Business Globalization

I was sitting in the car on the highway to meet a business colleague on Wednesday. There are a lot of interesting phenomena that I observed during the trip. These phenomena come from a great burger company, with a big yellow M as their slogan, a funny clown as their character, the one and only McDonald’s. The title of this sharing is business globalization since I think that big businesses somehow become the culture of the global society or even create the new habit of our society.

My old business lecturer once told me that a business would be able to control a country when it becomes too big. Microsoft surely creates new habits for our global society. Imagine if all Microsoft Windows Operating System are stopped in a night. I think the whole planet earth will become even more chaotic than when the Tsunami devastated the Asian countries. In fact, the global economy is actually influenced by these businesses.

Imagine if Coca Cola suddenly disappear from our society. I think a lot of people will be unemployed, the New York Stock Exchange will be suddenly shaken, and all the restaurants on the globe will experience diminishing in their profit. Moreover, all the coca cola fans will become furious.

In the world McDonald’s surely is everywhere. When I was driving on the highway I can clearly see two McDonald’s restaurants situated exactly opposite to each other, one for each different route. It becomes the executive daily habit to grab the McDonald’s meal in the morning since it is simple, easy, and of course fast. On the highway I could also see even the road directory contains McDonald’s sign in it. This really shows how the company affects the Australian government and Australian culture.

Ten years ago I could still live happily without a mobile phones in my pocket. Somehow the world was small enough to get in contact with our friends and family without the mobile phones. However after Nokia introduced their 5110 series to the world, the whole society becomes addicted to mobile phones. I really cannot live without a mobile phone now. Somehow it becomes so troublesome without it.

A simple sharing about business globalization. Do you have another experience that shows how businesses could affect your habit? Please share it to the group

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

It's All About People

A couple of weeks ago I asked to the public How the Professional companies market themselves? This question was answered wonderfully. Continuing the story, I managed to go through the second stage of McKinsey's recruitment process. In the second stage I will be required to undergo a problem solving test in an hour. If I could do well in this stage I will face a couple of different interviews before I could get into the company. I think this is a very great and challenging recruitment processes. No wonder they could always find the outstanding individuals to work for them.

As I think about the processes I try to correlate this with marketing. One of the most important elements in marketing is product, and in this situation, their consultancy services. In order to deliver an outstanding product they surely require the right people to build the solution. These people then do the marketing for the company. The results that they deliver to their customers will speak out louder than anything.At the end of the day it is our people that build the company, the system, and the marketing.

In the real life situation we can see how an influence of one great person could alter the final result. Marvin Bower brought McKinsey&Co. up to this level. Our own, Hermawan Kartajaya has brought MarkPlus&Co. to be one of the respected companies in the Asia. These examples show the power of people in marketing.

My dad once told me that in Chinese there is a saying: "It takes only 20 years to grow a tree however 100 years would not be enough to grow a person". This means it takes forever to create an outstanding person since life is a constant learning experience. I think great companies surely know the people power in business and they really invest in the development of their employees rather than focus merely to their profit. I mean, the profit will come when your people show outstanding results.Let us learn to be a better person in life. Just a simple sharing. Comments, opinions, and questions will be greatly appreciated

David Herlambang
MarketingFirst

Sometimes Being Simple is the Answer

I would like to share a bit phenomenon that I just found out this afternoon. My company just decided to create a new subsidiary and I will be the main operator. The subsidiary will concentrate on the diversified financials which basically will be investing the parent company’s money in a lot of different financial products. Hopefully, in less than a hundred years this could grow and become like Merrill Lynch, UBS, Morgan Stanley, or Macquarie Bank (fingers crossed…hehehe).

Secretly, I also have a deep interest in the financial market. I started trading in the Australian Stock Exchange approximately three years ago. There are a lot of interesting phenomena when I was analyzing the companies within the market. Today, in particular, I started the analysis by collecting the important raw data and information to be processed to the next step of the analysis. I came across to a company which almost has never attracted the media attention. Interestingly, this silent company somehow has grown for almost 700% in price within the last five years.

The name of the company is The Reject Shop. They are basically the discount variety retail sector. Therefore, their target market obviously does not expect luxurious and branded items. Basically, there are a lot of discount shops like them in Australia. What makes them special and different from the others? Why the customers prefer to shop in the reject shop instead of the two dollars shop in the corner?

Unlike the majority of the discount stores which usually very unorganized and uncomfortable, The Reject Shop differentiate themselves by creating organized and comfortable stores for their customers.

Tight budget does not always mean sacrificing comfort and tidiness. This is a very simple concept. Shopping items at the discounted price in a “shopping mall” like store. No wonder their share has increased crazily for the past five years. Sometimes we forget about simple things in marketing. There are a lot of new luxurious supermarkets fighting to obtain more market share by doing more promotion. Therefore, sometimes being simple is the answer.

What do you think about simplicity in marketing? Do you have more examples that show simplicity in marketing? Do you have a simple idea that can change the market? Please share it to the rest of the group.

Just a simple sharing!!

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

How do the professional businesses market themselves?

This sharing is basically a discussion. Probably some of the beautiful marketing minds from the forum could help me to ease my question. I have been applying for a lot of jobs for the last couple of weeks. I always have a dream to be a consultant one day. Therefore, to be accepted by one of the huge management consultant companies would be a fairy tale to me.

In researching the management consultant companies, I came across some great names in the industry such as McKinsey&Co., Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Bain&Co. It is amazing to hear and read what they have done to the society. For instance, McKinsey was hired by the Indonesian government when Aceh was devastated by the tsunami.

In the 1970s, BCG created and popularized the "growth share matrix", a simple chart to assist large corporations in deciding how to allocate cash among their business units. The corporation would categorize its business units as "Stars", "Cash Cows", "Question Marks", and "Dogs", and then allocate cash accordingly, moving money from cash cows toward "stars" and "question marks" that had higher market growth rates, and hence higher upside potential.

Bain&Co with its slogan “helping makes companies more valuable” has consistently helped their clients to outperform the S&P index by 4 to 1 ratio.

These examples are just a few from many other that could show how popular and great they are. In accounting there are the big four, PWC, Delloite, KPMG, and Ernst and Young. In engineering there are, Kellog Brown & Root and Honeywell. I refer to these companies as professional companies.

The question is how they market themselves in order to excel their services compared to the competitors. Obviously, I have not seen any TV, magazine, and any other form of advertisements from these companies. Is it only their brand that creates the sales for them? Is it only words of mouth?
If one day we would like to create a professional company what do we have to do in order to compete these companies? How do we market ourselves? Please share and help me to reveal these questions.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Meet Me in Media Kawasan

The second article is out people!!! hehehehe

Wow, it is actually a great experience running this blog and writting articles to the media. I have received a lot of support from my readers and friends. Thank you for all your support!!

Let us enhance the power of sharing.

Here is the short abstract to the latest column for them who do not understand Indonesian:

More than Just Advertising

In the modern business environment customers have reached the saturation point in terms of being exposed to advertisements. Therefore, marketing surely takes more than mere advertising in order to conquer the market. A few decades ago advertising managed to create leaders such as Procter&Gambler, Coca Cola, and American Express. However, time has changed this nature. We need to redefine marketing in order to survive. Lazy marketing with only advertising as the main agenda would no longer applicable.

Hence, we need to create further connection with our customers. We need to cooperate with our recent customers in order to obtain the new customers. We need to ask our customers what can be done in order to fulfill their needs. For instance, eBay has created an affiliation program with the recent customers in finding the new customers. They would not be hesitant in promoting their customers’ businesses. Moreover, they also give their customers commission whenever sales is done through the customers.

The example shows that modern marketing requires endless creativity and closeness to the market. I am sure there are still a lot of marketing strategy that could be implemented specifically to your business, and hence no more lazy marketing.

Feel Free to Comment, question, and give any opinion (positive or negative) to me

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst

Free Items Giveaway…Why are they doing it?

A great blogger named Devi Girsang asked to the public in her last posting what actually is the objective of companies giving away free items. This is an interesting issue since I have not thoroughly thought about it. Is it just giving away? Do they try to introduce the products into the market? Or do they have any other reasons behind it? In this sharing I would like to answer her question from the marketing point of view.

I assume everybody knows about Robin Hood. In the story he steals money and jewelries from the rich and gives it to the poor. This then leads to the high popularity of Robin Hood among the poor. They also have a huge sympathy and support to Robin Hood with all their heart. I think this analogy works pretty much the same with the company that gives away free items. They might try to attract the public attention by teasing them with prizes.

Seth Godin coined a theory called Permission Marketing. He basically points out that in this modern society, marketing should engage strangers to be our friends, and friends into our customers. Permission marketing is about building an ongoing relationship of increasing depth with customers. Therefore, the giveaway process might just a good start in developing the ongoing relationship.

In the internet, certain websites usually ask for our contact details (email address, phone number, etc) before we can actually join the pool of the free giveaways. Unintentionally, we are giving permission to them to contact us in the future for further promotional issues and updates. This is also another practice of permission marketing.

Giving away items also develops the sense of giving back some of the profit to the society. This then increases the loyalty of the existing customers and also attracts potential customer’s attention. This could also attract the media coverage and reviews from the third party which again endorses the public relation (PR) in marketing.

For the newly introduced products this method could be used to increase the awareness of the product in the market. At the end of the day, word of mouth is still the best promotional method. By endorsing the usage of the newly introduced products the company gives the small tease of how great the product is.

I hope this simple sharing could answer the question.
Comments, opinions, and questions would be deeply appreciated.

David Herlambang

MarketingFirst