ROI Comes From Customer Value Creation

ROI Comes From Customer Value Creation

I read a post the other day looking at the ROI (Return On Investment) in immediate payment systems (banking speak for instant payments) and one particular statement made by the author made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In fact, the real driver may not be the ROI but just keeping up with customer and regulatory needs. ROI can't come from regulatory needs and cost savings to be successful. It has to come from customer value creation if you want to be sustainable. If the ROI is some sort of fuzzy "feel good" or "customer experience" story without strong numbers most businesses won't invest in these types of problems. In this example, if all of the major banks in a country (such as Britain or Canada) decide that "instant payments" don't have a positive ROI they will all choose to not build that capability since it isn't "worth it". If they do choose to build it it will be...
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Modifying Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions

Modifying Drucker’s Five Most Important Questions

In his book The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, Peter Drucker offers a tool for self-assessment and transformation in his "Five Most Important Questions You Can Ask".  The questions are designed to drive action and create focus on doing the right things to drive exceptional performance within your organization, only when I read them they fall short of delivering on what matters most.  So in the interest of challenging one of the greatest management thinkers of our time (and someone who I have great respect for) I will offer my own version of the Five Most Important Questions You Can Ask. As a starting point it's a good idea to provide some context by providing the five questions that Drucker proposed and a little bit of background as to why and with what I disagree.  Druckers questions are as follows: What is our Mission? Who is our Customer? What does the Customer Value? What are our Results? What is our Plan? When...
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The 80/20 Rule and Your Market

The 80/20 Rule and Your Market

We all know the 80/20 Rule, also known as the Pareto Principle.  We've heard it over and over and seen the power of the rule in our own businesses.  80% of our business comes from 20% of our customers.  80% of our problems are solved by 20% of our efforts.  The richest 20% of the people in our world own 80% of the resources.  It's powerful because it's true.  Unfortunately we don't take the principle into consideration enough when we are looking at our markets and deciding where to spend our time. Consider it as a balancing act except that given the rule, we should already know that things won't be balanced (nor should they).  One of the steps I take my clients through is the identification of markets - the analysis of where they are selling their products and services today and the identification of other markets where those same products and services (or a slightly modified version) may be just...
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