Kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese word. It is basically composed of two words “KAI” means change and “ZEN” means better. In other words it means change for betterment or improvement.
Kaizen is a philosophy that defines management’s role in continuously encouraging and implementing small improvements involving everyone. It is the process of continuous improvement in small increments that make the process more efficient, effective, under control, and adaptable.
Improvements are usually accomplished at little or no expense, without sophisticated techniques or expensive equipments. It focuses on simplification by breaking down complex processes into their sub-processes and then improving them.
The Kaizen improvement focuses on the use of:

1.                   Value-added and non-value-added work activities.

2.                  Muda, which refers to seven classes of waste-overproduction, delay, transportation, processing, inventory, wasted     motion, and defective parts.

3.                  Principles of motion study and use of cell technology.

4.                  Principles of material handling and use of one-piece flow.

5.                  Documentation of standard operating procedures.

6.                  The five S’s for workplace organization. (Already explained in Lean Production Post)

7.                  Visual management by means of visual displays that everyone in the plant can use for better communications.

8.                  Just-in-time principles to produce only the units in the right quantities, at the right time, and with right resources.

9.                  Poka-yoke to prevent or detect errors.

10.               Team dynamics, which include problem solving, communication skills, and conflict resolution.

Kaizen relies heavily on a culture that encourages suggestions by operators who continually try to incrementally improve their job or process.

Social Media – Engaging Customers

Now a day’s social media is fast becoming an important part of brand’s marketing plan. Today, many companies are using social networking to gain credibility, foster employee relationship, build forum for communication with customers and finally boost the sales.

90% companies are using social networking media for their brands and organizations. The survey brought that 42% brands/organizations spend more than 10 hours per week on their social media programs. Nearly 80% of the social media programs are led by the marketing department of brands/organization, while 78% of social media programs are B2C in orientation, followed by B2B adoption of 41% and Partners & Employees use 26%. Marketing is the area where social media is being used the most; followed by online reputation management/online PR. Lead generation happens to be third category for which companies use social media in India.

Some vital statistics, Purposes brand/organizations use social media are as follows:

1.       Competitive intelligence – 41%

2.      Customer service – 44%

3.      E-commerce – 18%

4.      Enterprise collaboration – 13%

5.      Lead generation – 48%

6.      Listening and analytics – 44%

7.      Marketing – 78%

8.      Online reputation management/Online PR – 71%

9.      Product ideas and development – 30%

10.   Recruitment – 24%

11.    Social CRM – 28%

12.   Thought Leadership – 43% (Source: Dataquest)
Overall, social media is becoming an important part of a brand’s marketing plan and cannot be avoided by brands and organizations any more.

Company Structure

For long term sustainability of any company, basic 4 pillars are as follows:

1. Corporate Governance:

The company strives to maintain size, diversity and independence of the directors. The company must show that it has a long-term commitment for maintaining an efficiently functioning board with an appropriate size or a mostly independent board or diverse board (international, intercultural, female representation, industry experience, financial expertise, age, or size of board). The compensation of the management and board of directors is linked to financial and extra-financial targets. The company must show that there is a system, policy or code of conduct in place that the remuneration package attracts and retains experienced management and board members. The company has a general, long-term commitment to an effective board and board committees with allocated tasks and responsibilities that can be fulfill through regular board meeting attendance. The company must show that it has a general, long-term commitment to ensure equal rights for minority shareholders like the exercise of the voting right in absentia and the timely access of shareholders to information, or the right to ask questions and make proposals.

2. Economic:

The company strives to generate sustainable and long-term growth, while maintaining a loyal client base and preventing anti-competitive behavior. The company pursues a long term policy that builds on employee loyalty and productivity, which in return improves its margins, to maintain a loyal shareholder base by delivering strong short and long term financial results, and transparent communication policy.

3. Social:

 The company shows a long-term commitment towards high employee remuneration like salaries, compensation payment, profit-sharing, rewards, performance benefits, employee stock purchase plans, insurances like Health insurances, Life-insurance, Pension funds, Accident insurances, General commitment towards the importance of health and safety of employees, it has a long-term, general commitment towards training and development of its employees. The company shows that employee training is important for the company. The company shows a long-term commitment towards good work-life balance for its employees, offering flexible working hours, vacations, and maternity leave without negative effects for their career, Human rights, and the Freedom of Association are part of the company's Business Code.

4. Environmental:

The company strives to make an efficient use of natural resources (example: materials, energy or water), shows a commitment towards reducing its environmental emission, has a long-term commitment towards environmental efficient product or service innovation.

Business Opportunities – Africa

As corporate India slowly wades into Africa, it discovers a continent full of opportunities. This is the new frontier for global businesses and Indian companies are not to be left behind in the gold rush to prime their growth and resources to fire their factories. Indian companies, be they in Information Technology, pharmaceuticals, telecom, retail, infrastructure, see Africa as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

 The size of the African opportunity is astounding, a continent of 53 countries (now south Sudan comes into existence i.e. 54 countries), and a population over the billion people.  According to the World Bank, Africa has $860 billion worth of consumer spending. According to the Mckinsey Global Institute, Africa’s GDP will be around $ 2.6 trillion in 2020.

A big chunk of that growth will come from mining natural resources from the oil wells in Sudan and the copper mines in Congo, to Uranium in Niger, coal in Mozambique and ferro - chrome in S. Africa. According to Mckinsey, almost a Quarter of economic activity in the 15 countries that make for 85% of Africa’s GDP, is accounted for by resources.

Some facts and figures show that Africa is erupting in perspective of business growth:

1.       At 4.9% compound annual growth rate of its GDP, Africa is third fastest growing region.                                                       ( Source: World Development Indicators, IMF)

2.      By 2020, Africa’s Consumer spending will be $ 1.4 trillion and collective GDP will be $ 2.6 trillion.

3.      By 2025, around 47% of Africans will be living in cities.

4.      Mobile phone users/subscribers are 37%.

5.      Africa possesses about 60% of the potential available cropland in the world.                                                                            ( Source: E & Y)

Email Marketing

Top 10 ways to make your Email Marketing Campaign effective and valuable

Most people don’t fancy opening emails with sales pitches and special offers inside because 9/10 times they don’t find it much of their interest. They are barely eager to get the next email from the same vendor. Yet many companies use their email newsletter to barrage their customers and prospects with offers and promotions.
If you’re selling complex B2B products with repeated offers and promotions on a regular basis without considering the contact’s requirement, you’re more likely to get a very high “always ignore” rate. That’s the proportion of subscribers who got sick of your email offers long ago, but don’t want to bother to open one and scroll down and find the fine print to unsubscribe. This can be reversed if your campaign has content that people will look forward to.
Stop sending offers. Resist the urge to add a promotion to every missive. Remember that the call to action does not need to be ‘buy now’ or ‘try now’. The idea is to send your contacts something valuable which may add value to your brand, spread knowledge and ensure anticipation from the client’s end. Your contacts are more likely to open the next email you send them.
Here are 10 ideas of valuable things to send to your list and make your campaign more effective.
1) Short Webinar (15-20 minute) by one or more of your clients about how they solved a problem your other customers are likely to face.
2) Your own webinars that inform about a common topics of interest to your audience (Hint: your product is NOT a common topic of interest)
3) Invitation and discount to attend an event where you will be present.
4) Summary of big takeaways from a conference that someone in your organization attended 3rd party articles that are relevant to your prospects
5) White papers (your own or 3rd parties) that actually inform rather than advertise
6) Video interview with one of your executives sharing their ideas, views, insights (but NOT promoting your company)
7) Blog entries by your executives, employees, or 3rd parties that are relevant to your audiences
8) Explanation of something happening in the market and about which there may be confusion
9) New ideas or best practices gleaned from your customers and other internal and external subject matter experts.
10) There are countless others, of course. We would like to hear from you about more.

Social Media Marketing

“Average worldwide annual paper consumption is 48 kg per person with North America accounting for over 1/3.” - International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Paper and energy consumption is ever increasing with the population rising by the minute. With every business, NGO, consultant and even consumers stressing on green alternatives, we decided to examine an existing albeit underrated solution; Digital Marketing. Digital Marketing or Internet Marketing for eco-sustenance is a marketing strategy that reduces dependence upon eco-hazardous marketing and exploitation of scarce valuable energy resources. All of this occurs without making an extra effort to promote the eco-friendly advantages of it.
Internet Marketing or integrated social media solutions could replace:
- Visiting cards, promotional brochures and pamphlets with QR codes
- Newspapers, newsletters, magazines with blogs
- Books, publication material with ebook readers, iPads, Kindles etc
- Printed resumes with LinkedIn profiles
- Billboards and banners with Facebook, Website, Google Ads, pop-up widgets
These are just few of the replacements or alternatives. Digital Marketing is widespread and all the users are gathered at one place, ‘the internet’, where marketers don’t have to run around searching for their consumers. With digital marketing taking precedence over most other traditional marketing platforms, every company investing in social media is taking a green turn; knowingly or unknowingly.
With Digital Marketing, you are:
- Saving space
- Lessening the load on energy consumption
- Reducing carbon-footprints by making online purchases
- Cutting back on your traveling expenses and fuel consumption
- Reducing sound pollution
With digital marketing, you’ve stepped into a world of eco-friendly choices. To contribute to the ‘World Environment Day’ this year, all you have to do is go back to the basics; namely, take the public transport, check your taps for leakage, hug a tree and remember to not print this article, subscribe instead. Pat yourself on the back for being an active part of this ‘Eco-friendly Digital Marketing Revolution’.

Database Management

Database Marketing: 10 questions to answer before you choose a list of contacts for your marketing campaign
You have a well versed marketing campaign ready, backed by internal-external research and surveys. You can’t wait to execute your marketing plan and create brand awareness of your product or services. All that you are waiting for is a database of contacts who will be interested. Now this is where the famous quote applies; ‘The money is in your list’.
You know that the money is in your list. As a marketer, you may, undoubtedly be aware of database selection and its effect on your marketing campaign. This is why B2B experts stress on finding the right prospects for your marketing campaign. The success of your marketing campaign depends on 3 things: (a)Focus (b)Quality (c)Price
But before you narrow down on these things, as a marketer, you must answer some questions. These 10 questions will help you determine the type of a contact database that you will require to support your campaign and will help you build it:

1) Who is my Target Group?
2) What is the frequency of communication and number of times I will communicate with prospects?
3) What is my key objective? Brand awareness, selling services or products, Social Media, PR?
4) Will I be using multi-channel communication for the campaign?
5) Will I require customized communication for each prospect?
6) Do I want to track the prospects’ response pattern?
7) Do I want to measure results and improve responses of the recipients personally and not with a tool?
8) Do I want a long-term relationship with the prospects or is it just for this particular marketing campaign?
9) Am I okay with letting a third party tool or agency do my measurement and prospect behavior study?
10) Am I ready to invest in long-term lead generation plans or am I happy with existing relationship?