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Business Development in time of crisis

“Our Heads Are Round so our Thoughts Can Change Direction” [Francis Picabia]

Looking at the financial crisis, many companies reconsider their sales focus. What I addressed in my ASRA-presentation this year suddenly seems to trigger. Everyone can sell cheap. So if you are in sales, you need to focus your attention on the products that need sales support.

This week, I had quite a discussion about the validity of my sales strategy and business development. Interesting enough, my supporter was an airline that just recently anounced another increase in net earnings. Their German team has also exceeded sales targets. The offense was voiced by an airline sales manager, who’s company just published another loss for the last quarter and is expected to accumulate overall losses this year.

The focus of the successful airline is on the specialists: Tour operators, travel agencies, corporates.
Anyone not having a focus on their destinations is serviced with a lower priority. Effort is only targeted to the specialists who they pamper and invest time to visit and invite. The elephants (consolidators, internet portals) producing large but price-driven turnover are running aside.

What we wondered is the focus of many managers on turnover, volume and market share, not on revenue. That’s the managers impressed by “large numbers” and quick volume, not caring about cost or long term relations. How long has the sales manager been the same to the customer? How experienced is the sales manager? What is your strategy?

Food For Thought: Especially the aviation industry is in need for a reevaluation of values. If I hear IATA-secretary general Giovanni Bisignani anounced a drop in passengers by 4.8%, in Asia even 7.8%. The airline industry is predicted to accumulate losses of 5.2 billion dollars this year?!

So if passenger numbers are going down, a logical consequence is to focus an increase in yield!

Do I miss anything? Want to change? Interested in Business Development?
Contact me.

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Blood Money

An Inuit chief once compared the human life on Earth with cancer. Instead of looking after the world and trying to live in balance, we exploit its resources, extinct other life-forms, farm life, even kill and eat other intelligence, such as whales. No symbiosis but parasite. Like vampires.

What was not said, but I imply it – is that not all people, but just some (powerful) humans are like cancer. Many managers think they must be “tough”, make utmost profit at all cost (who told them that?). And humanity’s and world’s immune system fails.

The “Western” industry nations are build on a religious system that values life. God gave us Earth to foster it. But there is a strange implied value system that builds around “wealth” and “power”. It’s an old question: Are rich people happy? Can you purchase happiness? If you dominate, are you loved?

Starting my own business, I was (very) quickly confronted with “Corporate Social Responsibility” and questions about corporate morale and ethics. Questions as alien to me as the question “Do you breathe?”. (If I don’t, the question is useless).

Thinking about this, I hope that this crisis will enable some of our “decision makers” to recognize some of the disease and cut it. But I doubt that. Too many politicians (and journalists) are part of the systems, suck blood themselves. They would risk too much of their own blood-money, are part of the system. Welcome the Gray Gentlemen.

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What Is Luxury?

What is luxury to you? Is it the ability to travel the world? Is it a challenging job? Is it time with your family and kids? I do appreciate your feedback!

The luxury of my life was to get my eyes lasered. Some of you may recall me with the glasses. Thank goodness I got rid of them – sometimes reading glasses, I do not get younger either 😉

Currently the luxury I want is to be Married with Children 😉

To achieve this, I think I prefer a decent job. The fun part on that one: If I send out an application (even if on demand), I usually do not even get an answer. And that is especially in the hospitality industry… Excuse me? I would consider it an honor that you apply with me and a common courtesy to tell you if you don’t fit my needs.

Ahem. What's the Question? — Ahem. What’s the Question?

Not to answer is a typical sign of what is wrong today in the travel industry. It is a service industry. Decent treatment of applicants and staff, decent salaries and work hours are complains I hear all over the places. Be it travel agency, airline, or hotel industry…

Two side notes: This is a pre-prepared post as I return today from Russia. Interested to know more? Let me know! And I sure will write a summary of my experience with that trip.

December 3-5 I will be doing a workshop and a presentation at the conference in London. If Sales, Marketing and CRM in hospitality are your business, I sure appreciate to see you there 🙂

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Are You Good At Selling Yourself?

A discussion on LinkedIn triggered thoughts about personal priorities in business. And keep in mind that it’s the (wo)man in the mirror that makes a change (or doesn’t).

I do think we far too much try “selling” and many people have forgotten the good old habits of reliability, honesty, trust and faith. We spend all our time making money to spend on luxuries and saving it for spare time we do not have. We forgot how to live.

Many managers nowadays aren’t any better than Ebenezer Scrooge and one just wishes the Ghosts of Christmas to visit them! What is important? The money you make? The money some unknown investor makes? Welcome to the Grey Gentlemen! If you are a manager, what are your values? Think about it!

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Do you still enjoy privacy or do you Google already?

A German saying asked “Do you still have sex or do you play golf already?” (Hast Du noch Sex oder golfst Du schon?). Adapting it this week to “Hast Du noch Privatsphäre oder googlest Du schon?” (see title).

Following the general and naive media hype (can the media be truly that naive?!) about the new Google Chrome, German ZDF and some other more reputable news media took a closer look. Do you remember the public outcry when Microsoft was found “phoning home”? Google’s Chrome does not just call home. Your browsing history (aside others) is stored right on the Google servers. Interesting enough, despite ability to develop tools cross-plattform, the Chrome browser is only available for the Windows environment.

Another report did address the fact that Google builds “The Cloud“. As most my readers are travel industry related, you may recall that Amadeus Germany (“Start”) replaced the last “dummy terminal” in 1993 with a “PC”. Enabling storage of information locally. With “The Cloud”, you need to be always online, but you do not need a large hard drive any more, as all programs and data is stored on the servers in the web. The Google servers that is if you ask Google… Welcome back to our roots!

1 ½ years ago, at my anual ASRA presentation (4,1 MB), I addressed data security. The friends in ASRA joked about me being paranoid. Last weeks the “loss” and misuse of private government data (in large style) is all over media and politics in Europe, especially U.K. and Germany. In Germany even the official registration office (where any citizen must register one’s address) sells the data quite publicly. So paranoid? Or just realistic? Or underestimating the case?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reported to actually pick laptops from travelers without a particular security concern (“spot checks”). Too bad, if that happens to an Airbus official, who denies to give the passwords to access the encrypted data. And there is no official information, how the data is secured by the DHS. So the data may end up at Boeing quite “legally”. And yes, sure there are many ways to ensure the DHS not getting access to any privacy data. The Cloud Computing can also be set to communicate not with Google but with your own server(s) and a nice, unobtrusive special login allows you to invisibly purge (not just “delete” recoverably) all private data including server accesses in case that becomes necessary. Then you login in via VPN (access details not on the computer) and just restore your work environment. On this or just another PC… Details on request 😉

Hmmm… The DHS and politicians sure know that terrorists are not so stupid as to answer “did you pack a bomb” with “yes” (still “normal” question at U.S. airport check-in) or that they are usually organized good enough to secure their backs better. So if they know that, am I paranoid to believe them to not be interested in terrorists but to increase their control of us, their citizens?!
It is a radical change of the legal paradigm that one is innocent until proven guilty. Today we are all presumed terrorists and have to proof we are innocent citizens! All that under the argument that an innoncent person does not have to hide anything? What a complete farce!
George Bush, Wolfgang Schäuble, read my lipps: You will be going into history for having brought down freedom and established the surveillance state. Oh, sorry George Bush, you did better, you’ve become the president leading the U.S. into global wars being proven lier, using faked proof for “weapons of mass destruction”. Your “holy wars” have as much justification as the holy wars of the mideval ages! What was that movie? Wag the dog… Good to start a war to cover up the real business – such as to establish a surveillance state? The land of the free… The what? … Well done Mr. President!

So as a summary: Be careful with your private data and start to consider preference of non-commercial Open Source software, such as Mozilla, Open Office and Linux instead of Windows – it becomes increasingly a (vital) privacy issue! Not only privately, but increasingly also for corporations…

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Data Security

Best Western hit the media this week being reported to have been hacked and 8 million customer datasets being stolen. Best Western objected the news, mentioning they have no proof for such hack and they would delete their data anyway frequently.

Say WHAT? Corporations spend millions acquiring customer data and Best Western deletes them? Hmmm…

No matter, if this has been a newspaper hoax, there is something good in this. Who knows today, where data is collected, how it is stored, kept secure, who has access to it? How “secure” is “secure”? The Internet by definition is insecure. An old – even pre-WWW saying in IT: To have a secure system, remove all input… If a user in old DOS entered “format c: /u” the drive was formated irreversably. Oops, I forgot to backup that file? Too late. In my 2007 ASRA-presentation on Airline Sales & e-Commerce, my friends in ASRA joked that I would be paranoid… Today they know better, thanks to media coverage of data insecurities. I get increasing inquiries.
Most large corporates have a faulty and flawed security. Most even do not use encrypted communication with the most sensitive data they send through the web. Discussions on LinkedIn confirm the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to pick Laptops. Where does the data on them end up? Maybe your U.S. competitor has access to it?

But now we talk about personal profiles. Where is what data stored electronically about you? Have “they” told you they store the data beyond the immediate transaction? No. We only learn by security breaches becoming public that such behavior is not the exception but the rule. And thanks to the global networked world we live in, data is no longer limited to “my hotel”, “my supermarket”, “my anything”. But the hotel reports some or all of the data to the central server somewhere. Next you arrive in another city, they do have your address data on file. Hmmm… What else do they have???

And then we come to the new laws in the U.S., Germany and sure elsewhere, legally forcing providers to collect data and make it available to their government representatives. Said what? What is a “government representative”? Do I trust him or her? Not the government – I don’t trust “government”. But worse, “the representative”. Who controls the controller?

So sorry for the bad publicity Best Western, but thank you for another example to make people aware and think about their personal information. Did you ever read 1984? George Orwell did not even imagine what exists today!

Shift happens! Internet meet World. World meet Internet…

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Tourism in/to Russia

Thanks to last weeks blog and the war-situation between Russia and Georgia, this week, I had a rather emotional and some more reasoned discussions about the Russian Tourism Market. There are many obstacles that were addressed, but I found only very few being valid.

» Understanding travel as an economic factor. According to Wikipedia, travel is one of the top three economic factors world wide. Easing (leisure) travel to and from a country is a cash cow for the country.

» Infrastructure. People travel everywhere, they are found in the middle of the Amazonas. It cannot really be the infrastructure. Only if there is justification by people traveling somewhere, infrastructures are building themselves. Funny, the people who traveled there for the “untouched nature” then are replaced by the masses expecting the bus to take them somewhere to watch “untouched nature”. People breaking their bones for taking the cable car up into the mountains walking there with inadequate footwear!

» Language. I love doing my vacation in Spain, but my Spanish is rudimentary at best. But I learn enough to get around. People go to Greece and cannot read Greek either, less understand it.
Where language is a limiting factor is when Russians want to address another market. There are flights from Frankfurt to Saratov (14th largest Russian city!) and you can purchase tickets only at the airport…?
It is important to understand that as much as we ourselves may ponder reservations about Russia, the Russians ponder reservations about us. It”s important to overcome such reservations, but that only works with trust, not by overpowering it!

» Technology. The Internet made it”s way to Russia. For students, Internet is quite “normal”. The (commercial) e-Commerce still is sometimes very badly addressed. There is quite some potential there! But keep in mind these vast distances!

» Visa. The requirements for visa are counter-productive to any country, but other countries require visa too and they prosper. I just hope that Russia lowers visa-bureaucracy.

Other issues:
I was very much concerned hearing that virtually all mail is opened, I admit, I was not used to that in the “western hemisphere” and it strikes me very “old-fashined”, reminding me of the times of a cold war. But (except maybe for George Bush) that is history and it is difficult to overcome old habbits. Like myself. Forced to look into the Russian market I found many images in my head being simply wrong and outdated. I watch recent TV travel reports about Russia, seeing the wrong, outdated image they show. But all truths I learn impress me. There is another “tiger”-industry waking up.

We all know that the U.S. “land of the free” is only the land of the “adjusted”. Black”s to date are second class citizens, slums exist in every township there, there is Guantanamo and the Homeland Security under the cloak of “war against terrorism” adds more eavesdropping daily. Germany, “partner” in that “war against terrorism” (and approach towards a totally controlled society) is strangled by commercial lobbies. If that is the “good”, I must admit, I prefer Putin”s way to keep the oligarchs and the commerce strictly out of government. Freely quoted from Wikipedia: Do what you want, but don”t interfere with the politics.

Then a German feedback claimed Siberia as “fallen behind”. If I go just 30 km”s out of Leipzig, there are ghost towns. Visit Halle or other small cities in East Germany. Did the luxury of “civilization” equalize these areas with the West German regions? Far far missed that goal! Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin are the main centers of commerce, as are Moscow and St. Petersburg. It takes time to build up infrastructure, but even in Saratov students enjoy modern PCs and Internet…

About the war, German ZDF-TV pointed out very correctly: It”s another powergame by America (namely Cowboy George Bush), trying to secure the pipeline (= oil = energy = power) bypassing Russia there. They position rockets in Poland. All very “friendly” gestures? For experts a Russian reaction was overdue. Again, this was the summary of a special report by renowned ZDF.

My summary about the many discussions on Russia last week.

Remember: This blog is called food for thought and I do like your feedback, it is your feedback that makes me post here!

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There are no strangers! Just friends, I haven’t (yet) met…

The past weeks were very difficult to me. I have been asked for expert opinion on the impact of the crude oil price explosion and potential counter measures. With my background on technical projects, there seems an expectation, that I”d support the idea of tweaking cost by reducing staff further and adding technology as the panacea. In my eyes, that is short-sighted and simply stupid. As are airlines cheating the passenger …

1st semester in Marketing: It is far more expensive acquiring new customers than keeping existing ones. And far more expensive to recover a lost one. Customers selecting your product only because of the bargain price have no loyalty. Reliable business? Only if you use the opportunity to make them a loyal customer!

This is what the subject of this post is all about: Sale is personal. Service is personal. IT solutions can support staff by handling (a lot) routine work, mass mailings, etc. IT must be part of the distribution portfolio. But it can only handle the “bread and butter business”. Business development?
Addressing angry, mishandled customers with a friendly face or a personal phone call, I learned to be far more effective. Make them your friend…

And with travel becoming more expensive, the product becomes “luxury” again. Luxury usually implies a more personal sale and service! You better be ready…

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CRM… Say what???

What is “CRM” all about? Mostly, it”s a hype word, used by IT-companies to sell you (their) “off the shelf”-software, forcing you to their ways to qualify a customer. Back in 2000 at ITB congress, I was asked to address ad hoc CRM taking over a slot from a noshow-speaker. My question was – and is: What is CRM? It”s Customer Relationship Management. It”s about how to manage your relation to your customers. So what”s new?

But with all such hypes and other fairy tales, there”s a true core in them. A good CRM-software must support your existing processes. If it does that, it usually is a valuable tool! Off the shelf does usually not meet that criteria. The smaller your company, the more individual your (personal) relationship management with your customer. The only solutions I saw succeed where custom build or implemented in large, multinational corporations where individuality is not that much the issue any more.

So CRM-software is not the panacea for bad customer relations, it is a tool to enable access to your information. As such, it”s a good way to integrate information from the different departments communicating with the customer: Everbody knows at all times what is going on.
But that can be achieved very often by simply changing your existing address book and calender software to a centralized storage, i.e. with Linux, Exchange, …

Two side notes:
1. Don”t underestimate the work to “normalize” your data. Each and every data source that you must convert from it”s “native” or “export” file format to an “import format” usable for the CRM adds to the complexity of this vital job. And automatic matching is faulty (details on request). That”s a one time job, but a mission critical issue.
2. Don”t forget your customer. With travel increasingly becoming a luxury again, personal sales and support becomes a necessity again. Software may support the sales process, but (to date) that”s it!

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Alternatives in Aviation – Cheating the Passenger?

The Cassandra-effect: When I addressed the situation on the crude oil market to airline managers earlier this year, looking back I feel like 1994, addressing the Internet: I was “the freak”.

The kerosine price explosion sped up the szenarios I did address. Just a brief recap of my theses: Flying will become a luxury again. How much longer until the low-cost-airlines need to update their models? The cost of operations exploding, airline managers become “creative” (the current FVW special addresses their dilemma). In order not to increase the visible price, airlines charge extra for each and every “standard” service. Kerosine charge, taxes, airport, credit card and even invented fees, a (increasing) fee for each and every bag, for the meal, the inflight entertainment, excessive passenger weight. This “procedure” is extremely short-sighted with a negative repercussion: The travelers feel cheated, the “public opinion” strikes back.
Airlines (not only the low cost) reduce frequencies, park aircraft. No longer records in aircraft orders, options are being returned to Airbus, Boeing, etc.. Am I the only one to see these facts? Kerosine-powered travel is doomed, new solutions will now be developed, tried – and succeed!

Some years ago, Jürgen Weber, at the time the boss of Lufthansa, questioned that the use of light crude oil may need to be confined to the aviation industry as all other industries would have possible replacements. So it is not the question that airline travel will become expensive again. Who in his right mind believes the crude oil will become cheaper again? Evolving into a luxury product, I question the “cost reduction” on staff and services. A friend lately compared it: They try to sell a Rolls Royce with wooden benches.

What now these weeks to me came nevertheless as a big surprise. In some of my presentations, I used this idea of a WIG powered with a hydrogen-engine as an example alternative to the fuel-consuming aircraft.
Meanwhile, I received a serious inquiry, asking if this is realistically possible. Research confirmed the feasability of the idea, so now the idea is being addressed with investors. Can it be true that I may become an “aircraft maker”???

While discussing this szenario ideas suddenly are being considered that have been Science Fiction from the 60s until today. Surprisingly even for me, who these people are, asking me for my ideas and opinions. Obviously, the prices finally exceeded the point, where such “Science Fiction” leaves the fiction and becomes a viable concept and a commercial possibility.

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Tag: Change