Customer Genius E-Book

Peter Fisk

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 435

Beschreibung

Hello, I am your customer. Do you see the world like I do? It's simple really. Start with me and everything else follows. Together we can do extraordinary things. Are you ready? 10 building blocks, 30 practical tools, 50 inspirational stories. From Amazon to Banyan Tree, Quintessentially to Zipcars, explore 50 of the world's leading customer businesses. The rise of Air Asia, and the collaboration of Boeing; the segmented focus of Club Med, and the customer vision of Disney; the imagination of Camper, and the desire for the Nintendo Wii; the realism of Dove, and the tribal loyalty of Harley Davidson. The 'genius' of a customer-centric business is that it works from the outside in. It attracts, serves and retains the best customers as its route to profitability and growth. Isn't it about time you started doing business from the outside in?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

PART 1 - The customer world

TRACK 1 - Hello!

TRACK 2 - My world … people and their passions

2.1 WONDERFUL PEOPLE

2.2 GLOBAL VILLAGE

2.3 CUSTOMER TRIBES

TRACK 3 - My agenda … what matters most to me

3.1 EMOTIONAL WORLD

3.2 CUSTOMER KALEIDOSCOPES

3.3 THE CUSTOMER AGENDA

TRACK 4 - My terms … power to the people

4.1 CUSTOMER POWER

4.2 PULL NOT PUSH

4.3 OUTSIDE IN, INSIDE OUT

TRACK 5 - My business … the customer business

5.1 THE CUSTOMER-CENTRIC BUSINESS

5.2 CUSTOMER VALUE, BUSINESS VALUE

5.3 TEN DIMENSIONS OF THE CUSTOMER BUSINESS

PART 2 - The customer business

DIMENSION 1 - Customer vision

1.1 CUSTOMER PURPOSE

1.2 CUSTOMER BRAND

1.3 CUSTOMER ALIGNMENT

DIMENSION 2 - Customer strategy

2.1 CUSTOMER PROFITABILITY

2.2 CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

2.3 CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT

DIMENSION 3 - Customer insights

3.1 CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE

3.2 CUSTOMER IMMERSION

3.3 CUSTOMER INSIGHTS

DIMENSION 4 - Customer propositions

4.1 CUSTOMER CONTEXT

4.2 CUSTOMER PROPOSITIONS

4.3 CUSTOMER CONVERSATIONS

DIMENSION 5 - Customer solutions

5.1 CUSTOMER COLLABORATION

5.2 CUSTOMER INNOVATION

5.3 CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS

DIMENSION 6 - Customer connections

6.1 CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION

6.2 CUSTOMER NETWORKS

6.3 CUSTOMER GATEWAYS

DIMENSION 7 - Customer experiences

7.1 CUSTOMER JOURNEY

7.2 CUSTOMER THEATRE

7.3 EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCES

DIMENSION 8 - Customer service

8.1 CUSTOMER DELIVERY

8.2 INDIVIDUALIZED SERVICE

8.3 SERVICE RECOVERY

DIMENSION 9 - Customer relationships

9.1 CUSTOMER PARTNERSHIPS

9.2 CUSTOMER COMMUNITIES

9.3 CUSTOMER ADVOCATES

DIMENSION 10 - Customer performance

10.1 VALUE DRIVERS

10.2 CUSTOMER METRICS

10.3 BUSINESS IMPACT

PART 3 - The customer champions

TRACK 6 - Leadership … leading a customer revolution

6.1 INSPIRING PEOPLE

6.2 NEW BUSINESS LEADERS

6.3 CUSTOMER CHAMPIONS

TRACK 7 - Culture … creating passion in people

7.1 ENGAGING YOUR PEOPLE

7.2 ALIGNING PEOPLE AND CUSTOMERS

7.3 STRUCTURES, SYMBOLS AND STORIES

TRACK 8 - Transformation … the journey to customer-centricity

8.1 CREATING A CUSTOMER REVOLUTION

8.2 MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN

8.3 VIRGIN INSPIRATION

APPENDIX - The Genius Lab

Credits

About the author

Index

Praise for Peter Fisk’s previous books:

Marketing Genius

‘… truly inspiring book …’

Brand Strategy

‘… exceptional writer …’

bubblewrap

‘… fascinating read …’

Irish Enterpreneur

‘… spot on …’

Simon Wakeman Journal

Business Genius

‘I loved this book, it is jam-packed with energy, ideas and inspiration … you will find something of real value here.’

Employer Brand Forum

‘… it simply can’t fail to be one of the best business books of the year!’

BusinessOpportunitiesAndIdeas.co.uk

Copyright © 2009 by Peter Fisk

First published in 2009 by Capstone Publishing Ltd (a Wiley Company) The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, PO19 8SQ, UK. www.wileyeurope.com

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PART 1

The customer world

In ‘the customer world’ we will explore what it means to be a customer business and why it is a better way to do business. We explore how customers are changing, what they want, and how they want it. We describe how business can embrace these new expectations, work in new and exciting ways, and what impact it will have on your market and commercial performance.

TRACK 1

Hello!

“I am your customer.

Yes, a real person, a human being.

I have my needs and wants, to get through the day, and to achieve what I must. But I also have my hopes, dreams and ambitions.

For too long you have treated me as a name or number.

You group me into what you call a segment, or sometimes just a mass market.

But I’m not prepared to tolerate that any more.

I am me. Don’t treat me like somebody else.

Sometimes I might be very similar to others,

but I can also be very different and discerning.

In the old world, I realize I didn’t have much choice.

I needed you more than you needed me.

But things have changed.

Now I have the power. Now I’m in control.

You need me more than I need you.

It’s time you started doing business on my terms.

In fact, why are you actually in business?

Just to make as much money as you can, from whatever you can?

Or to make a difference, to make my life better?

Why don’t you learn a bit more about me? Come and listen to what I really want.

I’d love to tell you what I’m really trying to achieve.

Not just whether or not I want your latest gadget, gizmo or gumption.

Why don’t we get together and find a way to really solve my problem?

I’d even be happy to pay more if you can really help me find the right solution.

Start thinking about my world.

Don’t sell me travel tickets, help me explore the world.

Don’t sell me running shoes, help me to run a personal best.

Don’t sell me potted plants, help me to create a magical garden.

Stop telling me what you want to sell.

I have got a life, you know. I will buy things, but in my own time, on my terms.

Worst of all are all those unsolicited mail shots and phone calls.

They interrupt me and frustrate me.

And eventually make me hate you.

When I do want something, I expect it to be easy.

Come to me, or to places convenient for me.

And at times to suit me.

I expect what I’ve seen online to be in your stores or to be available by phone. And to be able to take it back to any of your places if I don’t like it.

But I want you to be open and honest about what the deal is.

None of those hidden clauses or additional costs.

If I can get any book or music delivered to my door in 24 hours, why shouldn’t I expect a new car, a new washing machine and new home to be just as quick?

And if you treat me with the best service when I’m a big cheese at work, then I don’t expect to come back later and be treated like trash as an individual.

Treat me well as an individual and I will tell all my friends how good you are.

I might even switch to you as a corporate customer too.

I know you get rewarded for satisfying me. But frankly I expect much more than that. I demand 100% satisfaction and 100% delight too.

Every time I talk to your people. Every time I experience anything to do with you. It should be right, it should be excellent, it should be perfect.

However, I don’t want the same every time. Life’s too short and a bit boring.

To be honest, I’d sometimes like you to surprise me!

Which brings me to loyalty.

Whether I really want to come back again. And do. And buy more. And tell others. So you give me a plastic card. With something like a 1% discount.

Hmmm. To be honest, I think loyalty is something that has to work both ways. If you trust me, then care for me and do more for me; I might just do likewise.

I don’t really want a relationship with a big anonymous company. I’d much prefer to get to know other people who share my passions.

For travelling. Or running. Or gardening. Real people like me.

The best thing you could do is help me build relationships with other people in my world. Help us to share our ideas and interests, and to do what we love most.

I’m then happy to buy your products. And delighted to be part of your community. And you might even find the things I say and share are valuable to you too.

I know you’re a real person just like me.

But when you go to work you put your blinkers on. You restrict yourself to some artificially defined sector. Whilst I see a bigger, more exciting, more connected world.

You follow conventions and prejudices of your own making. Whilst for me, everything is possible.

It’s simple, really.

You’ve just got to see my world. Do business from the outside in. Not the inside out.

Start with me, and everything else follows.

We can be real people together. Happy supporting each other. With so much more opportunity.

And more fun.

Together we can do extraordinary things.”

TRACK 2

My world … people and their passions

“Do you see the world like I do?

When I go out for a drink, I go to enjoy the company of my friends, to celebrate a birthday, or maybe to meet somebody. As much as you might like it, I don’t go on a mission to find a certain drink or spend time searching out your brand. The drink is an enabler, a consequence, a small part of why I am there.

For you it might seem the main thing. You probably spend millions on researching the deep motivational triggers that drive my brand preferences. The reality is that they matter, but not very much. If you can help me to achieve what I really want to achieve, I’d be much more grateful.

You probably go out for a drink yourself, just like me. But when you go to work, you seem to put those business blinkers on. Your world is suddenly restricted to the world you are in - the drinks industry, where you think of your competitors as other drinks companies rather than other ways in which I spend my money. You work to your own timeframes, whilst I want things now.

That’s not my world. My world has far more opportunities for you. My world is genuinely exciting. And I’d have a real passion for anything you can do to make my world better.”

2.1 WONDERFUL PEOPLE

Imagine just over one hundred years ago - without cars and aeroplanes, phones or satellite TV - when people lived their whole lives in the same local communities, locked on their Pacific Islands, remote in their Andes hilltop villages, isolated tribes in the Amazonian jungle. Life stayed the same, traditions were strong, values were consistent, fashions did not change, futures were predictable, ambitions were limited and people were much more similar.

Of course there were travelling communities, too: the nomads travelling across deserts, the warrior tribes seeking to conquer new kingdoms, the explorers searching for new lands. They brought exotic foods and cultures with them, and introduced new ideas and beliefs. Life became influenced by a much bigger and diverse world connected to different cultures, religion, trends and fashions, opening their minds to bigger opportunities.

Today, people live eclectic, transient lives. Although many have their roots, families and friends in one place, they travel the world for leisure and work, and may live in many different countries during their lives. They are in touch with the world through 24-hour satellite TV.

Technology, in particular, has connected our world. People communicate unhampered by time or location: do business on the beach with your BlackBerry, call your mum whilst climbing Mount Everest, order your favourite food from a different continent, chat for hours to your best friends (who you may never have even met physically) by Skype at no cost.

Life is now a fusion of whatever we want. Our influences are limitless, our boundaries undefined. And as a result, people think and behave more differently. We think more. We dream more.

• We are more different.

• We expect more.

• We want more.

We cannot be averaged by market research. We are not predictable by data analysis. We are not engaged by the same messages and incentives as the next person. We do not perceive the same value in propositions as others. We are not prepared to accept standard products and service.

WONDERFUL PEOPLE: CUSTOMERS AROUND THE WORLD

Business needs to treat people more personally.

• Better to know a few customers well rather than many anonymously.

• Better to have some deep insights rather than lots of numeric averages.

• Better to meet the real emotional desires rather than lots of rational needs.

This creates a fundamental dilemma for business. Unless you are, uniquely, a business for one person, you have to manage the dilemma of sufficient size and scale to make money whilst retaining intimacy. You need to balance customization and standardization, wanting more customers, and serving the existing ones better.

Our challenge is to redefine the business’s purpose, scope, activities and impact through a customer’s eyes. The customer’s point of view is broader and richer, it typically requires a wider range of products and services over time, enabling cross-selling and relationship building, but more importantly requiring more listening, more thoughtful solutions and more human support.

Richard Reed never talks about customers. Richard is the visionary and youthful co-founder of Innocent, the great little company that makes the world’s most natural and tastiest drinks. He talks, with great passion, about ‘those wonderful people who buy and drink our smoothies’.

When was the last time you called your customer a wonderful person?

Indeed, the whole notion of what to call the people you seek to attract, serve and do more with is confusing.

Call them ‘customers’ and every consumer goods company thinks that we are talking about their wholesalers and retailers, not the people who ultimately buy their products, whom they call consumers. Too many of those companies still have a blinkered obsession with these intermediaries (who pay them and stock them) and not the people who they seek to reach and engage (the people who use them and, over time, hopefully grow to love them).

Call them ‘consumers’ and every business-to-business company feels alienating, deciding that consumers are a different species of human being from what they might instead call business ‘clients’. Of course, engaging a small number of clients with large-volume transactions might be different from mass markets, but it might just be a better way. And the reality is that we are still talking about real people, with a brain and a heart.

For the purpose of this book, we refer to ‘customers’ as the wonderful people who buy products and services, in whatever type of business you happen to be.

Insight 1: FACEBOOK

You can poke and chest bump, play Scrabble or throw a sheep, tell the world all about you, and share your most intimate moments.

Facebook.com was established by a 20-year-old Harvard psychology undergraduate, Mark Zuckerberg, in 2004. This was not his first venture; he had already developed Synapse, a software device that generated music playlists based on users’ previous listening behaviours and for which Microsoft had a big $2 million. At Harvard he created a site called facemash.com, which allowed students to vote on the relative attractiveness of their peers and was quickly closed down by the university’s management.

He turned his attention to replicating the physical ‘Facebook’, which all new students regarded as the essential guide for getting to know people when they first arrive at college. Each student spent hours perfecting their profiles - personal details, previous schools and experiences, hobbies and interests, favourite bands and movies, and the all-important photos of themselves. Surprisingly, nobody had created an online version or connected colleges and universities together.

In February 2004 Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com, which later became facebook.com. Within three weeks he had 10,000 registered users, and within another two weeks he had opened up the site to the likes of Yale and Stanford. By June, Facebook had spread across 30 universities and had 150,000 obsessed student users, checking each other out and getting connected. All of this was achieved for $85 per month, the cost of renting one server. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Zuckerberg dropped out of his psychology studies, with more lucrative paths to follow.

The business grew rapidly beyond its original purpose. Within a year it had five million active users as it was opened up to other colleges and high schools across the US and then around the world. By 2006, non-students had jumped on the social networking bandwagon. Although 75% of its registered users were in the 25-34-year-old group, significant numbers of older users were joining up too. Within another year, the website had 10 million users and was challenging MySpace to become the world’s largest online social networking site.

Communities within the registered users grew rapidly, users joining together with work colleagues to form employee groups or sharing a common social interest or physical location, or supporting a common lobbying point. They can be open or closed groups and these, more than anything, activated people into making more connections, logging on more frequently to see what people were doing and expressing their own views to their chosen worlds.

On 24 May 2007, Zuckerberg surprised the technology world by announcing that he was opening the site to third party developers, giving them instant access to its huge youthful, desirable networked audience. The media called it the birth of ‘the Facebook economy’. For users it meant a huge choice of rich interactive content as developers fought to gain a presence.

It transformed Facebook from a popular online meeting place to a technological platform on which anybody could instantly do business. Within nine months of ‘opening up’, more than 14,000 applications from third party developers were live on Facebook - from online Scrabble, which could be played across the globe by 15 million people, to new virtual economies where people bought and sold their names and relationships. The applications don’t simply serve individuals but are typically designed creative ways to embrace and encourage connections.

Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, once estimated that the power of a network is proportional to the square of its users. So as the users grew, the effect grew much faster. Record companies set up fan groups and pre-launched new releases to this highly influential community; market researchers strove to enrol target audiences to learn more about them; rivals looked in awe at the speed of exponential growth.

By mid-2008, with almost 125 million active users (up 160% on the previous year), Facebook was handling around one billion searches and more than 50 billion page views every month. It had become the fifth most popular website in the world and in some countries (such as Turkey) was even more popular than Google. People upgraded their mobile phones and BlackBerries because they couldn’t bear to be away from Facebook for a few hours.

Many expected Facebook to be snapped up by one of the leading technology players who were now recognizing the impact of social networks when previously they had missed the importance of search engines. Microsoft invested $240 million for a small share, but Zuckerberg said he was not selling out, merely investing to make his embryonic site even better.

Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader describes Facebook as ‘like the qwerty keyboard - there’s nothing particularly special about it, but it came along at the right time and place. At some point that standard just becomes locked in’.

However, previous social networking sites have been inherently unstable. Five years ago, everyone was talking about Friendster; then MySpace became the people’s choice. When Facebook became the place to go, everyone migrated across. Facebook has much better connections and content, and is simpler and more secure to use, but it is still in its infancy.

Maybe Facebook will define the standards for the networked economy, a decade after it was first trumpeted. How a social network will coexist alongside commercial enterprises is still unclear, as is whether this will become the platform for achieving it.

Zuckerberg, is continuing to innovate. The twentysomething Harvard drop-out has already created a business valued at $15 billion, which really is nothing to throw a sheep at.

2.2 GLOBAL VILLAGE

As the Olympic flame rose up over Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium in the summer of 2008, the world woke up to the enormous, exciting, energetic opportunities of the East. They have long been talked about as ‘emerging’ economies - markets for the future. However, many people had perceptions of poor and suppressed people, disconnected from the vibrant high-technology world.

This is, of course, a completely false picture. These economies have grown rapidly and will soon outshine the traditional powerhouses of North America and Western Europe. China and India will drive the markets of the future, with billions of customers who already demand the coolest brands and next technologies. In many respects they have always been leaders, particularly in adopting technologies and new ways of working.

C.K. Pralahad describes them as the riches at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’. That of course depends on the dimensions of your pyramid. If it’s based on wealth, sophistication or power, then the pyramid is rapidly inverting. Its broad base is rapidly becoming the driving force in global economies, and its customers the most important.

Of course it’s not just China and India, although these two nations alone will undoubtedly change the world. There are others, too: south-east Asia and South America, for example. In Eastern Europe there is more consumerism than in Western Europe: Russians, Czechs, and Romanians want the plasma screens and fast cars, whilst the British, French and Swedish seek quieter, more natural lifestyles. And then there are the opportunities of Africa, hoping to leapfrog a generation of approaches and mindsets, to enable these markets and their people to trade their way into a new world order.

Imagine a ‘global village’ where 100 people represent the population of the world:

57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 Americans, 8 Africans. 52 women and 48 men. 89 heterosexuals and 11 homosexuals. 30 Caucasians and 70 non-Caucasians. 30 Christians and 70 non-Christians. 6 people would have 59% of the wealth (and all from the USA). 80 would live in poverty, 70 would be illiterate, 50 would be hungry. 1 would own a computer, 1 would have a university degree. 1 would be dying, 1 would be being born.

GLOBAL VILLAGE: IMAGINE THE WORLD AS AVILLAGE OF 100 PEOPLE

People are diverse and their motivations and ambitions differ hugely. However, it is easy to lose perspective of our world, the make-up and collective power of its customers. Whilst most business has focused on a minority of these people, it is now waking up to the needs and ambitions, and business opportunities, of the majorities.

Insight 2: AIR ASIA

‘There’s a new girl in town: twice the fun, half the price.’

The newspaper ads taunted Singapore Airlines and their famed Singapore Girl cabin crew, but were actually launching Air Asia’s latest route between Bangkok and Singapore - just another PR blitz from Tony Fernandes, who paid one ringgit (around 25 cents) to buy the airline.

The former music executive cashed in his AOL Time Warner stock options and bought the ailing Kuala Lumpur-based carrier with two old planes and $12 million debt in 2001 when it was on the brink of collapse. Within a year he had engineered a turnaround, launching new routes with new aircraft.

Today Air Asia is one of the world’s fastest growing and most profitable airlines. With some of the lowest operating costs in the industry and fares as low as $3, it runs a flying ‘bus service’ between the bustling and fast growing capitals of South-East Asia. Whilst fares are designed to break even, profits come from additional revenue streams such as food and drink, onboard retail and gaming, and third party car hire and hotel bookings.

The airline succeeds by serving the most populous markets of the world, but it also has one of the most innovative business models. Air Asia is in fact a co-branded collection of several airlines, enabling it to establish hubs in Thailand and Indonesia as well as Malaysia. It has even added a hotel range, Tune Hotels, to its growing business portfolio.

In 2008, Air Asia did what other low-cost carriers such as Easyjet and Southwest had not dared to do - to fly long-haul. It added flights to Australia, with the booming markets of China and India to follow. The low-cost strategy is enabling millions of people to take to the skies for the first time and it is quickly establishing itself as the airline of the people.

Richard Branson, who has established Virgin-branded low-cost airlines across the world, was so impressed that he took a 20% stake in Air Asia X, the long-haul division of the airline. Describing what he would add to the Fernandes vision, Branson promised ‘the best entertainment system in the world at the lowest prices, to the world’s biggest marketplace’.

Whilst Fernandes stays focused on improving his proposition - constantly finding innovative ways to further reduce costs, offer the best prices, deliver the best service and fund expansion - to the millions and potentially billions of customers, Air Asia is a symbol of the new entrepreneurial opportunities of south-east Asia and beyond.

2.3 CUSTOMER TRIBES

Whilst people are more different, they still want to connect. Individuals come together in new ways.

Instead of being forced together by circumstance - with similar physical attributes in terms of location, occupation, family, wealth - people now come together by choice: similar attitudes, beliefs, lifestyles and aspirations. Today, you are more likely to build friendships with people you meet at your chosen holiday destination than you are with your next door neighbours.

These are the new tribes, driven by values, driven by broader influences, driven by bigger dreams.

New tribes might be defined by a common passion: people who enjoy gardening, support the same political ideas, share a religious faith, love the same music, follow the same football club. These tribes are unrestrained by geography, background or wealth, and form virtual and physical communities to share their passion. They form loyalties to the structures that bring them together and to each other.

Tribes are the new communities that we want to belong to and participate in: market niches that businesses must understand and decide which ones they will align themselves to - to reflect through their brands, attract as customers and serve over time.

The business that attempts to be for everybody will end up being special for nobody.

The business that is obsessed with maximizing its market share of an industry sector or local geography would find it much easier and more profitable to align itself to the ways in which people want to come together - to target a smaller slice of a bigger world.

There are many tribes that your business can choose to serve. The more specific your selection, the more relevant you can be for those people and the more closely you will be able to connect with them.

Small tribes are typically bound more closely together by more specific interests or beliefs - a specialist sport like fell running, for example, or a specific political idea such as human rights. Tribes form when there is a focus for a passion and a way of connecting with each other. Since the number of interests is unending and the connections are easy, there is no limit to the number of such groups today.

CUSTOMER TRIBES: PEOPLE COME TOGETHER IN NEW WAYS

They are more connected and influence each other - not necessarily by formal associations, but by word of mouth or informal friendships and networks. They have high trust and loyalty to each other and want to share information and ideas. They have more definable needs and wants but are often less well-served. However, they will love a brand that understands them, is designed for them and wants to support them.

From Beijing to Buenos Aires, from those with a conscience (caring about environmental, social and ethical issues) to those who love luxury (the mass market who aspire to luxury brands), people come together to redefine local and global markets.

‘Global’ is no longer about importing and exporting but the natural starting point for doing business. Similarly, ‘local’ is no longer about distance, but about the tribes emotionally closest to you.

Some of the fast-growing global tribes are illustrated in the ‘global village’:

• Active boomers: The baby boomers - the 1950s and 1960s kids who are now in their prime, heading towards the end of their first careers. They are fit and wealthy, and ready to explore the world. Retirement is their new beginning and they want to enjoy life to the full.

• Assertive women: As the primary decision-makers in 92% of food purchases, 84% of car purchases, women now drive the customer agenda and, increasingly, the business agenda too. They are more assertive and aesthetic, happy to multi-task, and not prepared to compromise.

• Chinese dreamers: The world’s biggest and most diverse market is hungry for success. The 2008 Beijing Olympics symbolized the reawakening of an economic dragon, with 1.3 billion people emerging from years in the economic wilderness.

• Deep believers: From fundamental beliefs to spiritual enlightenment, faith has become more important in people generally, as well as reshaping the world’s politics and security. People increasingly seek an anchor to hang onto, values to live their life by.

• Designer gays: Having sorted out their morality, businesses now recognize the ‘pink dollar’ as a crucial and definable market to target - typically more aesthetic and discerning, wealthier, and fashionable, gays and lesbians are asserting their customer power.

• Economic migrants: Attracted by the thought of a better life, many cities represent new ethnic mosaics, bringing new skills as well as their own cultural needs. In London, for example, Polish shops are on many high streets and advertisers develop Polish ads.

• Green consumers: They want to do the right thing for themselves and for the world - to consume but in a way that is in sympathy with ‘green’ issues - from organic food to global warming, local communities to human rights.

• Growing south: With the majority of the world’s population, from Australia to Brazil, Borneo to South Africa, the southern hemisphere is the dark house of future growth. Africa leapfrogs technologies, southern Asia is the new design shop and South America grows fastest.

• Indian entrepreneurs: Another huge, diverse market that is set to leapfrog China as the world’s most populous nation by 2050, with 1.75 billion people, India is more practical and technical in nature, often well-educated and highly entrepreneurial. They work hard, study hard and are already the backbone of academic and research organizations around the world.

• Intrepid explorers: The world is the oyster of many more people, young and old, exploring it in high speed packages or spending a lifetime shifting continents. People are more transient and cultured, fusing many traditions and practices that they carry with them to other markets.

• Living elders: The world’s population of over-60-year-olds will triple in the next 20 years. More people than any nation, they are increasingly wealthy and healthy, living longer and richer lives, with wisdom and time to contribute more and enjoy life to the full. However, they also need more care and support, a business sector that will boom.

• Luxury seekers: Gucci handbags, Porsche 911s and Burberry coats were the exclusive icons of the rich and glamorous. But now, despite the prices, everybody wants one, prepared to sacrifice essentials for the premium symbols of progress.

• New Europeans: A new generation of Central and Eastern Europeans knows little of a previously divided world and have formed the most ambitious, entrepreneurial, disciplined and hard-working businesses anywhere. They want a better life and are making it happen for themselves quickly.

• Pyramid masses: C.K. Pralahad described it as the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. Companies such as Baidu and Tata understand the opportunity As others blindly target the few wealthiest customers, they forget that a different proposition could be even more profitable in the huge mass markets of the low-paid and developing economies.

• Serial singles: The majority of all households are now singles, be they young or old, or in between. By choice or circumstance, there are more single adults than ever, challenging the convention of family units. They are relatively wealthier, with fewer people to support, and bigger spenders.

• Talented youth: The young people who have grown up with Bart Simpson, Google, MTV and PlayStations. They live and think in a globally connected way, where unlimited knowledge is online and culture comes by satellite. They have high expectations and want rich experiences - speed, thrills and instant success.

Insight 3: BANYAN TREE

Imagine that you have just gone to dinner. You start with a fusion of local dishes and then a lightly spiced vegetable soup, followed by red snapper caught that morning and the chef’s speciality. You celebrate with champagne. The cool breeze is refreshing after a day on the dazzling white sand. It seems like you are lost in the charm of this tropical island.

You finish with a wonderful dark chocolate mousse that melts in your mouth and is washed down with the last of your bubbles. Your waitress hopes that your dinner was perfect and wishes you a great evening with her ever-gracious smile. Time for a good night’s sleep, you think.

Whilst you have been dining, your room has been transformed.

You walk across the small bridge to your glass-walled private villa. The scent of the bougainvillea and hibiscus trees is enhanced by one hundred candles that light your path. Silk drapes now cover the glass walls and the bed in the centre of the room has been remade with silk sheets, scattered ornate cushions and flower petals. On your balcony, an outdoor bath is bubbling, with more champagne and essential oils by the side. The ultimate in intimacy and luxury.

At Banyan Tree, it is all part of the guest experience. Here, the hotel is a stage, a place for treasured moments. The staff can set the stage, either at your request or sometimes by surprise, leaving it for you to create your own story.

Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts are not for everyone, targeting a wealthy and globetrotting elite. Led by its charismatic founder, Ho Kwon Ping, the group launched its first hotel in Phuket in 1994 and has since won many accolades for its business, service and environmental practices. The mission statement says:

‘We want to build a globally recognized brand which by inspiring exceptional experiences among our guests, instilling pride and integrity in our associates, and engaging both the physical and human environment in which we operate, will deliver attractive returns to our shareholders.’

In Hindu religion, the banyan tree is considered sacred, representing eternal life because of its ever-expanding branches. The Banyan Tree group now owns, develops and manages 23 resorts and hotels across Asia Pacific, and extending the experience are retail galleries, 65 spas and two golf courses. Resorts are typically small, with between 50 and 100 rooms, and command the highest prices.

The resorts are not just opulent and beautiful; the attitude and attention of their people make this a different experience. Staff are encouraged to be ‘creative within a framework’, addressing guests by their first names, facilitating whatever the guest seeks from their stay and combining their natural Asian style and hospitality with the multicultural expectations of guests.

Staff are encouraged to see their role from the customer’s perspective-to participate in it, with passion and pride. And there are two brand managers; one making the promise through marketing and the other operationally making sure that it becomes a reality. Before a new resort opens, everyone comes together for a pre-opening party. There are exchange programmes to help employees experience different resorts around the world.

BANYAN TREE: EXPERIENCE THE EXOTIC LUXURY

TRACK 3

My agenda … what matters most to me

“What do I really really want?

Of course lots of things matter to me and my priorities change regularly too - life’s a juggling act, constantly making trade-offs. But it’s also about principles, beliefs, ambitions and dreams. Please don’t prejudge me - don’t put me in a box alongside hundreds of other people. We’re all different, and anyway it’s hard to articulate what we really want, so don’t assume that your existing words are sufficient to describe it. My priorities change at home and work, and depending on whether I’m thinking about myself or others, and whether we’re talking reality or aspirations. Or maybe you could help me to connect them?

Of course all the usual things matter - quality, service, convenience, value - but they are my basic expectations. Everybody offers that today, don’t they? I expect 100% satisfaction on these things.

But I want more. The small things matter and can make a big difference to me, even if they can seem trivial to you. And of course I love it when you remember me, go the extra mile for me. It’s great when you exceed my expectations. It shows me how good you can be. But I also care about what your products do for me and my family, what impact your business has on the world around me, and how together we make the world a little better.”

3.1 EMOTIONAL WORLD

Emotion stimulates the mind 3000 times faster than rational thought.

Many people say we live in a rational world, but nothing could be further from the truth. Although rational thoughts drive knowledge and skills, emotions drive our attitudes and behaviours. Rational thoughts lead to customers being interested but it is emotions that sell.

Emotions turn inventions into innovations. People have most of what they need - just look in your wardrobe! - but they have a thirst for wanting more.

Research by Anthony Damasio, author of The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, reminds us that whilst 83% of all information is visual, there are many other ways to engage people. He found that improving people’s moods depended on their exposure to different sensory stimuli:

• Positive smells improve your mood by 75%.

• Positive sounds improve your mood by 65%.

• Positive images improve your mood by 46%.

• Positive touch improves your mood by 29%.

• Positive tastes improve your mood by 23%.

He goes on to explain how we are able to construct feelings about the future based on past experiences. When these secondary emotions, or ‘somatic markers’, are linked to future outcomes, they can act as powerful incentives to act in certain ways - for example, in driving brand preference and purchase decisions.

• Lynx found that its most popular a nti-perspirant for young men was chocolate-fragranced - not because it mattered to the men, but because it engaged the girls they sought to attract.

• Mercedes created a personalized, de-bossed supple leather envelope for its direct mailed brochure, reflecting the luxury of its new CL-class interiors.

• Nokia constructs its retail stores with image walls so that the whole interior can change from green to pink or cityscape to tropical island within seconds.

Damasio compares the 40 billion neurons in the brain to a corn field. Walk through the field once and the corn is likely to spring back with little trace of the route for others to follow. However, if you walk through it several times, following the same path, the corn will stay flat. The more frequently that the connections between neurons in the brain are activated, the stronger their memory becomes. When more senses are used to make different connections within the brain (equivalent to more paths across the cornfield), there are stronger and more lasting impressions.

EMOTIONAL POWER: MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

If we want to buy a new car, we can check the specifications, do test drives and visit price comparison websites, but will ultimately choose to pay a little more for the car we dream of. We look for the perfect houses, considering the floor space, bedrooms, taxes and schools, but then fall in love with the cottage by the sea. Customers think emotionally, but business continues to try to understand and engage them in rational, monochromatic ways.

Customers are emotional not rational beings. They engage with people and ideas, more than processes and logic.

Insight 4: BAIDU

The name ‘baidu’ was inspired by a Song Dynasty poem written 800 years ago by Xin Qiji that compared the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one’s dream whilst confronted by life’s many obstacles:

‘… Hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance to where the lights were waning, and there she stood.’

‘Baidu’ means ‘hundreds of times’ and represents the persistent search for the ideal.

China is now the world’s largest online society, with more than 210 million users out of its 1.3 billion population, and around six million more logging on for the first time every month. The rapid growth of the Internet in China has fuelled an online nationalism not seen elsewhere, bringing together people like never before who want to share content and transact in their own language and culture too. In China, Alibaba is larger than eBay, and Google (a word which means the number 1 with a million zeros, by the way) is nowhere compared to Baidu.

In the summer of 1998 at a picnic in Silicon Valley, Eric Xu, a 34-year-old biochemist, introduced his shy, reserved friend Robin Li to John Wu, then the head of Yahoo’s search engine team. Li, 30 at the time, was a frustrated staff engineer at Infoseek. Wu says what most impressed him was that despite all of the pessimism surrounding search in his own business, Li was passionate about search.

‘The people at Yahoo didn’t think search was all that important, and so neither did I,’ says Wu, who is now the chief technology officer at Alibaba, the Chinese online business-to-business exchange. ‘But Robin seemed very determined to stick with it.’

A year after the picnic, Li founded his own search company in China and named it Baidu. In exchange for letting censors oversee its website, Baidu has sealed its dominance with support from the Chinese government (which regularly blocks Google and imposes strict rules and censorship on other foreign Internet companies).

With around a 60% share of online searches, Baidu is more customized to its audience in terms of language, search algorithms and advertising. It is the most popular site in China and the third largest search engine in the world, with a 6% share.

Baidu went public in August 2005 at $27 a share. When trading ended that day, shares closed at $122, up 354%, the biggest opening on the Nasdaq since the dotcom peak in 2000. Suddenly, Baidu was a $4 billion company and Mr Li held stock worth more than $900 million. But many analysts said that by almost every measure Baidu’s stock was ridiculously over-valued - it eventually tumbled to as low as $44 before rebounding.

Co-founder Rin Li is convinced that Baidu will soon ‘become bigger than Google’. The company recently launched a Japanese search engine, a mobile search engine in Chinese and an advertising-funded streaming music service. There is also Post Bar, where users can exchange questions and answers, and Baidu Knows, which gives points for the best answers.

Today it has a market value of more than $3 billion and operates the fourth-most popular website in the world. With China’s fast-growing market, and Li’s continued innovation, Baidu looks likely to be a growing force in the virtual world.

Or as a Chinese philosopher once said, ‘a beauty in the chaotic glamour’.

3.2 CUSTOMER KALEIDOSCOPES

‘Coolhunters’ sit in the pavement cafes of Manhattan’s Tribeca district, the La Ramblas in Barcelona or Tokyo’s Kappabashi Dori, camcorder in one hand, double-shot skinny latte with cinnamon in the other. They seek to capture what’s hot, what’s happening and what’s next.

Observing a trend is like staring at a lump of rock and trying to see the trillions of atoms inside it, all moving about at incredible speeds. It’s impossible to see trends. They are directional shifts invisible to our eyes. They happen over time. We frequently see temporary and largely directionless fads, and fashions that are more enduring and with more coherent direction.

Trends emerge over time. However, there is more science to it than reading a crystal ball. Magnus Lindkvist, the Swedish futurist describes trendspotting as ‘pattern recognition’ - making sense of multidirectional fads and directional fashions, understanding the underlying drivers and influences, and how they will shape future attitude and aspirations.

DIRECTIONAL TRENDS: FADS, FASHIONS AND INVISIBLE CHANGE

Reinier Evers from the Netherlands is another futurist. He has a network of 8000 trendspotters all around the world and aggregates their observations and foresights at trendwatching. com. Reiner defines a trend as ‘a manifestation of something that unlocks or newly services an existing (and hardly ever changing) customer need, desire, want, or value’.

This definition assumes that human beings, and therefore customers, don’t change that much. Their deep needs remain the same yet can be unlocked or newly serviced. Driving this can be anything from changes in societal norms and values to a breakthrough in technology or rise in prosperity.

Abraham Maslow described the different levels of core human needs - from the essentials of food, water, sleep and sex to the energizers such as creativity, morality, confidence and achievement. As an example, a core human need is to be in control or at least to have the illusion of being in control. No wonder that the online world is so addictive - after all, it firmly puts the individual in the driver’s seat.

What are the drivers of the customer’s world?

Technology is the most fundamental driver of change, changing what is possible and raising the expectations of what customers expect:

• Digitalization - the ability to store and access, share and shape vast amounts of information, such as iPods, DVDs, satellite TV and the BlackBerry.

• Networks - connecting people and communities, supply chains and marketplaces, crossing boundaries and sharing knowledge.

• Convergence - the coming together of fixed and wireless technologies, communication and entertainment, home and workspaces.

• Robotics - whilst automation increasingly dominates production and service, sophisticated artificial intelligence enables intuition and consistency.

• Speed - fast-changing structures, short product lifecycles, rapid imitation, fast interactions and instant decisions.

In response, market structures have morphed to become more global and fragmented, reflecting the greater individuality and interdependence of customers:

• Globalization - more connected, fewer borders, more interdependence. Never before has a butterfly flapped its wings and caused a hurricane so strong elsewhere.

• Fragmentation - same but different, with people able to assert their individuality and differences, making markets more complex and diverse.

• Competition - there are no limits to competitors. They come across seas and sectors, easily accessible with a search and a click.

• Regulation - whilst national entities have become private property, new regulation grapples to cope with the fast and dispersed nature of new technologies.

• Corporations - the largest companies are truly global: the likes of GE, Microsoft, Samsung and Toyota have more presence and power than most nations.

Businesses, large and small, have struggled to respond to, survive and exploit this new world order. They too influence the perceptions and behaviours of customers:

• Consolidation - combining forces to achieve more influence and efficiency, more powerful and broader solutions, reducing choice or simply trying to survive.

• Transparency - everybody can find out anything about your business, driving more openness and information, and responsible and ethical behaviours.

• Intangibles - the value of business is no longer in hard things, but in the soft stuff - brands and relationships, ideas and capabilities.

• Investment - changing ownership from long-term owners and investors to short-term private equity companies and hedge funds seeking a quick buck.

• Resources - securing the most important resources, energy and minerals, partners and people, and of course, the best customers.

Each of these factors shape the customer’s world directly and indirectly - how they live and work, what they need and want, how they interact and buy, what influences and drives them.

However, the Internet stands above all else in driving change in the customer’s world.

In fifteen years, the Web has changed human society so profoundly that historians have begun comparing the Internet Age with the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. It now connects more than a billion people and is the backbone of the global economy and, increasingly, our own daily lives.

Tim Berners-Lee, who established the World Wide Web as a simple, intuitive way to navigate the military and technology-driven Internet, was somewhat disappointed at the way in which the Web was initially used in the late 1990s as little more than online shops. He dreamt of a much more powerful world that is now becoming reality. The Web’s second coming, often referred to as Web 2.0, is all about networking and collaboration, shared knowledge and global communities.

Conventional wisdom was that groups delivered less good results than expert individuals. Everyone knew that a camel was a horse designed by committee. Social networking has changed all that. Whilst the early focus has been on the aspects of sociability, the real opportunity comes in terms of working. A new mode of learning, production, distribution, communication and relationship has been born.