Customer service banking! HSBC the best!

By Patrick Mayoh

I am so proud to say I made up this title (well I hope I am right). Alright most people have heard of investment banking, retail banking or consumer banking. But then looking at the UK banking industry coming up with such a term as customer service banking is not so strange. On the contrary I would say it is trendy. Hitherto it was common practice and it might be still the case to offer the best products or services to customers. Competition according to Michael Porter (1979) cost, leadership, differentiation and focus are usually the main strategic options deployed by organizations depending on the size of the market, the importance of the industry and the market shares by an organization. so let us say up to now the big banks have played on leadership; something like " we want to be the best in terms of the way we manage customers'accounts as well how fast and how well we can make cash available to customers when they need to get a mortgage and etc..." But then today differentiation seems to be the order of the day. Alright let us say HSBC might be one of the best financial establishment around (just hypothetically) but then it does not just want to offer products or benefits Natwest, Barclays, Santander and the rest already offer. HSBC might also want to be known for the way it treats its customers which is the main point made by this article. Where leadership in terms of offering the best services to customers used to be the main strategic options, today differentiation in customer care appears to be the new strategic option.

Take for example the article published by love money.com last week about the worst banks for customer service and then think of this new customer charter released by RBS and Natwest just a couple of months ago or even take for example the Halifax reward scheme which stipulates that the bank rewards one of its most loyal customer on a monthly basis with £5 and you have a pretty big overview of what is happening today within the industry.

Lovemoney. com actually reveals that the Bank of scotland just has an overall score of 43% in terms of customer service, well more than half of the customers are unhappy, very bad.

And then interestingly Halifax part of the Lloyds group got an overall 53% in terms of customer satisfaction.

So time for the winner, in third position the Co-Op emphasis on fairness and integrity coupled with a strong sense of ethics seems to be quite appealing to Britons; so let us go to the runner up One Account funded by Virgin and acquired by RBS with an overall 81% of customer satisfaction. And to the winner...........HSBC (what else?) with an overall 82% in terms of customer satisfaction. The figures in themselves are eloquent about the strong competition within the UK industry so I believe a couple of lessons can be drawn from all those figures. I will boil them down to three.

The first lesson is those banks that have from the beginning engineered and implemented customer care will more likely succeed and compete better in the market place than those banks who do not. In fact it does not come as a surprise that over the year HSBC --with its a very smiling and helpful customer reps--has collected numerous awards for its strong banking performance and customer care.

Secondly those banks that rapidly take measures to correct their images in the eyes of both customers and the public at large stand a good chance of catching up and possibly claiming a top position among the elites. In this sense I think RBS and Natwest's customer charter is very instructive and illustrative of my point. It might just be a couple of statements designed to project an excessive emphasis on the bank's renewed determination to win customers' support and approval but it will eventually go a long way if properly executed and reviewed and iterated towards changing the bank image.

Thirdly UK banks should be wary of globalisation as it becomes increasingly easier for foreign banking institutions to move operations in the city of London. Santander might not yet occupy a good position in terms of a top banks as it does in Spain but provided the right strategic change and focus it might a big player to reckon with in the future. Easier entry into the banking industry in the UK will just weaken competitors and therefore innovative means to attract and retain customers will be crucial as the same products and services will become available throughout all agencies.

Conclusively Kim and Mauborgne (1997) in their book value innovation came up with the concept of blue ocean strategy which is simply put the action which consists for an organization within a particular industry to make the competitions or competitors irrelevant through innovation. Customer service banking might probably be in the future the subject of much more research and innovation in the banking industry.

See you next week hopefully

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Brainstorming like De Bono

 By Patrick Mayoh

 Brainstorming is very much part of the Franca lingua of many organizations. Simply put it is a process where a group as a team gets to explore all available ideas, possibilities and alternatives just to name a few; pertaining to a specific issue. Brainstorming is actually quite handy when a team does not have a clear perspective of a problem and has to conceptualize and think from scratch. Also the fact that all propositions from group members are taken into consideration make brainstorming less stressing and demanding from other types meetings, as a matter of fact it is the opportunity to think out of the box and maybe for someone to come up with a proposition that creates the “waouh” effect. The fact that brainstorming is used in everyday life --like for example when you want to decide how to prepare that surprise party for your mum or when your colleagues sit around to decide on the gift to offer a colleague on his last day at the office-- makes it a very popular tool within and outside organizations. The big question is: why do we brainstorm? And what types of results can we expect to get after a brainstorming session? And most especially what does it take to do it the right way? A couple of weeks ago I read about a very interesting model called the “six thinking hats” on brainstorming by a management thinker called Edward De Bono who articulated a very structured framework meant to make brainstorming sessions in organizations more effective and probably more result oriented. I would definitely recommend to any manager for consideration. But first let us get back to those questions about brainstorming.

Why do we need to brainstorm?

Well I can think of many reasons why but I will boil them down to four.

Say your Boss leaves you an email inviting you for a brainstorming lunch about your marketing campaign in the London Art’s fair. In this case I presume the meeting would be all about what your team could do to create awareness about your organization in terms of the way you represent your organization its products and services. The idea in this sense is to come up with a plan of action, detailing all aspects your team will take into consideration for the success of your marketing campaign.

Right, let us say three days later your boss drops a voice mail on your blackberry inviting you for a meeting into his office. In this case having decided and agreed on what your group is doing, you now have to allocate tasks and responsibilities for specific parts of the projects. It is true this could be done in the first meeting but some projects might be so significant in scope that, many meeting between team members are usually required to decide who does what, why and how. So at the end of the day the project management team breaks up the assignment in sub-assignments for each member of the group and brainstorms on what part each should contribute to the overall project.

Right sometimes brainstorming is all about improving or ameliorating a product or service. This can be very effective in terms of idea generation. Say a new service launched by your customer service department has reached its decline on the life cycle curve; your manager decides to assemble a team of your department and gets you to think about things you might improve about the service and how you can make it better for the next one.

Sometimes your Research and Development Director might get your team to think about a new product or service for the market. About a new device or a gadget that could change the world. This is about your team sitting down and jotting down a few points about the new product and service and coming up with a project designed to kick start the new assignment.

In conclusion from an organizational perspective brainstorming is all about four specific points:

· Generating an action plan

· Agreeing on a course of action

· Improving existing products and services

· Creating new ones

What types of results does brainstorming yield?

Well you can actually expect a good number of results to emerge from a good and effective brainstorming session. In most cases a team will emerge with:

· A strategy

· A clearer understanding of an issue

· A new product or service

· A definite solution to a problem

Usually a brainstorming team will sit to get a focus, a strong sense of direction to arrive at specific answers at the end. The end product in many cases will look like any of the following:

A brainstorming session will usually be about finding direction. Say your manager needs to consider entry strategy for that new market in India, as a group your job will be to reflect on all the possibilities available and possibly settle for the best one or the most likely to yield positive results.

A group sitting together as part of a brainstorming session will usually perceive a problem or a situation better than individuals thinking on their own. The reason being teamwork will always deliver the best results possible than individual work. Actually synergising all the available minds to a group only increases the chances for a team to gain more solutions than when individuals have to work separately from one another.

Interestingly a team will usually use brainstorming to chip in those ideas out of the box that make great product or service. In more formal types of meetings this could be rather cumbersome. But brainstorming technically means free initiative and thinking are readily encouraged and therefore because the potential for freedom of thought is greater more ideas will be available for the group.

Having considered all the options available to a team brainstorming will help the group to look through all the alternatives and possibly decide on which one is best.

Having looked at the dynamics of brainstorming let us have a look at what Edward De Bono had to say on the topic. I must say I read it a couple of weeks ago and I was so impressed at this way of brainstorming, it was quite revolutionary for me.

Up to now I had pictured brainstorming as a time where people come and sit together and just think about anything going through their minds. This is what I have seen in a couple of cases, but then although free thinking is encouraged it did not make sense to me especially because it seems to be done so randomly without a proper focus. It even makes it difficult at the end to decide who said what and why. So the whole idea just loses its attractiveness.

So Dr Edward De Bono suggests that people make better decisions when they are forced to think out of their normal way and goes on to recommend the “six hats”. Six simply because each hat has a different colour and therefore leads the group to think in a particular fashion; the model has the merit of creating a very focussed but deliberate brainstorming session where all the members productively contribute to the exercise. The six hats where:

· The white one represents information about an issue

· The red one intuition or feelings about a case

· Black the downsides of a problem

· Yellow the advantages to a situation

· The green all the possibilities and

· The blue the summary of a particular situation

Could be summarized in the following way:

Hats	Focus	Questions
White	· Information · Facts · Data	· What do we know already about this · What information do we need · Are there secondary data on the issue · Can we collect data
Red	· Feelings · Intuition	· How do we feel about the proposed course of actions · Is it likely to fail or succeed · Are we being too optimistic or pessimistic
Black	· Downsides · Pitfalls · Inconvenient · Disadvantages · Pessimism	· What could possibly go wrong · Why could it not work · Can we really do this
Yellow	· Advantages · Potentials for success · Optimism · opportunities	· Any reason to believe it could work? · Why should we feel good about this · Why is it a fantastic plan or idea? · Will we succeed?
Green	· Possibilities · New ideas · Creative thinking	· Is there a credible alternative to this? · Can we explore any other possibility · Is there anything we have not devoted our attention to · What else could we do · What about option b?
Blue	· Summary · Breaking it down	· What have we learned? · What are the main points? · What is the final decision?

Provided a team does this in an orderly and focussed way the results could be amazing and beyond expectations. Brainstorming in this way ceases to be a meeting where every team member just throws in whatever comes through his mind to become a productive activity where the team arrives at a specific answer at the end.

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I do not believe Business is all about money!

By Patrick Mayoh

I was privileged last week to be a guest speaker at a local school of my area. The school administration had organized a careers’ week to familiarize pupils with the professional job. And having just completed my MBA I was asked to talk about my understanding of business and why this is important in the society we find ourselves in.
I think the talk went very well. The questions especially from 8 to 10 year olds were really relevant and pertinent; to be honest I sometimes during the QA time felt I was answering to reporters as some of the issues raised were quite difficult to explain and clarify for those children. All in all I must confess I had the time of my life talking to those kids about the relevance of business in our world. I could have spoken and discussed about the same subject matter the whole day, because I was so preoccupied with making sure those children choose to become better business people in the future.
However I must say I was a bit taken aback by the fact that many of the questions after my talk—I held those talks in 3 classrooms—revolved around the issue of money and salaries. Many of the kids were so eager to know if I was earning a big salary and having a very good time being a business man.
On my way home I felt many of those kids dreamt of being business people just to earn big wages and bonuses. This was a bit distressing for me, because I did not choose to become a businessman or study an MBA for the money. I do expect to work in a rewarding job, in an environment where I can fully express my full potential and of course in an organization offering me financial conditions enough to meet my needs and those of my closed ones.
Ultimately I would like to be a businessman because I believe business people can create a better world, a better society. I would like to be part of an organization whose primary concern is to create products or services that will usher a happy and fulfilled society. I am afraid the media and the recent financial scandals (huge bonuses) have conveyed the feeling that being a businessman is all about earning a lot of money.
I think businesses exist in conjunction with governments to make people happy. Money is just secondary to customers’ satisfaction, happiness and fulfilment as a result of using a particular product or service. I think we need to tell our children that being a professional business person is not about money but just about making a major difference in the society. I want to believe David Zuckenberg, Steve Job, Bill Gates and Graham Bell never thought about money when they invented those gadgets we all enjoy today. Although the financial reward in all those cases might be colossal, to me they have created a better world through their products.
In conclusion, I believe we need to tell our children to dream about business people to create better products and better services and not to earn a lot of money or enjoy extravagant financial incentives; they come second to all those items mentioned above. To conclude my talk about business in that school I referred to one of my all time favourites business coaches; Stephen Covey and his legendary principle on seven habits of Highly effective people. I do believe highly effective businessmen or individuals in general think “win-win” because happiness goes both ways, high profit margins should go hand in hand with highly satisfied customers.

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Swot: asking the right questions

By Patrick Mayoh

The term SWOT (strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) is probably one of the most used acronym in management circles. This framework was introduced between the late 1960s and the early 1970s by a management consultancy from the Stanford Research Institute ;Albert S Humpfrey.

When properly used and implemented by managers Swot has the potential of providing focus and a clear sense of purpose about the strategy an organization should pursue in a given market or industry. It provides clear indications on all the factors likely to affect an organization both from the inside-out and outside-in perspectives.

The SWOT model will help an organization match its internal capabilities and resources with the needs and factors inherent to a specific business environment at a particular period in time.

Of importance though, is the fact that the SWOT model will only deliver the expected results when the objectives have been clearly defined prior to embarking on the exercise. As such an organization in the beauty industry could deliberately choose to attract middle age female customers and as such the purpose of the SWOT in this sense will be to identify those internal factors which when matched to external forces allow the organization to critically assess the validity and pertinence of its strategy. According to Van Assen et al (2009) "the model can be used as an instrument for devising and selecting strategy and is equally applicable in any decision making situation, provided the desired objective has been clearly defined".

It goes without saying that the model has been widely discussed and used in numerous business settings and personal situations. Therefore this article attempts to provide a framework centered around some of the most important questions business managers and their team have to reflect on during the SWOT exercise. Although the questions pertaining to SWOT depends on the specific objectives, therefore the questions listed down are just meant to provide an overview of those elements managers have to take into consideration when devising a strategy.

Strengths:

What do customers like about our products, services and processes?

Why do competitors envy us?

What technological advantage(s) do we possess?

Why are we proud of our staff?

Which areas in our system best deliver efficiency to the organization?

Do we have enough resources (financial, human) to meet our objectives?

What can we best use our organizational architecture?

Weaknesses

Why do customers complain about us?

In what areas are we outsmarted by competitors?

What technological advantage(s) should we acquire?

In what areas should we offer training to staff?

What resources do we need?

Which areas of our system should be optimized in our system?

What are areas of improvement in our architecture?

Opportunities

What recent or upcoming economic, cultural, political, technological trend can we take advantage

of?

Are our competitors experiencing difficulties we could take advantage of?

What can the future offer?

Threats

Are we experiencing problems our competitors are taking advantage of?

Does the future appear dim for us?

What recent or upcoming economic, cultural, political, technological should we be wary of?


References

Van Assen Marcel, Van Der Berg Gerben and Pietersma Paul (2009) Key Managements Models: the 60+ models every manager needs to know 2nd Ed Financial Times/Prentice Hall UK

TAM UK profile (2010) Albert S Humpfrey http://www.tamplc.com/Humphsprofile.htm Accessed on the 5th July 2010

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Time for conflict resolution in British Airways! Time to Collaborate

By Patrick Mayoh

Just this morning on ABC news online, it was reported that the name of the most wanted terrorist on the planet--Ben Laden--featured on the picture of a boarding pass from British Airways (BA) for a flight in destination to Washington. The LHR magazine is an employee's newsletter targeting staff working for BA in the Heath throw international airport, UK's and one of the the world's busiest airport for passenger traffic according to a report by the Airport council International (2008).

This incident on its own could be in a way considered trivial, maybe the mistake that was overlooked by the editor, or just another aesthetic last minute blunder common with publications. However considering the general malaise prevailing in the organizations and typified by repeated employees' strike, multiple misunderstandings and misgivings between the top management and the staff, it is very likely that this event is just very much reflective of the tense relationships and general feeling of unhappiness that has pervaded the organization as a result of previous tensions between employees and management. The malaise might have gone to such a point where the company's image is distorted from within its own premises.

Just yesterday, 2nd June, cabin crew concluded their five day strike over disagreements regarding work conditions and pay; however Unite--the employees' union- has threatened to carry out another strike after discussions over withdrawal of travel concessions. According to the online edition of the Independent Newspaper (3rd June 2010) a report from the Manchester Business school cited by Unite claims that BA is set to incur massive losses of 1.4 billions as a result of travellers choosing other airlines like Virgin Atlantic to pursue their business activities. This is quite fascinating as just yesterday, Virgin Atlantic embarked on a subtle advertising campaign, as live images of the British national football team departure to South Africa boarding a virgin Atlantic plane were broadcast across the nation on BBC. Quite disturbing images for the Public Relations team of British Airways which would have been hitherto the obvious choice to carry the iconic national football team to any international tournament.

According to Laurie J. Mullins (2005) Organizational development "is concerned with the diagnosis of organizational health and performance", no need to say BA is an established business organization in the British society, however its organizational health and performance over the past months can be greatly attributed to a lack of initiatives from the management. How long till the top executives realize that the company is loosing its very faithful customers to fierce competitors like Virgin Atlantic, Easy Jet or Air France to name just a few.

BA strategic vision pledges to consistently review processes, products and services through innovative methods and solutions. This according to the strategic plan available on the website of the company entails careful consideration and collaboration with the people on processes that affect the efficiency and effectiveness of the business. Interestingly this commitment to look and care for the people and processes within the company is the first tenet of the strategic plan. The big question is why is it not happening?

Improved organizational performance for Laurie J. Mullins (2007a) is very much dependent of factors such as the organizational culture, management development, management of change, organizational climate, employee commitment and organizational conflict. Looking at the three last factors, it is clear that the repetitive and on going strikes by UNITE on the long run will critically destabilise the organizations and eventually lead to a situation with potentially irreversible consequences unless the following way forward is pursued.

A good number of writers on the subject of organizational behaviour including Huczynski et al (2007) have advocated the five conflict resolutions approaches of Kenneth Wayne Thomas (1943).

Avoidance where one or more parties tries to avoid the conflict. Using long bureaucratic procedures to delay resolutions. This seems to be so far the methods adopted by BA management, why would the management waste so much time just to resolve simplistic issues pertaining to travel perks that used to be an important factor for employee's satisfaction within the company.

Accommodation which is the second approach involves one party putting the other's interests first maybe in a bid to reach a rapid agreement. The worst economic downturn in the world's economy justifies the fact that BA top management will embark on stringent measures to reduce expenses while maintaining the same level of efficiency. Maybe Unite should understand this factor and concede some advantages regarding travel perks namely.

Compromise which is the third approach advocates the Maxim according to which each conflicting party automatically loses and wins something. But this will not work as both parties in the BA have made a lot of concessions. This approach just like Competition which is the fourth approach where there is not cooperation and dialogue between the parties and which ends up producing losers and winners is bound to produce no satisfactory result in the BA case.

Maybe Collaboration the fifth approach would be the way forward. Searching a win-win approach. Creating a situation where both parties are ready to let go of certain prerogatives for the welfare of the organizations. For what is at stake is not the welfare or the future of any group (management or Unite) but just the Welfare of British Airways. A situation where customers are lost, the performance is down and employees unhappy on a national or global scale for the company is a very nightmarish prospect for the company.

On one hand employees and Unite will need to understand the need to preserve the status of the company, its efficiency and effectiveness. They will agree on the need to preserve BA prestige and reputation around the world and should be prepared to have different or reduced travel perks since they have already secured an important victory on battle pertaining to work conditions and pay.

On the other hand, BA management mindful of the dwindling organizational performance recorded by the organization will thrive to preserve unity and create a new and stronger consensus around the need to save and protect the company from folding down. The need to reconquer and maintain employees' commitment and attachment to the company is the key.

Humbly yours

References

Books

Ian Brooks Organizational Behaviour: Individuals, Groups, Organization 4th edition Pearson education UK

Laurie J. Mullins (2005) Management and Organizational Behaviour 7th edition Pearson education UK

Andrzej A. Huczynski and David A. Buchanan (2007) Organizational Behaviour 6th edition Pearson education Uk

Derek Torrington, Laura Hall and Stephen Taylor (2008) Human resource management 7th edition Financial Times Prentice Hall UK

Ray French, Charlotte Rayner, Gary Rees, Sally Rumbles, John Schermerhorn Jr, James Hunt and Richard Osborn (2008) Organizational Behaviour John Wiley and Sons UK

Websources

Overview of British Airways on British airways website

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/csr-overview/public/en_gb

BBC online (June 2010) Latest British Airways strike enters its final day

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10221742.stm

The Independent online (june 2010) No progress on BA talks as cabin crew continues strike

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/no-progress-on-ba-talks-as-cabin-crew-strikes-continue-1989892.html

ABC news online (june 2010) British Airways gives terrorist Ossama Bin Laden a boarding pass

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/british-airways-terrorist-osama-bin-laden-boarding-pass/story?id=10795859&page=1

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