Category: Marketing

Podcast: James Champy talks about outsmarting your competition

James Champy is the author of "Outsmart! How to Do What Your Competitors Can’t." Champy profiles eight highly-successful firms as he develops his thesis that the key to outsmarting the competition is to focus on the external environment  — including the customers. Be ready to respond when opportunities appear. Sometimes that means changing your business model, or, as he says, "starting with a new sheet of paper." Knowledge@W. P. Carey caught up with Champy at a conference sponsored by the Center for Services Leadership. Champy talked about the distinguishing characteristics of the companies he writes about, including the quality of their ambitions, their culture of innovation and the level of engagement at all levels. Podcast coverage of the "Compete Through Service" symposium is sponsored by IBM.

Welcome to the future: Smart services improve quality, lower cost, foster innovation and help the environment

At the 20th Annual Compete Through Service Symposium, hosted by the Center for Services Leadership at the W. P. Carey School of Business, business leaders from all industries gathered to discuss (in part) how technology can help companies differentiate themselves in the market. In one panel discussion, four business leaders at the cutting edge of the services evolution demonstrated how technology-enabled or technology-delivered services — often referred to as "smart" services — can help an organization improve its customer service, reduce its cost to service, make more money through new innovations, and even reduce its environmental impact in the process.

Avnet’s Roy Vallee on leadership

Thirty-seven years ago Roy Vallee was stocking shelves at a small electronics distribution company in Los Angeles. That small firm has grown up to become Avnet, Inc., a Fortune 500 firm located in Phoenix, Arizona. Avnet is one of the largest distributors of electronic parts, enterprise computing and storage products, and embedded subsystems in the world. And Roy Vallee is the CEO and chairman of the board. One morning recently, marketing professor Anthony Peloso sat down with Mr. Vallee to talk about Avnet, his leadership style, and how to motivate employees — even in a far-flung global operation. Professor Peloso leads the Marketing Professional Sales and Relationship Management Initiative, which fosters strong relationships between students who are headed for careers in sales, marketing faculty members and corporate partners. The goal is to build professional sales capabilities and advance the profile and status of the sales function. And now let’s hear what Mr. Vallee has to say about one the toughest jobs of leadership: motivating employees.

James Spohrer: How systems interact to deliver services

By the time you reach your office every day you have already tapped into numbers of service systems. The electric grid that powers your alarm clock, lights and coffee pot, the pipes that deliver water for your shower and the transportation network for your commute are all service systems — networks of systems actually. Service science is an emerging discipline aimed at understanding how these systems interact to co-create value. The IBM Service Science Initiative has led the way in promoting research in this area. Dr. James C. Spohrer is director of service research and innovation champion at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. He was a featured speaker at the Compete Through Service Symposium, presented by the Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University. In a telephone interview recently, Dr. Spohrer talked about the nature of service systems and the research that is expanding their potential to improve the way we live. Podcast coverage of the Compete Through Service Symposium is sponsored by IBM.

Trying to lose weight? Look around the table, not just on it

Your dining companions are likely to influence how much you eat, or don’t eat, at lunch. Professor of Marketing Andrea Morales discovered that the amount of food your table mate orders may affect your own eating decisions. Your companion’s dress or trouser size is likely to carry considerable weight, as well.

From provider to partner: Service relationships that transform businesses

"Attract more customers, retain the ones you have, and expand existing relationships." That is the magic formula for growth, according to Synovate’s Chief Loyalty Architect Dr. Larry Crosby. "Everybody wants growth," he said, but with limited budgets and fierce global competition, attracting and retaining customers is easier said than done. The real key, according to Crosby, is the third part of the equation — the cultivation and development of existing relationships. Crosby was one of the featured speakers at the "Creating Value Through Service" symposium organized in Shanghai by the Center for Services Leadership at the W. P. Carey School and Fudan University’s Center of Service Marketing and Management.