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    A small case study of New York based corporations on reporting systems

    Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

    This case study includes corporations with its headquarters in New York. In the small sample there are corporations like: PEPSICO, Thomson Reuters, WPP, LVMH and others.

    It was interesting that in many cases, the LinkedIn proved to be valuable source of the information where are the headquarters of some of the corporations. Like, if I search for our company Vizuarna headquarters, the first result on Google is the Vizuarna’s profile on LinkedIn. Interesting, isn’t it? The same way it is possible to find some other corporations headquarters. And yes. Many of the worlds most known corporations actually have their headquarters in New York. Not necessary in New York City but still.

    And after studying the reporting systems of some of the corporations in New York, what have I found out? The most important lesson: all of them have actually a reporting system established. No mistakes. Some have appointed even executives director for investment affairs. What were some of the best features in this reports in my opinion? Three things really to remember:

    + first, one of the corporation studied has its interactive annual report made already in 2003. And the reports are published on the web site as way back as in 1999. And everything about the annual report is totally integrated into the site. Really remarkable. Interactive version made rather simple like a flash publication but with good possibilities of printing, mailing and others, be that the whole report or its part by pages.

    + second, promise of the annual report, let say some kind of tactical tag-line, a sort or even really a brand promise explained in short and in details. That’s the way to do it. and

    + third, the whole annual report presented in a summary. All the chapters are there but everything is in short. Really in short but with all relevant information. What do I really need to know about the income statement? There are really only 2×3 things to know. Revenues (in sales, financial, other) and expenses in the other way (again operations, financial and other) and that’s it. And some make even a summary from the summary. Shorter version of the short version. And that is true for other chapters of the annual report as well. That way it becomes more interesting for larger target groups not only for people who have to read the reports by duty. Enhanced transparency, I would called it.

    The web page of the LVMH web site presenting annual reports for ten years

    Interactive annual report of Pepsico wits its promise in detail

    Interactive annual report summary of WPP

    the results from Google on the term Vizuarna headquarters

    There are some other things to be mentioned, like sharing possibilities on SlideShare or some reports really followed the line throughout the years. Just like their corporate strategy is to be followed (if successful), so have the annual reports its design consistency.

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    Posted in Marko Savić | 6 Comments »

    How will the company of the future look like?

    Thursday, November 12th, 2009

    Is it possible to convert your yob to become your calling? Would you go to your job if you would receive a SMS early in the morning that you have a 10 million euro’s on your bank account? Would you carry your company’s mission statement in written in your wallet ten years after you retired and read it several times a week? Probably not many of us would answer yes on those questions. And maybe that it because we still don’t see our yob as our calling.

    The next question I would like to have the answer, how the author of the article “A Different Kind of Company” knows how the ideal job will look like? Because he read thousands of the reports where participants of his course Creativity and Personal Mastery where explaining the ideal job in detail. With the same authority Mr. Rao is writing about what these participants find distasteful about their organizations – and these are supposed to be some of the largest and best-known firm in the world.

    Mission statement of the future
    Would have to provide something greater then the company itself. Purely for the use outside of the company I was thought to provide not a mission statement but a positioning statement and a reassurance statement.
    Positioning statement should have
    + the name of the firm;
    + should have the statement that this firm has the leading expertise in their core business;
    + and should be positioning either geographically either in parts of the market.
    Reassurance statement should say who do you help and how. You should describe to whom are you helping. And what are the benefits of your help, at lest two. Last, you should name three of your references.
    This is very appropriate way if you want to explain to someone outside of your company what do you do.

    For you internal use, which is even more important you should have set up the vision of the company. Usually it is said that vision should be set up both, in quantitative and qualitative manner. And the stakeholder  of your company should recognise themselves in that vision.

    We should also have in mind that it is very important if we walk the talk. Is our company really living the mission statement or is that just another public relations statement. Namely we should have in mind that the classical capitalistic idea – where each person acts solely in his or her self interest and market forces somehow magically this selfish activity into social good – is dying. And that claim was made in February 2008, way before the outburst of the economic crises.

    Employees in the organization of the future
    Should be treated with following attributes:
    + Trust   + Justice   + Transparency   + Learning   + Competence   + Fun   + Flexibility
    The organization of the future is not going to try to “motivate “ workers. Instead, it should go to great lengths to find out what is demotivating them and try to ged rid of whatever that is. The main goal or better to say the way is to try to accomplish those members of the organizations to resonate with earlier described mission statement. Good example could be case of the early success of the Starbucks owns much to the decisions of the Howard Schultz to offer health insurance also to part-time workers.

    Customers in the organization of the future
    To be continued…

    Source: Srikumar S. Rao: A Differnet Kind of Company. Leader to Leader Institute.

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    Posted in Marko Savić | No Comments »

    Sales Professional

    Thursday, June 11th, 2009

    My today’s contribution is based on two articles of Mark Stevens and Tom Hopkins.  They are both giving some advice on how to become a better sales representative and I’ll try to make an informative summary.

    Here are some of the characteristics of sales pros:

    1.       There shouldn’t be salesperson and civilian version of you. There should be only one you.
    2.      Be you. Imperfections are not a reason why people won’t do business with you, they only give you transparency.
    3.      Tell your prospects/clients even what they don’t want to hear. In the long term, you’ll be seen as the reliable one.
    4.      Always be proud. Salesperson is the “prince of the company”. Radiate confidence and strength with everything that you do.
    5.      Prospect are not doing you a favour by meeting you. You are the one that has experience, knowledge, ideas and solutions. They need you.

    I find this one interesting and snot so common in our area:.

    1.      Sell yourself before the initial meeting. Send a prospect a copy of your article, award, a media clip – anything that distinguishes your importance.
    2.      A burning desire to prove something to someone.
    3.      Interest in others and empathy
    4.      Focus on goals
    5.      Be enthusiastic through difficult situations. Avoid anger, negative thinking and jealousy and focus your energy on positive attitude.
    6.      Understand that people come before money.
    7.      Never stop investing in your mind.

    Sources: http://www.entrepreneur.com/sales/salescolumnistmarkstevens/article199540.html

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/sales/salestechniques/article82708.html

    Lea Lipovšek, business design assistant at Vizuarna, strategic design consultancy

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    Posted in Lea Lipovšek | 1 Comment »

    “Dialing for Dollars”

    Thursday, February 12th, 2009

    As a business development assistant, I am subscribed to many news, pages, blogs, etc., one of them is also BNET, a website for business management. And there, I came across an interesting article about sales. Geoffrey James posted a poll titled “Is Cold Calling Really Worth It? People in sales know how stressful and weird can cold calling be is it is very hard to be equal and strong if you are practically begging for an appointment. There were many answers and comments, one of the impressed James (and me) so much, that he decided to make it an official post.

    Ron Silver, sales coach, states that cold calling does not work, because people sound like they are making a cold call. Even the expression itself is unpleasant so Silver suggests we switch it with “Dialing for Dollars”.
    Source: blogs.pcworld.com

    When cold calling, most people want to get something from somebody. They are trying to get an appointment or an order. We are in nature reluctant to give something to someone we do not know, therefore many salespeople fail in their attempt. At this point, Silver makes a statement that “to get” is not the purpose of cold calling.

    Dialling for dollars is a disqualifying process. Your objective is to disqualify as many people as possible and as quickly as possible. That saves us time and money.

    Salesperson has up to one minute to express a specific reason for the prospect to wish to continue the conversation. You will be the most effective when your minute causes the prospect to identify the problem they need to solve. People will talk to you if you help the illuminate the problem they need to get fixed. Problems in business are mostly focusing on loss of money, wasted time, inefficiencies, loss of market share, etc. If the potential client (and not us) does not see something that has negative consequences for their business and seriously wants to get rid of the problem, we have the possibility of continuing the conversation. If there is a “fit”, we have a possibility of asking for a meeting where we could together with the prospect explore the possibilities of cooperation.

    Essentials of cold calling according to Silver:
    + Tell them your name and your company.
    + Ask for permission for one minute and tell them they can end the conversation after that if they want to.
    + Get right to the point.
    + Never try to convince the prospect, let them try to convince you it is worth your time and effort to meet with them.
    + Respect your agreement.

    He also gave an example, but I think it is better to give one for Vizuarna:
    “Hello, This is Lea Lipovšek from Vizuarna, strategic design consultancy. May I take one minute to tell you why I am calling and then you can tell me if we should continue speaking. Today in a time of fierce economic conditions we all want to downsize our costs. Not the best planned and structured website decreases its visit and increases communication costs. Corporate identity and brand architecture within it that with time become incoherent, diminish happiness of the employees as well as happiness and loyalty of the clients. Mrs. Novak, are you maybe dealing with some of these problems or is everything running smoothly?”

    In less than a minute we have someone on the line we can help or not. If they do not have any problems that we can fix at the moment, then it is over – for now.

    Silver recommends that calling is scheduled as an event in our calendar. As such, it will be easier to do it with consistency. The post is concluded with an optimistic thought. The best thing about cold calling is that we do not have to do it forever. Once we have a satisfied client base, they will become promoters of your business and there will be a far lesser need for cold calling.

    Source: http://blogs.bnet.com/salesmachine/?p=731
    Picture: http://blogs.pcworld.com/phoneconnection/archives/coldcall.jpg

    Lea Lipovšek, Business Development Asistant at Vizuarna, strategic design consultancy

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    Posted in Lea Lipovšek | 17,411 Comments »