MKT By Connie D

Omnicom U

In our book we read about Tom Watson, who according to our authors occupies several roles in Omnicom.  It seems that one of his favorite roles is dean of Omnicom University, which is a six day “undergrad” program for the first year and a four day “grad” program for the second year for roughly 100 of the most senior Omnicom executives.  The curriculum for both programs is based largely on case studies.  Most of which are developed from the experience of the participants.  You are required to propose and carry out initiatives between the first and second year of their classroom studies.  According to our authors the initiatives typically involve the application of ideas brought to the university through cases for outside and inside Omnicom as well as participants interchange of best practices.  Tom Watson's first-hand knowledge of the best and brightest managers Omnicom, He now has the ability to put together the right people with the right ideas.  It is said that he gives credit where credit is due and does not automatically take the credit.  With this type of company atmosphere I can see why employees at Omnicom are willing to share their wealth of knowledge with each other.  According to the authors participants in the Omnicom University have half the defection rate as nonparticipants and this fact alone has saved Omnicom an estimated $13 million.  There is a strong belief at Omnicom that its brain contribution significantly to a sevenfold increase in net income between 1992 and 2000.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E3DB1630F937A25751C1A9629C8B63

http://www.omnicomgroup.com/

Johnson & Johnson

I just read the Johnson & Johnson credo man, I tell you what if that really do business, by this credo that is one company that I would love to get work for.

The credo goes something like this, according to the authors of our book.

We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and all others to use our products and services.

In meeting their need, everything we do must be of high quality.

We must consistently strive to reduce our costs in order to maintain reasonable prices.

Customers’ orders must be serviced, promptly and accurately.  Our suppliers and distributors must have an opportunity to make a fair profit.

We are responsible for our employees, the men and women who work with us throughout the world.  Everyone must be considered as an individual.  We must respect their sense of dignity and recognize their merit.  They must have a sense of security in their jobs.  Compensation must be fair and adequate, and working conditions clean, orderly and safe.  Employees must feel free to make suggestions and complaints.  There must be equal opportunity for employment development and advancement for those qualified.  We must provide competent management, and their actions must be just and ethical.  We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well.  We must be good citizens-support good works and charities and bear our fair share of taxes.  We must encourage civic improvements and better health and education.  We must maintain in good order the property we are privileged to use, protecting the environment and natural resources.  Our final responsibility is to our stockholders.  Business must make a sound profit.  We must experiment with new ideas.  Free search mess, he carried on, innovative programs development and mistakes paid for.  New equipment must be purchased, new facilities provided and new products launched.  Reserves must be created to provide for adverse times.  When we operate according to these principles, the stockholders should realize a fair return.

If Johnson & Johnson really and truly adheres to this credo than they are truly one of the outstanding companies of our time.  Working for a company like that would be awesome.  According to the author's our book, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson said that if you don't live by the credo of your company.  You might as well rip it off the wall and forget about the credo altogether.

http://www.jnjpharmarnd.com/

http://www.jnj.com/careers/global/index.htm

Yes it is ok to fire a Customer

Last week in class we discussed firing a customer. This seems so logical to me if the customer is not living up to his part of the bargain why not firer them. The company that I used to work for had several customers they should have fired.   I know some of you out there are saying to yourselves there is no good reason to fire a paying customer, but I say to you there are and here are just a few. Abuse of staff members, if you as a customer are not cost effective to my business, and if I have done all I can to satisfy you and you still are not satisfied. These are all very valid reasons to fire a customer. Now for the second part of last weeks discussion we where asked if we thought it was right to write about the customer you fired on your blog. In my opinion it is not a wise move because other potential customers could decide to take their business to someone else that did not badmouth ex-customers. Once again that is just my opinion.

http://ceounplugged.homestead.com/2006/11/maybe_you_shoul.html

http://www.customerthink.com/article/when_you_should_fire_customer

Time off for good behaveor

I found a little something that I would like to blog about in Chapter 7 in the textbook.  Rewarding employees for results is an excellent way to keep the employees motivated.  Incentives do matter.  The rewards do not always have to be monetary.  Often in fact it should not be pay increases or bonuses.  An employee of the month program could for example allow the employee to park in a special parking space or that employee might be rewarded with an extra payed time off from work.  It’s important to remember not just to reward these employees but to also recognize them in front of their peers.  There are many employees that would be driven to higher levels of performance by something as simple as a mass e-mail thanking and recognizing them for their accomplishments that were above and beyond the norm.  This would even work if an employee was thanked in a company newsletter and maybe compensated with a gift certificate to a local restaurant or for a spa treatment.  Sometimes just something small can go a long way to increasing employee satisfaction and overall productivity.  These type of incentives create competition among employees.

http://www.hinda.com/

http://www.cashort.com/

"Reengineering"

There are a couple of things I would like to write about this week that I found in chapter 6.  It all falls under the heading of “Reengineering” – Organizations, Leaders, and Managers.  First, I’ll begin by stating that I feel that managing change is one of the most difficult things that top managers are tasked with.  There are two approaches to organizational change.  First, it could be fast and sweeping change.  Usually it is a more gradual change or evolution to what the company is heading to.  A couple of the things that struck me as being especially interesting and relevant in this section of the textbook, are creating fewer, more significant jobs thereby extending span of control and paying more in order to pay less.

Having fewer more significant jobs by combining job duties usually leads to a reduction in the necessary workforce.  This changes the shape of an organization and challenges the way management thinks.

The textbook gives a good example of paying more in order to pay less that was implemented at Taco Bell.  Taco Bell eliminated two layers of management occupied by district and regional managers which in turn enabled them  to hire more highly paid MBAs and eliminate the middle management jobs.  Paying more to pay less in the long run seems to be a good idea as long as it is not taken too far.  I think that it would be counter productive if the higher paid managers were given more of a span of control than they could effectively and efficiently handle.

http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/wresch/case1a.htm

http://www.progressivepractices.com/articles/reengineering.pdf

Customer Relations

Our book states according to Baruch Lev, a professor at Stern School of Business at New York University says that the assets listed on the balance sheet of public companies in the US are falling because intangibles are fast becoming substitutes for physical assets.  Wow so the intangibles such at is brand, information, technology, customer relationships, the quality of employees, and the quality of an organization's leadership and administration have become more valuable than the actual physical assets of the company.  You know a found that to be true today.  When I went to my favorite clothing store to pay off my credit card for that store.  The store clerks that assisted me, was a very young girl, she was wearing a tank top and some cutoff shorts with flip-flops and absolutely did not look professional.  When I first walked into the store she was standing there talking on the telephone very loudly, as I walked to the cash register, She came over and asked how she could help me when I told her that a wanted to pay off my credit card.  She asked me how much do you want to pay I said the whole amount.  She said there are two amounts on here which one do you want to pay.  So I explained to her that one amount was the full amount and the other amount was the minimum amount due.  So once we got that straight I made my payment, while she was popping her bubblegum and talking to another staff person and not to me the customer.  When I said, pardon me because I didn't understand that she was not speaking to me.  She said oh no not you.  I was speaking to my coworker in a very snotty little tone.  As I walked out of the store today, I thought to myself.  How much I used to really enjoy shopping in that particular store, and part of the reason why I liked shopping there was because of the convenience.  It didn't have to go to the mall, but I think I will go to the one at Ridgmar Mall for now on.  Not that I think this will do anything about that particular employee.  I do happen to have the name the manager at that store, and she will be getting a phone call from me tomorrow.

http://www.brillianceweb.com/betterwebdesign/tips_49.aspx

http://www.avenue.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Home?storeId=326&langId=-1&ovchn=OVR&ovcpn=Plus_Size&ovcrn=Plus+Size+Fashions&ovtac=PPC&s_kwcid=TC-1359-11208902021-S-1287383521&OVRAW=Plus%20size%20Women's%20clothes&OVKEY=plus%20size%20womens%20clothes&OVMTC=standard&OVADID=1287383521&OVKWID=11208902021&ysmwa=VZ7cfRLo7Bc6TQN1-FG_ZfXE7qYREhnZOWROA-OZrItVKq6PtRLke1ond2uS1ACS

Can we be friends

In Chapter 5 on page 98 of our textbook there is a section that is subtitled.  The “downside of success” in a scenario our authors write about, Texaco Inc. a proud vertically integrated petroleum refiner and retailer founded in 1902 that by 1960 Texaco stalk was second only to IBM's among stocks held by mutual funds.  The company strategy required highly centralized management led by Augustus C.(Gus) Long Texaco was referred to as the “loner”.  Gus would allow only three executives from Texaco to belong to the Houston's famed Petroleum Club.  The reason that one senior executive gave for this is.  There was no need to glom Texaco.  People keep their own counsel.  There was a Texaco way and a wrong way of doing things.  The authors fast-forward to the late 1970s and state the strategy for Texaco had become undone.  According to the authors of the biggest problem Texaco have was that they didn't look to see what their competitors were doing.  They only looked entirely, so they couldn't see the writing on the wall.  In my textbook for Management 479 I read an article entitled.  Let's be friends in the article.  It was stated that when CEOs of competing companies become friendly.  They have a tendency to talk shop, and since most CEOs that compete with each other are working on the same set of data that they can to make the same decisions, because on in the article does say that my not keep you from getting your butt wooped.  But at least, if that happens, you can call your friend and find out what you're doing wrong and what they're doing right.  And maybe be able to catch up to continue to compete with them.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20050301/strategies.html

http://www.texaco.com/portal_default.asp

How much is a Duck worth?

In Chapter 3 of our textbook that is entitled measuring and communicating customer lifetime value.  The authors begin this chapter with a discussion about Carl Sewell in the honor of car dealerships in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  Mr. Sewell estimates that the lifetime value of one of his luxury car customers is $332,000.  This amount includes both purchases of new automobiles as well as services, and parts associated with maintenance.  That makes me wonder how much I'm worth to Don Davis.  My family and I have bought probably nine cars from them in the last eight years.  In December of 2001 we bought two cars at one time. This includes new as well as used cars.  No wonder we get birthday cards from Don Davis as well as Christmas cards.  It's not so much Don Davis that were buying a car from its the one particular salesman that has worked for there for years that we have come to trust his name is Andre.  He always seems to find the car that we want at the price we want to pay.  You know now that I think about it.  My husband and I bought a new beetle from Metro Volkswagen on December 31, 2001.  All the maintenance that we've had done to their car has all been done at Metro Volkswagen.  Because of the diesel engine we’re kind of leery of having anybody else work on the beetle, even though there are Volkswagen dealerships closer to us we drive to Irving to have the work done at Metro.  So once again, I wonder how much are we worth to this dealership?

http://www.dondavisautogroup.com/

http://www.metrovwtx.com/

save money on training

According to our textbook on page 19, employee satisfaction results from several factors, the most important of which are the “fairness” of management; the quality of one's peers in the workplace; the opportunity for personal growth on the job; capability, the latitude within limits to deliver results to the customer; the levels of customer satisfaction achieved in customer facing jobs (the so-called mirror effect); and monetary compensation.  This certainly is interesting to me that the last in the list would be monetary compensation.  But it's true.  People that feel valued by their peers and management in their job, even if others in this field are being paid more will tend to remain at this job, because they feel valued and appreciate.  I know that if I had been valued and appreciated for the work that I accomplished with my former employer.  I wouldn't talk so bad about them now.  I well not mention the name of my former employer in but I will tell you there's a huge turnover rate there.  Unfortunately for the clientele there are the biggest turnover are within the department's that have the most direct contact with the clientele.  And since the clientele are people with special needs very sad state of affairs.  The money that my former employer spends on training new personnel could very well be spent in a more productive manner.  If they would only teach there managers to respect and value the opinions and the ideas of the lowest pay staff amongst the ranks.  Because after all, these are the people with the most contact with their customer, it seems to me that the people with the most direct contact would know and understand the customer the best.

http://www.bmpcoe.org/bestpractices/internal/uec/uec_14.html

http://www.employer-employee.com/Burnout.html

Agent for the customer

As I'm reading chapter 1 in our textbook on page 6 our author begins discussing a weekly management meeting at Wal-Mart he states that the meeting is held on Saturday morning at 7:30 in Bentonville Arkansas, he says not only is fact noteworthy, but also the that the conference room, where the meeting is being held is huge and that there are about a thousand people in attendance.  Apparently at these weekly management meetings families are welcome to attend as well as vendors showing new merchandise.  The thing that I find most interesting about this meeting is not the Wal-Mart cheer.  The one that does give me a W. give me an A. give me an L., but rather when asked “who's number one?” “The customer” is the response.  This brings me to my point that one of my favorite instructor once told me that it is my due diligence to advocate for my customer.  I think, even though I have a love-hate relationship with Wal-Mart.  That they have figured out the only way to retain the customer as well as their market share they have to do better in customer relations than they used to.  I believe that people will pay more money to buy the same item at a store where the customer believes that they will to be treated as a more valued member of the chain.

http://walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/navigate.do?catg=215http://www.startupnation.com/blog/entry.asp?ENTRY_ID=359