Better management of your time and customer relationships are the key to business success

MANAGING EFFICIENCY STARTS WITH TIME EFFICIENCY

In 1992, Hellriegel, Slocum, and Woodman compared the time and task categories of executives in the USA and Japan (1).

Task categories were as follows: office work: 22% US, 24% J; telephone: 6% US, 1% J; scheduled appointments: 59% US, 59% J; impromptu meetings 10% US, 6% J; plant tours: 3% US, 10% J.

On the other hand, task time was broken down as follows: less than 9 minutes: 49% US, 24% J; between 9 and 60 minutes: 41% US, 12% J; more than an hour: 10% US, 64% J.

You need to know how to allocate time to the right task, just as you need to devote the right amount of time to the customer (2).

DISRUPTIVE OR INCREMENTAL, YOUR MANAGEMENT OF TIME AND TASKS

We've seen that American managers are more subject to unforeseen events than their Japanese counterparts, and generally devote less time than the Japanese to a single task (3). This could explain why the Americans have a much more disruptive approach to business (through time-slicing and project disruption), while the Japanese have a much more incremental approach to managing activity in their company (through end-to-end planning and processing of assumed activity). The difference is not small, nor is it accidental. It says a lot about the preferred way of managing time and tasks. And this is reflected in the methods and practices of business management in companies, and society. This is due to a way of thinking that favors preferences for the distinct involvement of individuals and groups, in terms of the fulfillment of the individual or collective self, depending on the given culture.

DIFFERENT ATTITUDES, DIFFERENT RESULTS

Some prefer to add, to compensate for shortcomings in the operating systems of the organization or company to which they belong. Others opt for a complete and rapid rejection of current ways of doing things, to set the organization or company from which they come on a new course of achievement. Both options have costs, as well as benefits. Certainly, switching from one formula to another, one organization at a time can be done without necessarily turning everything upside down (4). But to do so, for an entire society, risks upsetting so many habits and deeply rooted beliefs, that deep-seated traumas could result from the reversals of course that this would entail (5). The ability of civil societies to turn things around is not the same as that of business organizations. Some may take the view that the current condition of the state requires a change of course, without this authorizing break in the social fabric, to achieve the desired political ends. However, competitive advantage (for organizations) is not the counterpart of comparative advantage (for nations). Civil societies must be allowed the long adjustment time suggested by their behavior in the face of change. As far as the adjustment time of business organizations is concerned, it's the market as such that sets the pace, not national culture and history.

PRODUCT OR POSITIONING? WHAT IS THE PRODUCTIVE ORGANIZATION PREOCCUPIED WITH?

One way of explaining the differences in time management behavior and the way business leaders approach their tasks is to point out that Americans spend more time managing their products (in the laboratory, on evaluation committees, or boards of directors, rather than interacting with their customers). The Japanese, on the other hand, would devote more time to their response to market demand, starting with closer management of their customer relations (by interacting more often and for longer periods with their customers through their staff, rather than alone or in board meetings deciding on the company's current and future affairs) (6).

DOUBLE NET PROFIT

Americans prefer to attract new customers (7), while Japanese prefer to retain existing ones (8). This implies that, in the former case, the emphasis will be on advertising (“push” approach), whereas in the latter, the focus will be on the relationship that customer management entails, once the request has been made by the customer himself (“pull” approach). In most companies, advertising costs are equivalent to the entire net profit for the year. So, if companies were to retain their existing customers more effectively, and respond more appropriately to customer demand, they would not only save on advertising costs, but they would also double their net profit. For the record, past surveys have shown that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it does to retain an existing one. Instead of “pushing complaints under the carpet”, it would be better to deal with them immediately, and to the advantage of the dissatisfied customer, who will otherwise buy elsewhere... and more quickly than anticipated. This is what British Airways achieved in 1983 when the company changed CEO. Year after year, it was losing up to ￡611 million (9). Instead of managing the abstractions of potential customers, perhaps it would be better for all organizations to manage the realities of purchasing.

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REFERENCES:

1) Hellriegel, Slocum and Woodman, Management des organisations, De broeck Université, 1992.

2) https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/visez-les-bons-clients-et-rentabilisez-votre-marcel-jb-tardif-mba?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish

3) Americans (in fact Westerners, of which we are one) do market surfing, while the Japanese (not necessarily all Asians) do customer diving. There's more to it than meets the eye. The approach to time and task speaks volumes about the real interest in the organization and its market, as well as in partners and the business product.

4) The NUMMI case in the United States, a fine success story that the Americans (GM) ended up completely ruining, is a case in point. https://www.freecasestudysolutions.com/case-study-Nummi-and-Gm.aspx

5) One only must think of the astonished aftermath of the Americans, once Trump is elected president. An unpredictable man at the helm of the state, when a country needs predictability in business to support the stability of its institutions. You can't change an entire nation the way you change the mission of a business organization. The desire for radical change at every stage of national growth, of which American voters expect almost everything, is a prescription for collective collapse. National resources cannot come and go, in any direction at any time, without breaking down the social structures (institutions) on which the entire country's economy is fatally based.

6) Reichheld, F.F., (2001), Loyalty Rules! How Today's Leaders Build Lasting Relationships, Harvard Business School Press, p. 63.

7) Every new market is initially a niche one, with more limited distribution and higher margins. When “uncertain” products become “stars”, their ratio to operating profit generally rises dramatically. By the time “star” products have become “cash cows”, they have usually ceased to earn higher returns, although marketing them still entails significant marketing and administration costs. The “star” stage is disruptive, while the “cash cow” stage is incremental. If business volume favors the incremental approach in almost any market, the future of almost any business is never better assured than by the disruptive approach. That said, not all areas of human endeavor can be easily classified, in their entirety, on one side or the other of the incremental/disruptive divide. Judgment must prevail and ensure that the right market positioning strategies are decided at the most opportune moment to ensure the sustainability of the organization's offering in its reference market.

8) The Japanese approach explains why it's so difficult for foreign suppliers to break into the Japanese market. In Japan, the business relationship between supplier and customer is everything. It's based on trust, which is long-term and difficult to replace in the short term. On the American side, everything hinges on the renewal of products and customers, and therefore on the breakdown of the market relationship. The Americans need to make bigger profits faster... the only business consideration (responsibility) of private enterprise (dixit Milton Friedman).

9) Heskett, Sasser, Schlesinger, The Service Profit Chain, The Free Press, 1997, p. 179.

10) And in this respect, managing personnel realities, not workforce imaginations.

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