same comment many times before.

I watched the potential solution wither and die before us.

My friend is ready to live with a problem and loss of  income because he didn’t want to work harder.

He didn’t even consider hiring others, using specialized outsourcing, to work for him.

“It’s a lot of hard work.”

Of course it is.

Planning on exporting, importing or working internationally?

Find people who are genuinely interested,excited and turned on by the challenge.

The ability to embrace adversity, problems, and constant change as part of the daily working environment is key to working across borders and cultures.

Related Links

Looking for New?  It’s in another country

16 essential questions, the international business traveler’s quiz 

7 tips for doing business internationally   

Big Important Things - risk and opportunity identification

“Big Important Things” (BITs),  are local, regional, national or international circumstances or events that cannot be controlled or prevented, that have a significant effect on current and future business practices.

One should always keep in mind the impact of the “Big Important Things” (BITs) on the supply chain, customers, the competition and your industry.

Those involved in strategy and planning must understand how BITs create enormous risks and opportunities.

One can only react to BITs, they cannot be created or eliminated by an organization.

BITs would include, but not be limited to:

• Natural and man made disasters - hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, explosions, flooding.
• Massive economic changes - depression, recession, inflation, currency devaluation, massive layoffs
• War and Terrorism - security measures, logistics, international trade limitations
• Government policies - trade barriers, laws and regulations, economic sanctions, embargoes
• New technologies, - trends and tendencies inside and outside of the industry
• Environmental or health issues - contamination, unsafe products, epidemics
• Legal issues - pending or current lawsuits, documentation and reporting, legal precedents
• Significant global changes in demand or supply - shortages, increased demand
• Energy costs - trends and tendencies

Contingency plans should be created, worst-case and best-case scenarios developed, and efforts made to lower the risk profile or strategically position the company to take advantage of possible changes in the business environment.

How to use BITs to identify areas of risk and opportunity 

1. Analyze each of the following elements independently;  strategic raw materials, suppliers, logistics, major customers, the competition, your company, and finally your industry (local, national and internationally).
2. What is the probability that a BIT would affect each element (impossible, low, medium, high, inevitable) and when (short-medium-long term)?  “My supplier is the only manufacturer in North America of the widgets we need, they are located on the western Florida coast and annually are affected to some degree my hurricanes and flooding.  There is a high probability that a major hurricane will hit them in the short to medium term.”
3. Use a “what if” line of questioning for those high risk or high impact areas.  “What if a major hurricane hit my supplier and disrupted their production?
4. What are possible scenarios to reduce your risk, or take advantage of the opportunity.  “Do I have alternative suppliers in place, extra inventory, insurance, how can I protect my customers, who else will this affect and how?
5. Review this process at least twice a year to take into account changes in the probability of the BITs and modify the contingency plans or strategies accordingly.

Related Links

Analyze and Plan Using 7 Simple Questions

How to Systematically Analyze Any Situation for Better Decision Making

9 Steps to Better Decisions

Commoditization, is it happening to you?

“We are living in an era where there are too many retailers serving too few customers and where there is no longer any brand loyalty or retail loyalty” Kevin Burke, President/CEO. The American Apparel and Footwear Association.

From this comment by Mr. Burke I believe the apparel and footwear industries are in the midst of an important struggle, to move away from their current status of a commodity business.

The winners will be those with strong design, distinct brand, and smart developed distribution systems. The same can be said for almost any current industry.

Too many retailers and points of sale? I doubt it. What I interpret from this comment is that there is intense competition between retailers, and instead of seeking exclusivity or innovation to attract and maintain customers, they are using the oldest,simplest trick known….lowering product prices and with it, the quality of the shopping experience.

It is a classic example of commoditization.

Manufacturers are also to blame. The rush to sell their product to high volume buyers insures loss of control of the marketing and retail channels.

The rush to sell everywhere, to everyone, at the same time allows and promotes price competition and price wars between the various manufacturers and retailers.

Too few customers? The real problem is overproduction. Current manufacturing focuses on high volume production and this encourages the standardization of product. The desire to reduce fixed costs drives manufacturers to seek out cheap world labor, increase productivity through mechanization (which encourages product standardization) and the outcome is a mountain of finished products, created all over the world, that are indistinguishable from one another.

Commodities. Most apparel and footwear companies focus on low cost, high volume manufacturing, they sell to wholesalers or retailers that also focus on volume. So suddenly branded products can be found in department stores, boutiques, grocery stores, flea markets and the Internet. The product is everywhere, consumers have learned that one should just look for it where the price is lowest.

This also makes it easier to pirate and sell a product to a growing network of sales outlets focused on offering a brand name for less.

No brand or retail loyalty?
If there is no customer loyalty (read as no perceived advantage to shopping with you versus the competition), and loyalty is important for continued growth, profit and success, then it’s time for a serious reevaluation of how one is doing business.

How can one stand out from the crowd, do something different and unique, and create a sense of exclusivity and prestige for the consumer?

This is the future.

Related Links

The easy way

10 top reasons for poor customer service and their solutions

Give this away

Are you listening to what the customer needs?

No shortcuts to being a great leader

There are no shortcuts to effective sustained leadership.

It is not easy to be a leader, or to maintain a position of leadership.

There is no book, movie, seminar or short course that will turn one into a leader.

We can learn about certain elements of leadership that we may or may not possess, and incorporate these ideas into our lives and behavior.

But leadership is not about what information we possess, our good intentions, or a business title and corner office.

It’s all about what we show to others.

It’s about what we do.

Day to day actions.

Sustained leadership success comes from; listening, attention to detail, implementing ideas, perseverance in the face of adversity, willingness to embrace innovation, training and mentoring others, planning and risk identification, and the most important factor of all, providing a living example to others.

A true leader provides a model to others.

Leaders will consistently provide examples of; honesty, integrity, ethics, dignity, passion, diligence, capacity to learn, and unwillingness to be defeated.

A true leader will also provide examples of how to lose, how to accept defeat and move on, because leaders are not always winners

Leadership is not a 9 to 5 job, it’s a way of life.

Related Links

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What defines an exceptional leader

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Get the mission statement off your website

Do you read the corporate mission and vision statements on websites or in corporate promotional material?

I don’t.

In fact, I find them to be insincere, ambiguous and completely useless to the customer, and most of the time useless to the company itself.

So why do many corporate websites include them?

Does someone in the sales and marketing department believe that customers find this information important or believable?

Objectives, goals, mission and vision are important in an organization.  They define where we are going, and help in making decisions about how to get there.

You don’t need a mission or vision statement to be successful.You will need to make certain everyone in the company knows where they are going and are focused and motivated on getting there.

Customers will see the results.

You don’t have to tell them what you are trying to do.

ANPIC Fair 2008 - Leon, Guanajuato

ANPIC, is an important international leather industry suppliers trade fair held annually in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico.

The dates for ANPIC 2008 will be Thursday February 14, 2008 - Sunday February 18, 2008, at the Poliforum Leon.

If you’re involved in the international leather components and accessories industries, ANPIC is a fair that should not be missed.

Expositors include:
Components, Accessories and Fittings
Lasts, Heels and Soles
Hides and Skins
Machinery and Equipment for Footwear
Machinery and Equipment for Tanneries
Chemical Products
Synthetic Materials and Textiles
Services

Related Links

ANPIC Fair of the Americas

ANPIC 2008 - Leon, Guanajuato

Leon, Guanajuato Mexico

Hotels in Leon Guanajuato

How to do business in Mexico

Poliforum Leon

Top 10 reasons for poor customer service and their solutions

Customer service, the interaction between the client and the supplier is an integral part of the purchasing and user experience, and as such, is the key to continued success in business.

What are the reasons for poor customer service?

Top 10 Reasons for poor customer service and their solution

1.    People are not trained.  When an organization does not spend the time to fully train their people the consequence is poor service.

Solution:  Dedicate resources (time and money) for training and reinforcement.   Employees should be fully informed about company goals, the products and services.  Emphasis and training should be focused upon the importance of listening and responding to the customer’s requests.  People can only do the job if they are given the right tools and objectives.  It costs money to train people.  It will cost more if you decide not to train them.

2.    People don’t care.  Selecting the correct personality is crucial for your business success.  Apathetic or self centered personality types have no place in a business that requires customer contact.

Solution:  Focus the selection and evaluation process to identify personalities that do not fit the required profile.  Get the wrong people out immediately, it also sends a clear message to everyone.

3.    Sabotage.  Angry or frustrated employees can actively work to sabotage and try to destroy the company.

Solution:  Keep honest and open communications with employees.  Informally and formally review performance, goals, objectives and feelings to stop potential problems before they reach the customers.  Get these people out of the front lines immediately.

4.    Employees don’t believe in the company, product or service.  If the image, marketing and promotion of the company is quite different from the reality, workers will not be able to sustain a positive attitude in the face of problems they know exist.

Solution:  Be honest.  Work closely with customer service, marketing and quality control to identify real problems and fix them.  Don’t let  marketing advertise over problems, solve them.

5.    Personal problems reflected in work.  When an employee’s personal life is in crisis or out of control, they may exercise control, aggression and negativism toward customers in an attempt to put some part of their life in order.

Solution:  Clear communications with employees:  If their personal life is affecting work performance, talk about it.  Time off, access to counseling or just listening may prevent more serious problems.

6.    Burnt out.  Too much negative, too many complaints can lower a person’s level of commitment and move their positive and helpful attitude to an apathetic one.

Solution:  Constant communication helps to identify who is burning out and why.  Get customer service people together to talk of success and how to deal with the frustrations.  Provide recognition or incentives for excellence in dealing with problems.

7.    Not providing the correct solutions to customers, lack of empowerment.    There is nothing worse than dealing with an employee who listens to a problem, then shrugs and says they have to ask someone else in the company to intervene and provide a solution.

Solution:  Give the people on the front lines the authority, power, tools and ability to solve problems.

8.    Don’t see the benefits – don’t understand their role in the company. 

Solution:  Employees project an image of the company.  They are the company.  They should be reminded of their importance and value to the customer and to the company.  Incentives, recognition, training and constant reinforcement are important.

9.    Apathetic from hearing the same problems over and over.  A fundamental role of the customer service division is to provide constant feedback on how customers view the company, the products and the service.  If this feedback is not analyzed and acted upon by upper management a feeling of apathy and frustration is created.

Solution:  Set up a model and procedure for the accumulation, analysis and implementation of solutions for the problems identified by customer service.

10.    Incentives/salary not tied to results.

Solution:  If you insist that the company depends upon people, and that people are the key to success, implement compensation packages, evaluations and incentives that support and reinforce this.

Related Links 

Are you listening to what the customer needs?

Broken Promises

Give this away

Don’t find a solution, find a way to make it better

Handy telephone dialing guide for Mexico

Dialing the phone in Mexico is a bit complicated due to different access codes and dialing instructions for the different carriers.

In order to make your life easier, for business or vacation travelers, here is quick comprehensive telephone dialing guide for landlines and cellular phones in Mexico.

Covers 90% of the telecommunications companies currently in Mexico.

Handy Telephone Dialing Guide for Mexico

Dialing Instructions for Telephones in Mexico
Dialing from	Received by	How to dial	Number of Digits
Landline in Mexico	Cellular in Mexico (local) same area code	044 + Area code + telephone number	13
Landline in Mexico	Cellular in Mexico, long distance	045 + area code + telephone number	13
Landline in Mexico (Not Telmex)	Cellular in Mexico, long distance	01 + area code + telephone number	12
Landline in Mexico	Nextel (local) same area code	Telephone number	8
Landline in Mexico	Nextel in Mexico, long distance	01 + area code + telephone number	12
Landline in Mexico	Long Distance, telephone in USA	001 + area code + telephone number	13
Landline in Mexico	International long distance	00 + country code + area code + telephone number
Cellular Phone in Mexico	Landline in Mexico (local call)	Telephone number	8
Cellular Phone in Mexico	Landline in Mexico, long distance	01 + area code + telephone number	12
Cellular Phone in Mexico	Cellular (local) same area code	Area code + number	10
Cellular Phone in Mexico	Celluar in Mexico, long distance	045 + area code + telephone number	13
Cellular Phone in Mexico	Nextel (local call), same area code	Telephone number	8
Cellular Phone in Mexico	Nextel in Mexico, long distance	01 + area code + telephone number	12
Cellular Phone in Mexico	Telephone in USA	001 + area code + telephone number	13
Cellular Phone in Mexico	International long distance	00 + country code + area code + telephone number	-
USA	Landline in Mexico	011 + 52 (country code for Mexico) + area code + number	15
International (not USA)	Landline in Mexico	00 + 52 + area code + number	14
USA	Cellular in Mexico	011 + 52 + 1 + area code + number	16
International (not USA)	Cellular in Mexico	00 + 52 (country code for Mexico) + 1 + area code + number	15
Lee Iwan Accumulated Experience	Business South of the Border	October 25, 2007

Telephone Dialing Guide for MexicoTelephone Dialing Guide for Mexico

Are you listening to what the customer needs?

I have been involved in a series of meetings with business owners regarding problems in their companies. 

Declining sales and market share due to international competitors, inability to compete or a decline in the entire industry sector are some of the reasons mentioned.

Solutions that were discussed and debated including cutting costs of raw materials, increasing worker efficiency, lowering logistics costs, streamlining the administration and related costs, government intervention and protection, outsourcing and even forming alliances with the international competitors.

What struck me as incredibly odd was that not once were the customer’s needs mentioned.

Not once did anyone mention creating new ideas, products or services for the customer.

There was no discussion of investing in new technology because “things are difficult now”.

There was never a comparison made between the marketing and promotion, branding or image of the competitors versus the company’s marketing, promotion, branding and image.  Why not? 

Every comment or observation focused on lowering production and logistics costs to the customer, never on increasing the benefits to the customer.

All that mattered is “how can I sell at a lower price”.

That’s right.  The entire future of these companies, and in some cases entire industries are focused on how make their products for less.  How to beat the Chinese, Indonesia or Brazil or whatever developing country has access to cheaper raw materials or labor. 

Common sense tells us this is not a viable, long -term solution.

Each of these companies has stated in their publicity, website and in their mission statements that their focus is on the customer and on customer service.  Why aren’t the customer’s needs and future needs part of the search for solutions when sales are declining?

If the customer really truly cares only about price, your product is a commodity. 

If the customer only cares about price, they don’t care about your company’s service, advertising and promotion, attitude or participation in their business.

If you really think that the low price will guarantee the sale, cut out the customer or technical service.  Take away financing.  Take away delivery and logistics.  Forget environmental and worker protection.  Reduce your inventories.   Standardize your prices and order sizes.   Cut down on sales and promotion. 

Call me when your sales skyrocket and the money pours in. 

I suppose it’s normal when sales fall, to attack costs, and costs are a fundamental element in being competitive in certain goods and services.

It is not the only element.  It may not even be the most important one for your customer. 

It probably is the easiest area to change quickly, and requires no investment.  People like easy solutions that don’t require investment. 

The relationship with your customer, the ability to meet their needs with your product or service and allow them to make a profit is what makes business click.

How well do you know your customer? 

What problems are they facing?

Is your contribution to their product important, significant or fundamental in their success?

Do they see you as simply a supplier of a commodity or an integral part of their supply chain and future?

Have you explored how you can work with them to make them more competitive?

Once this has been accomplished, bring the results to the boardroom and start the discussion of how to aid declining sales and deteriorating margin.

Don’t stop with the easy solutions.

Look for the difficult solutions, the ones that require compromise and long-term commitment.

Look for solutions that require investment of resources; time, money, and ideas. 

These are the solutions that the competitor focused on cost is not interested in. 

These are the solutions that will provide confidence and mutual opportunities for growth.

SAPICA 2007 - Leon, Guanajuato

If you are involved in the footwear industry, the shoe business or the leather goods industry,  SAPICA 2007 will be of interest.

Held twice a year in Leon, Guanajuato Mexico, this years footwear and leathergoods trade fair, Spring-Summer edition, is being held from September 27-30, 2007.

Related Links

SAPICA - Squidoo

SAPICA - official website

Guanajuato and Sonora - industrial development opportunities

Guanajuato and Sonora are two states in Mexico singled out by Expansion Management as areas of opportunity for industrial development.

A quote from the article:

“Two states, Guanajuato and Sonora, capture, if not the breadth of diversity between the states, the contrasts between them. Guanajuato is using its educational resources and location to position itself as a logistics center in Mexico, while Sonora uses its automotive base to expand into aerospace.” David Hendricks

Related Links

States in Mexico offer expanding companies a wealth of advantages

Expansion Management

Need to know about Leon, Guanajuato

Industrial and Business Parks in Mexico

Social network site - Mexico economic development

I was invited to a new social networking site on the Ning network, Build Bridges Not Walls!.

The idea behind the site:

“People that want economic development in Mexico will trade together. This site is to put people together for electric handshakes, trade, new business ideas or just old friends finding each other again.”

Members can add photos, videos, blog entries, comments and meet others with similar interests about business and economic issues related to Mexico.

Looks like it will be an interesting site.

Related Links

Build Bridges Not Walls!

Ning, create your own social network

The 3 Y’s - help for difficult decisions

An organization’s management and leadership team is responsible for making timely decisions, supplying and applying resources when required, in order to efficiently reach known or perceived goals and objectives.

In order to make these decisions; research, information and analysis of the pertinent information is required.

Here is where management bogs down or leadership can make serious misjudgements.

• Poor incomplete analysis or lack of the critical information required to assess the risks, obtain the required resources or understand the probable benefits.
• Lack of understanding of the changes or resources that the decision will provoke.
• Making the decision too early, or too late.

A quick and useful trick is to apply the “3 Y’s” to assist when faced with a difficult decision.

The “3 Y’s”

• Why Me?
• Why Now?
• Why Not?

The First Why - Why Me?

• Who is requesting that I make the decision? Why?
• Is this in my area of responsibility? Why?
• Is this my area of expertise, do I