The Power of Customer Portals pg 6
Show It, Sell It pg 10
Big Data and the Bottom Line pg 12
FALL 2014
GET YOUR TEAM IN STEP LEADING THE MULTIGENERATIONAL WORKFORCE
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Desktops are ripe for change. Businesses with employees working in more than one location, whether from a desktop or mobile device, have a new pathway to lower the cost of supporting their traditional desktop computing environment. NaviCloudÂŽ Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a virtual desktop solution from NaviSite that provides a seamless desktop experience in the cloud to all your remote workers and enables your business to adapt to a rapidly changing IT landscape.
Products and services not avialbale in all areas. Subject to change without notice. Some restrictions apply. ŠNavsite, Inc. 2014. 400 Minuteman Road Andover, MA 01810
We invite you to take the free trial, visit go.navisite.com/NaviCloudDaaSFreeTrial or call 1-800-941-6246.
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. FALL 2014 | VOLUME 1 | NO.4
Features
Departments L ETTER TO THE RE ADER
06
p.
PORTAL POWER
A good customer portal makes it easy to do business—and that keeps customers coming back.
HOW DATA CAN DRIVE p.12 YOUR BOTTOM LINE
It’s time to realize the value of your company’s big data. Is your network up to the task?
16
Products and services not avialbale in all areas. Subject to change without notice. Some restrictions apply. ©Navsite, Inc. 2014. 400 Minuteman Road Andover, MA 01810
p.
GET YOUR TEAM IN STEP Leading the Multigenerational Workforce Plus: Spanning the Digital Divide
22
p.
DO YOU HAVE CEO A.D.D.?
Are constant interruptions driving you to distraction? How to regain control
02 Tackling Today's Issues– and Tomorrow's GROW IN G
05 The Secret to Strategic Networking How will your business grow? It’s all in who you know. MON EY
08 Reduce Your Use Cost-effective ways to cut down on energy bills SAL ES AN D MARKE TI NG
10 Show More to Sell More Why a whiteboard and marker will out-sell a slide presentation SUCCESS IN ACTION
Chief Talk: Business Leaders Share Key Lessons They’ve Learned 19 Roberto Milk, NOVICA: Growing Globally 20 Daniel Lubetzky, KIND: Creating a Healthy Culture GUIDE TO GO
24 Decoding Tech Jargon Eight terms your IT department wants you to know F IEL D REPORTS
04 Specialty Fertilizer Products: Fiber Builds a Strong, Healthy Company 09 OhioHealth: Service at the Speed of Life 15 Mirazon: Agility Equals Profitability Fall 2014
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LETTER TO THE READER
Tackling Today’s Issues— and Tomorrow’s HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR 2014 SO FAR? Growth, transitions, changes, big wins, key discoveries? All of the above? Whether your fiscal year has just ended or your firm is navigating the critical last quarter of the calendar year, your team is likely undergoing change at a faster pace than ever. This issue of SOLVE, our fourth this year, aims to continue to provide solutions to business issues you’re tackling today—and to deliver ideas you can implement tomorrow, or better yet, tonight. To help you keep up with the myriad of challenges in today’s marketplace, we’ve made SOLVE magazine bigger than ever, with four more pages of actionable insight. One of the hottest issues for leaders today is how to manage the very diverse expectations and work styles of new versus more seasoned employees. Starting on page 16, our cover feature, “Leading the Multigenerational Workforce,” will show you where those different styles come from, and how to manage them in a way that energizes everybody. Have you wondered how to capitalize on Big Data and Cloud services? Businesses in every vertical are seizing opportunities that these innovations provide, and we want to make sure you do too. (After all, your competitors likely are.) In our article “How Data Can Drive Your Bottom Line” on page 12, we explain the steps you can take to get your business ready to realize the value of your own data. Big data is a big deal. Don’t miss out! We have been gratified by the feedback we get from readers who tell us they are finding SOLVE magazine a smart, practical resource for the challenges they face. We hope you feel that way too. Know that you can count on Time Warner Cable Business Class to continue to be a resource, and a partner, committed to helping your business thrive for many years to come.
FALL 2014 | VOLUME 1 | NO.4 RSL MEDIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
T
W EN
Robert Levin SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR
Lee Lusardi Connor ART DIRECTION
Big
Jim Nissen
In fa
DESIGNER
Jaclyn Threadgill
5
TIME WARNER CABLE BUSINESS CLASS
(sma
CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
Stephanie Anderson GROUP VICE PRESIDENT – MID-MARKET, CHANNELS AND ALLIANCES
Jeff Greenberg SENIOR DIRECTOR – CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE MARKETING
Orlando Betancourt MARKETING MANAGER
Nafeisa Shukair © 2014 Time Warner Cable Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. Time Warner Cable and the Time Warner Cable logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. All trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. Material in this publication must not be stored or reproduced in any form without permission.
Jeff Greenberg Group Vice President – Mid-Market, Channels and Alliances
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK Talk to us! How did you like this issue, and what should we cover next? Write to SolveMagazine@twcable.com. See previous issues at www.solvemagazine.com. And if you've worked with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology challenges, we'd like to hear about it for future issues. Visit business.twc.com/nomination to share your story.
2
This publication includes references to websites created and maintained and services provided by third-party entities not affiliated in any way with Time Warner Cable Inc. Time Warner Cable provides this information solely for our Business Class customers’ convenience. Time Warner Cable does not control or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information contained on any third-party website nor does it endorse the views expressed or products/services offered by the third parties. All users accessing any website referenced in this publication will be subject to the policies of the owners/sponsors of the third-party website. Time Warner Cable assumes no responsibility of any kind for damages that might result from use of the third-party services or websites.
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IDG E Cisco
Co
VI
Produ notice ©2014
Fall 2014
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ThErE’S pOWEr IN BIg DATA. WE’LL mAkE SUrE yoUr NETWork IS STroNg ENoUgh To hArNESS IT.
Big Data can be a big asset for businesses of all sizes. In fact, more and more businesses are recognizing the power of data analytics.
56
%
AND
SMB’s
of enterprises
(small and medium business)
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IT professionals expect the amount of data being managed
40
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ime r Inc.
ctive tored n.
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have already deployed or plan to deploy Big Data projects in the future1
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A tailored solution of cloud and network services from Time Warner Cable Business Class and NaviSite can help ensure that your network is prepared to leverage Big Data to fine-tune product and service offerings, enable personalized interactions with customers and more.
in the next
12-18 months
are ready for the
SUrGE in network traffic
Check out our article, How Data
Can Drive Your Bottom Line, on
page 12 in this issue of Solve.
2
IDG Enterprise 2014 study Cisco research
Contact a local, dedicated Account Executive to learn more. VISIT
BUSINESS.TWC.COM/BIGDATA or call
877.857.0727
Products and services not available in all areas. Some restrictions apply. Subject to change without notice. Time Warner Cable Business Class is a trademark of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. ©2014 Time Warner Enterprises LLC. All rights reserved.
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FIELD REPORT
Fiber Builds a Strong, Healthy Company JAKE SANDERS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, SFP
THE CHALLENGE: How do you educate potential customers about your products when those products are literally unique? That was the situation facing Specialty Fertilizer Products (SFP), developers and manufacturers of products that help improve the efficiency of fertilizers. Founded in 1998, this research and development firm had discovered unique fertilizer-enhancing chemical formulas and begun to manufacture its
We knew that SFP had unlimited growth potential— and that’s what fiber gives us. own patented products. Today, with 60 employees, SFP remains the world’s only company offering these solutions. But success relies on educating farmers and the agricultural industry itself about how soil interacts with fertilizers. Several years ago, when SFP started building out new office space in Leawood, Kansas, executive vice president Jake Sanders decided he also wanted to “build out” the company’s sales and marketing capabilities for everything from webinars
4
How Specialty Fertilizer Products is reaping a bumper crop of business
Doug Jewell explains. The shift to PTP enabled SFP to use a company-owned offsite location, rather than paying a third party, giving SFP complete control of its data.
THE RESULT: SFP is growing and and file-sharing to videos and radio. The company was growing so fast that sales reps had very large territories, which impeded their ability to meet with all customers and prospects.
THE SOLUTION: SFP chose Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) for fiber services that could scale to accommodate all its sales and marketing goals. TWCBC provides SFP with an integrated, fiber-based solution set that includes a 50 Mbps Ethernet Private Line (EPL) point-to-point (PTP) circuit for data backup and a 100 Mbps Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) circuit. These solutions support everything from the company’s in-house digital media studio to webinars conducted by the field reps. The high-bandwidth DIA connectivity also keeps the SFP team connected. “If something needs to be done, we’re all on call 24/7,” says Sanders. “Now we have the ability to share documents and files, and videoconference with each other, regardless of what time it is.” SFP also added a PTP circuit for its own off-site backup. “Being an intellectual property company, we have more than 100 patents worldwide, so our data is rather sensitive in nature,” IT director
flourishing, unhindered by technology issues. “We have the best of problems: how to grow correctly,” Sanders explains. “The agricultural industry is becoming more technologically sophisticated. We’re moving extraordinarily large files back and forth—everything from images to video and all points in between. So if we couldn’t do those things, it would hamper our business entirely. These are the things that really move the needle for us.” “The reason we chose Time Warner Cable Business Class is that we never wanted a bottleneck,” says Jewell. “We never wanted technology to get in the way of our business. Now, we can grow beyond current speed and bandwidth. I can just call and say we’re adding staff or doing HD video streaming. The infrastructure is in place to support our future. “We knew that SFP had unlimited growth potential—and that’s what fiber gives us.”
SHARE YOUR STORY!
How did you partner with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology issues? Tell us about it for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of SOLVE. Visit business.twc.com/nomination to share your story.
Fall 2014
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GROWING
The Secret to Strategic Networking How will your business grow? It’s all in who you know. BY JACK KILLION
T
here are many approaches to driving profitable growth: hire more salespeople, increase your marketing budget, or invest in developing new products and services. These are all legitimate business development options, of course, but there’s another one that’s often overlooked. That strategy is person-to-person networking, and it allows C-level executives to leverage scarce resources to spur growth. This is not the sporadic swapping of business cards or meet-and-greets that we sometimes consider networking. Rather, this is business development networking, and it’s about establishing substantial, well-targeted relationships tied to specific growth goals. Targeted networking is a three-step process:
Identify one or more specific growth goals.
For each goal, identify the people or types of people you need to reach.
Look through your “connections clusters,” identifying those who can get you to the people you need to reach.
Few people realize the range of connections in their various clusters of friends, family, and acquaintances, including business associates and customers, alumni groups, charities,
community members and civic organizations. Most people estimate they have a few hundred connections when actually they have thousands. It is highly likely that someone you know can connect you to just the person you need.
HOW IT WORKS: Some years ago, I took over a failing industrial manufacturing company. I decided we had to penetrate new international markets, starting in Latin America. I wanted to talk with someone in the U.S. Department of Commerce to learn about resources available to a company like mine. I discovered that a friend’s father worked for the Department of Energy, and I asked if he could connect me with an appropriate person. In a few weeks, he got back to me with a name, indicating the person was expecting my call. A couple of phone conversations led me to access the network of United States commercial attaché officers throughout Latin America. Each was happy to help us market, organize, and host one-day events at the embassies for targeted industry leaders in their country. In one week we met with hundreds of potential new customers this way. That one referral from a friend’s father led to introductions to resources I hadn’t known about, which led to millions of dollars of equipment and service sales in Latin America. These relationships continued for years. A friend of mine, the head of his own New York–based wealth management
firm, targeted Hilton Head, South Carolina, for new clients. He identified and reached out to possible strategic partners there—banks, accountants, and attorneys. The head of a leading accounting practice agreed to host a presentation by the wealth manager. That generated new wealth management clients who remain strong advocates years later. Another friend, a VC firm partner, wanted to develop a deal flow, and identified possible deal sources. A marketing professor and Harvard Business Review editor was on his hit list, and he was able to connect to him via a friend who knew the professor from Harvard Business School. The professor responded well to being asked to help steer viable earlystage deals to my friend. The two found many new ventures to tackle together in the following years. You can easily apply the same approach to driving the growth of your business. Identify very clear growth goals. For each, identify specific people and organizations that can help you accomplish your goal. Look through your connections clusters. Reach out to contacts to get you to people or organizations you need. The process works. Try it. Jack Killion is a serial entrepreneur and the cofounder of Bluestone+Killion—Harnessing the Power of Networking.
Fall 2014
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PORTAL
POWER
N
BY STEVE MACKINNON
o matter what mode of communication you are engaged in with your customers—website, marketing materials, social media—the bottom line is that they are always looking for the same thing: ways to meet their needs and solve their problems. An especially good tool for helping them achieve those goals is the customer portal. A customer portal is an interactive subdivision of your website that gives an individual customer the opportunity to find and personalize information
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specific to his or her needs. For example, a wealth management firm may use portals to allow customers to view financial planning information and investment performance, or a manufacturing firm may provide portals to suppliers to support their supply chain operations. As more consumers prefer to get help at their convenience online, rather than picking up a phone, customer portals have become increasingly important. The importance of a good user experience can’t be overstated, nor can the benefits to your organization. Used effectively, customer portals lower operating costs by shifting from manual to automated processes. They improve business
A good customer portal makes it easy to do business—and that keeps customers coming back. productivity. They make your company easier to do business with. Do customer portals right, and they will increase your chances of keeping your customers for life.
EXPERIENCE IS KING. Customer portals are used in many ways—for customer service and sales transactions, content distribution, information dissemination and customer rewards. The most common interactions revolve around FAQs concerning customer issues. Take a thoughtful look at your most frequent conversations and transactions with your customers. Build your requirements from this starting point and select a tool that meets the majority of those requirements (see sidebar, right).
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To help create an optimal user experience, keep in mind these seven “experience pillars.”
FINDABILITY. Equip your portal with a powerful search engine to provide your customers with the information they seek. A bad search experience will lead to more calls to your call center and more e-mails requiring responses, leading to higher operational costs.
“ALWAYS ON.” Today, customers expect businesses to have answers and provide access to their information 24/7, both online and on mobile devices. You can achieve a great mobile experience for users by employing native applications (applications accessed directly from a device) and responsive design (a feature that allows a website to adjust to your mobile or tablet screen size automatically). Maintain a properly trained customer support staff that can walk your customers through the portal if necessary. USEFUL. Customers expect to transact as part of their portal experience—from e-commerce, to form submission, to printing return labels, to updating their profile information and more. If your customers are looking to do something, and your portal does not provide that ability, they will get frustrated and angry. Make sure you review your portal’s usefulness to customers on a regular basis.
USABLE. Keep it simple. A rule to live by is, if your kids or parents can’t use or understand it, then it is too complex. Information architecture (defined as the way the information on your site is
situated within the navigation and site map) is the key to a coherent experience. Poor architecture will confuse users—for example, when information is repeated throughout levels of the portal or there is too much information on a page. Have an analysis and review done by a trained information architect.
RELEVANT AND FRESH. Don’t let your portal content go stale. As with your main website, a well-thought-out, relevant content strategy for portals will give customers a reason to return. Execution strategies include hiring an internal or external team to be accountable for managing the content on your portal (which may include online training and videos); having your company thought leaders blog on a regular basis; and being active on social media. Offer content that is up-to-date and customer-centric.
SECURE AND TRUSTWORTHY. Your customer’s trust is the most crucial attribute in your relationship. Lose or degrade it, and you will lose that customer. Work with your vendors to understand their security practices and measures. Partner with a well-established hosting company that has service level agreements (SLAs) about safety and security to ensure you are well protected in this area.
collaborative communication. This can be as simple as providing discussion boards or forums, or even just adding the ability to comment within areas of the portal. Most importantly, listen. Pay attention to customers’ feedback, ideas, and desires, and implement the things that you feel are most vital to a good experience.
PORTALS IN THE CLOUD
Customer portals fit squarely into the trend for companies to use software as a service (or SaaS) in the cloud, rather than building portals from scratch or adding custom code to an existing website. Great tools in this space include RightNow, SharePoint, Sitecore, and Huddle. The open source community also has excellent tools, including Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress. These tools provide technology that lets businesses populate a portal with information from consumers, from internal systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), or from ordering, transaction, and billing systems. Data aggregation allows businesses to create a central repository of information so that customer interaction is seamless. Steve MacKinnon is the
COLLABORATIVE. Work with your
managing director of cBIG (Catch
customers. The customer voice and opinion is a powerful tool in evolving the overall customer experience, as well as your business. Aim to create interactive and social communities that enable
Business Innovation Group,) focused on business, technology, data science, and innovation consulting, at Catch New York, a full-service, fully integrated creative growth agency.
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MONEY
INSTALL OCCUPANCY SENSORS. These inexpensive pieces of equipment detect the presence or absence of people in a room—for example, conference rooms, sections of warehouses, and printer or server rooms—and turn off the lights when no one’s there. Tip: if your maintenance team can install new light switches, they can install occupancy sensors.
CONSIDER WINDOW FILM. This thin film, usually made from
REDUCE YOUR
USE
Cost-effective ways to cut down on your company’s energy bills
W
BY LJ PETRONI
hen you incorporate energy-saving practices into your business, you motivate employees, reduce overhead—and do your part for the environment as well. Here are some relatively inexpensive ways to reduce your energy bill, listed in rough order from “really simple” to “can probably be handled inhouse” to “better call an expert.”
USE SMART POWER STRIPS EVERYWHERE YOU CAN. Traditional power strips let electronic equipment continue to use power, even in standby mode. Smart power strips shut down power to products that go into standby mode.
REPLACE THE REFRIGERATOR(S) in the company kitchen. Companies overlook this option surprisingly often. If a refrigerator is over 10 years old, it’s likely using too much energy. Upgrade to a model with an Energy Star label.
polyester, is available in a range of tints and types. Window film reduces the amount of heat transfer between inside and outside, making it a highly effective means of reducing heating and cooling costs. You will probably need to hire an outside expert for the best outcome with window film.
INVESTIGATE RELAMPING. Some fixtures need to be replaced in order for your workspace to take advantage of new, energy-saving bulb technologies. However, many existing fixtures can be retrofitted to new-style T-8 LED bulbs.
FIND ENERGY LEAKS WITH THERMAL IMAGING. A specialist can use a thermal imaging camera—a method of detecting heat distribution—to identify energy “leaks” in a building that are not visible to the naked eye. These leaks may have come from changes to the structure over time—for example, a pipe or duct was removed because it was no longer in use, leaving a hole in the structure. They may have come from inadequate insulation, or improperly installed air conditioners—the list goes on. In any case, thermal imaging lets you find an energy leak and patch it. GET A PROFESSIONAL ENERGY ASSESSMENT. An experienced and reputable contractor should be able to provide an initial assessment at no cost, with the option of a more detailed and comprehensive audit for a fee. The contractor should look at your entire building and the way different energy components relate to each other. (For example, a building could have a brand-new HVAC system that isn’t operating at peak efficiency because of poor building insulation.) Your consultant should be well informed about any opportunities for grants, rebates or incentives provided by local or state governments. The contractor should also be able to give you a prioritized list of the costs of any energy-saving efforts and the time required to recoup your investment, with the goal of giving you the best bang for your buck.
HAVE A CLOSE LOOK AT YOUR DOORS. This is another opportunity that’s frequently missed by businesses. If you can see light around the edges or through cracks, you have an energy loss issue that should be addressed. Do so with weather stripping and gasketing. If necessary, adjust or replace knobs to be sure doors close properly.
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LJ Petroni is director of commercial development for Mark Group, a leading provider of energy efficiency analysis and installed upgrades to residential, commercial, multifamily and educational property owners.
Fall 2014
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FIELD REPORT
Service at the Speed of Life
JIM LOWDER SYSTEM VP FOR TECHNOLOGY, OHIOHEALTH
THE CHALLENGE: For OhioHealth, a nationally recognized, not-for-profit organization based in Columbus, Ohio, having fast, robust, and reliable technology can literally be a matter of life or death. OhioHealth’s network includes hospitals, clinics, and physician practices across central Ohio. Its technology is used for everything from monitoring newborns to remote specialist observation of intensive care patients to connecting stroke victims with neurologists during the critical time immediately post-stroke. Patient outcomes must never be put at risk because of network downtime. Moreover, OhioHealth must meet HIPAA and HITECH requirements for privacy, system availability, disaster recovery, and redundancy. THE SOLUTION: OhioHealth first partnered with Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) in 2004 to link its diverse and dispersed community hospitals and physician practices, and to centralize resources. Over the years, OhioHealth and TWCBC have worked closely together to facilitate OhioHealth’s rapid expansion and the technology-enabled evolution of medical care. Today, TWCBC provides
OhioHealth finds that world-class technology is the key to delivering world-class healthcare. OhioHealth with a 100 Mbps pointto-point Ethernet Private Line (EPL) across 50 hospital locations; 300 Mbps Dedicated Internet Access (DIA); and Business Internet Access services with speeds up to 100 Mbps connecting the organization’s smaller offices. All this gives OhioHealth the speed and capacity for high-bandwidth activities, such as streaming two-way audio and video. That means skilled ICU "intensivists" at a central metropolitan facility can now remotely monitor critical patients in hospitals that don't have 24-hour access to onsite specialized ICU staff. "The eICU® doesn't replace the physicians and nurses who are at the facility," explains Jim Lowder, system vice president for technology. "But it provides a level of oversight that ordinarily would not be available in a more remote location."
THE RESULT: OhioHealth’s advanced technological capabilities have allowed it to be on the leading edge of health care. • World-class service: “In health care today, it’s not a single provider, but an entire team,” Lowder explains. “With everything being electronic, all information—even consults— is available in real time to everyone caring for the patient. Plus, with
HIPAA and HITECH, you need to look at the ‘meaningful use’ of electronic medical records: how you’re using technology to make sure you’re caring for all patients appropriately, from vaccinations and education to follow-up. All that comes from the technology that is riding over our Time Warner Cable Business Class circuits.” • Expert care in remote locations: Technology also extends top clinical services into rural regions and community hospitals, and can eliminate 100-mile trips for patients who need the services of specialists. • Streamlined administration: OhioHealth’s solution streamlines financial and administrative functions, including supporting the move toward ASPs (application service providers) and cloud services. “Things like billing and insurance verification are done in real time and rely on Internet connectivity,” Lowder notes. Finally, OhioHealth’s forward-looking management wants the ability to support knowledge transfer across mobile and handheld devices. The bottom line for OhioHealth, says Lowder, is, “How do I leverage technology to enable and deliver world-class clinical services?” With TWCBC as a partner, Lowder feels confident that OhioHealth will continue to find the solutions it needs.
SHARE YOUR STORY!
How did you partner with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology issues? Tell us about it for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of SOLVE. Visit business.twc.com/nomination to share your story. Fall 2014
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SALES & MARKETING
Remember these three critical components (the three Cs, if you will) for creating effective visual content:
CONTEXT: Since your prospect needs to see his or her status quo as unsafe, your presentation must depict, at the very beginning, the gaps and deficiencies in its current state that require a new approach.
CONTRAST: Your image should show
Why a whiteboard and marker will out-sell a slide presentation every time
B
BY TIM RIESTERER
rain research shows that people only remember about 10 percent of what you say to them just two days after hearing it. However, when you attach a simple, concrete visual to the message you are delivering, that number jumps to 65 percent. Researchers call that the picture superiority effect. But what visuals work best for selling? And which drive the reaction salespeople are looking for? You can use what’s known about how the brain works to help answer those questions. First, you need to think about your sales conversations as being more about change management than about selling something. You are asking someone to do something different from the way they have been doing it. The part of the brain that causes someone to change a habit or move away from the status quo is sometimes referred to as the old brain. The old brain has very specific requirements your message must 10
meet: it doesn’t have the capacity for language, so it needs pictures to help it wake up and decide to do something different. It is a very basic mechanism—like an on/ off switch—so your pictures need to be very simple. Finally, the old brain is connected to the human survival instinct, so it is most apt to change when the status quo is threatened. What is the best delivery system for your sales messages? Original study results from Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Zakary Tormala show that whiteboard visuals are far superior to PowerPoint. They rated much higher on measures of customer engagement, enjoyment, credibility, recall, and persuasive impact. The reason for this is that whiteboard images make your sales pitch a conversation, not a presentation. Prospects respond to watching images being assembled via a whiteboard (or other drawing surface, such as an easel, pad, tablet or the back of an envelope) as the salesperson tells his company’s story. But don’t worry; your salespeople don’t need to be artists. Stick figures, arrows, and bubbles work just fine.
a clear contrast between the status quo approach and what you are offering. Contrast is required to help the brain determine the virtues of your solution and make a decision. Depict this current state/future state comparison by showing specifically how your new approach can help to fill the gaps and overcome the deficiencies of the existing solution. Put the current situation, and its problems, literally side by side with the proposed alternative and its remedies so the contrast is clear and value can be visually discerned.
CONCRETE: Complex visuals confuse the brain and prevent it from reaching a decision. Therefore, use illustrative, whiteboard imagery like numbers, arrows, stick figures, shapes, and icons to translate a potentially complicated concept into an approachable, understandable option. If you implement the three Cs as part of your visual storytelling process and integrate whiteboard visuals, you will no doubt have more effective and successful conversations with your prospects. Tim Riesterer is chief strategy and marketing officer of Corporate Visions, Inc. and coauthor of the books Customer Message Management and Conversations that Win the Complex Sale. You can see his video presentation on this topic at corporatevisions.com/blog/2014/06/17/ presentation-bma14/.
Fall 2014
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when you can see inside your network, it takes the guesswork out.
Gain data intelligence and 24/7 network visibility with the Ethernet Services Portal from Time Warner Cable Business Class. Monitor and manage your network’s performance around the clock with our intuitive, user-friendly Ethernet Services Portal. Get access to valuable data intelligence and help ensure your network – and your business – are running as efficiently as possible.
Passwordprotected web access 24/7
Display of circuit-level metrics including circuit locations and characteristics
Want to help optimize your network performance? Contact a local, dedicated Time Warner Cable Business Class Account Executive today to schedule a free Technology Audit!
Visit
BUSINESS.TWC.COM/ETHERNET or call
Performance statistics available by service type and time intervals
Exportable reports including technology, statistical and trending, and security
877.857.0727
Products and services not available in all areas. Some restrictions apply. Subject to change without notice. Time Warner Cable Business Class is a trademark of Time Warner Inc. Used under license. ©2014 Time Warner Enterprises LLC. All rights reserved.
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HOW DATA CAN DRIVE YOUR
BOTTOM LINE It’s time to realize the value of your company’s Big Data.
Is your network up to the task? BY MICHAEL HARRIS
B
ig Data is a big deal. Every day, it is redefining business management, marketing, and operations principles in companies across the board. Consider these uses of Big Data: a health insurance firm analyzes speech-to-text data from call center recordings to gain insight into customer dissatisfaction triggers and implement tactics to avoid them. A delivery company crunches data to improve vehicle routing, reducing fleet mileage, fuel consumption and trip times. With Big Data, a retailer is now able to optimize pricing for the items in its sales inventory 25 times faster.
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56% 70%
of SMBs of enterprises
Have already deployed or plan to deploy Big Data projects Source: IDG Enterprise
In fact, seven out of 10 enterprises and more than half of small and medium businesses have already deployed, or plan to deploy, Big Data in projects. Because Big Data requires the capture and analysis of large volumes of business information–much too large to analyze using traditional methods–Big Data is also transforming network performance requirements.1
BIG DATA DEFINED Big Data involves collecting, storing, and analyzing huge quantities of business information from a wide range of devices and applications. This includes real-time and historical data from customer-relationship, sales, manufacturing, supply-chain, and retail-sales systems, as well as social media, website, and other network usage information. Data can be collected from an array of devices, including servers, PCs, smartphones, tablets, video cameras, sensors, smart meters, and other connected machines.
BIG DATA BENEFITS By skillfully surfing this data tsunami, businesses can fine-tune product and service offerings, create more personalized interactions with customers and prospects, uncover efficiencies in manufacturing, better detect fraud, and improve regulatory compliance. In a recent survey of C-level executives, business unit leaders, and IT decision-makers, 84 percent said having more data has helped them make better business decisions for their companies. And nearly three-quarters said leveraging data has boosted their company’s bottom line by increasing revenue from existing or new sources.2
NETWORK TRAFFIC JAMS AHEAD A key challenge with Big Data is that collecting, transporting, storing, and analyzing troves of information can create major traffic on business networks. About 70 percent of
73%
businesses expect their network loads to at least double over a two-year period, according to a survey by Cisco Systems. However, only 40 percent reported they are ready for this surge in network traffic.3 While traditional business applications like e-mail, web surfing, and file sharing are not sensitive to modest network delays, Big Data applications require high-quality connectivity. IT executives point to network speed and availability, in addition to security, as their top data-related challenges.4 To ensure that increased network loads do not undermine Big Data initiatives, a business must be prepared to increase both the capacity and quality of its network. In addition to upgrading their network connections, businesses are partnering with cloud service providers to host some Big Data applications, thereby easing the burden on their own data centers and networks. For example, NaviSite, a Time Warner Cable Company,
of companies have increased revenue with Big Data
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“70 percent of businesses expect their network loads to double over a two-year period. However, only 40 percent reported they are ready for this surge in network traffic.”
provides essential building blocks for cloudbased IT services that support the storage and management of increasing volumes of enterprise data. Utilizing cloud services for big data storage backup is also a smart way to manage risk, since the cost of network failures is significant for data-driven organizations. An unplanned data center outage now costs a business more than $7,900 per minute in lost revenue and end-user productivity, according to Ponemon Institute. That is a 41-percent increase over just three years ago.5
SELECTING A SOLUTION Because network performance and reliability are essential when deploying Big Data, it is crucial to partner with the right service provider. Businesses should consider the following factors when choosing a service provider for network and Internet connectivity. 1. FACILITIES-BASED FOUNDATION: When evaluating network and Internet connectivity service options, select a provider that owns its network facilities and uses fiberoptic technology. Facilities-based providers are better positioned to guarantee service quality than those that lease network capacity from third parties. Using a variety of access technologies, facilities-based providers can also serve a wide range of locations, including retail sites and branch offices located in residential areas. 2. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS: These agreements provide peace of mind by setting performance benchmarks for service availability and for responsiveness for repair and restoration should an unplanned outage occur. 14
3. ETHERNET OPTIONS: Business Ethernet extends the high-performance, cost-effective network technology used within office and campus environments into carrier connections. Not surprisingly, the approach is emerging as a preferred solution for supporting Big Data and other essential applications. Business Ethernet services are highly scalable and offer important built-in quality and resiliency features. Furthermore, an analysis by ACG Research finds that Business Ethernet services deliver 44 percent to 81 percent lower costs than legacy networking alternatives, such as TDM and SONET. 4. CLOUD CAPABILITIES: Some facilitiesbased providers are able to offer a complete bundle of network, Internet, and cloud services. Purchasing these services together may yield cost savings and simplify management, with a single bill to process and one number to call for support. Big Data presents big opportunities and big challenges. While Big Data analytics can help drive revenue, operating efficiencies, and enterprise value, businesses must invest in the mission-critical infrastructure and applications that make it possible. And the best way to do that is to partner with a service provider that can deliver high-performance and cost-effective network connectivity and cloud applications.
Big Data is a Big Deal: Is Your Network Ready?
Find out more by downloading our complimentary white paper at business.twc.com/bigdata
Michael Harris is principal consultant at Kinetic Strategies. Applying 20 years of experience as a strategist, research analyst, and journalist, he consults with select clients in the networking, Internet, and telecommunications industries. 1. SAS Institute, “Big Data in Big Companies,” Thomas H. Davenport and Jill Dyché, May 2013. 2. Wakefield Research, “Global Survey: Is Big Data Producing Big Returns?” June 2012. 3. Cisco Systems, “Connected World Technology Report,” March 2013. 4. Navisite Storage Survey, 2013. 5. Ponemon Institute, “2013 Cost of Data Center Outages,” December 2013.
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Agility Equals Profitability CRAIG STEIN PARTNER, MIRAZON
THE CHALLENGE: Mirazon, a Louisville, Kentucky–based IT consulting firm, builds and maintains optimized IT solutions for a wide range of national and international clients. Since 2000, the company has prided itself on creating ahead-of-the-curve solutions for everything from virtualization, storage, and backup to training and CIO outsourcing. But staying ahead in the IT business now requires more agility and flexibility than ever, according to Craig Stein, partner and solutions architect. “Managing IT used to involve maintaining a few products,” he says. “Now, from Microsoft licensing to antivirus protection, there are so many moving parts. Plus, with the cloud and virtualization, it’s easy to spin up a new platform as a service without even involving the IT department.” In order to keep on top of its customers’ growing needs, Mirazon needs maximum agility and bandwidth for its own technology. The asymmetrical “best effort” Internet service it had been using wasn’t up to the task.
THE SOLUTION: In 2012, Mirazon turned to Time Warner Cable Business Class (TWCBC) for its fast, affordable, and reliable fiber solutions. “They
Fast, flexible, and affordable fiber services unlocked myriad opportunities for IT company Mirazon. are a key blade in our Swiss army knife of solutions,” Stein says. With fiberbased Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), Mirazon could now take advantage of its growing opportunity to offer remote security and managed solutions to a diverse range of customers. Mirazon especially appreciates the value of fiber’s symmetrical bandwidth. “Most businesses download more content than they send up,” Stein explains. “But with offsite backup or supporting branch offices, fast upload speeds also become critical.” Because of its fiber-based DIA offering speeds up to 20 Mbps, Mirazon has the bandwidth to handle customer collaboration, meetings, video conferencing, and instant messaging through the Microsoft Lync unified communications suite. “The connection is low-latency, so voice packets don’t get scrambled or delayed,” Stein says. “Time Warner Cable Business Class technology is very fast and affordable. But we’ve also found that it’s an extremely reliable service.”
THE RESULT: Thanks to fiber service from TWCBC, Mirazon has been able to better serve existing customers, acquire new customers, and maintain an edge over other IT consultancies.
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Through fiber connectivity, Mirazon can fix customer service problems remotely in minutes. Fiber also enables Mirazon to provide enhanced backup that includes multiple copies of important files, supports two different media types and stores copies at a second network location. The affordability of fiber has enabled Mirazon to work with an exceptionally wide range of customers, from companies with two computers to those with multibillion-dollar defense contracts. “Where solutions used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, we can now leverage fiber solutions that are affordable for companies of all sizes," Stein says.
[Fiber services] are a key blade in our Swiss army knife of solutions. Overall, Mirazon now has the capacity to meet customer needs with leading-edge solutions. “Businesses are trading hosting and private infrastructure for cloud offerings like Microsoft Office 365 and Amazon Web Services,” Stein says. “This drives the need for faster, more reliable connections, and that’s what Time Warner Cable Business Class provides.”
SHARE YOUR STORY!
How did you partner with TWCBC to SOLVE your technology issues? Tell us about it for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue of SOLVE. Visit business.twc.com/nomination to share your story.
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GET YOUR TEAM
IN STEP
Leading the Multigenerational Workforce
Understand the generational culture clash, and get the best from your entire workforce.
H
BY BRAD SZOLLOSE
ow many of you are tired of hearing about Millennials? Go ahead and raise your hand. Even Millennials are tired of hearing about Millennials. And yet this newest workplace generation—whether called Millennials, Generation Y, or Digital Natives—is, and should be, discussed, because
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its members are causing disruption. Here’s why: they do not obey or live by any of the rules that made previous generations successful. In fact, their behavior is so radically different when it comes to career and workplace expectations that it’s affecting communication, productivity, advancement, and retention in all organizations. Since many bosses are not ready to retire
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P
SPANNING THE
DIGITAL DIVIDE anytime soon, and Millennials are moving into management positions, a traffic jam has begun. As a leader you need to understand this generational phenomenon. To propel your business forward, you need insight into the behavioral dynamics of each generation in order to create a positive corporate culture and prepare the next generation for leadership. Step one is to understand what, as a general rule, motivates each generation.
WHAT BOOMERS EXPECT When defining generational categories, we’ll keep it simple. Many divide the generations into Traditionalists, Gen X, and so on, but the real workplace differences are between Millennials and everyone else. As a rule, anyone born before 1977 (Baby Boomers, Gen X) was taught a traditional path to success. Listen to the teacher, study hard, pass the test, then you move forward. Age + Time + Experience = Status and Salary. Getting ahead took time and effort. Boomers know their place in an organization, never expecting to chat with the CEO until they have earned the right to do so, either through title, experience, or age. And when a Boomer has a much younger boss, he or she can feel like a failure. For anyone born after 1977 (Millennials)—age is not a criterion for advancement. Skill set is. So when a 25-year-old joins a company, he or she sees no issue with entering at the same level as the Boomer with years of hard-earned experience. What causes this disconnect in expectations?
INSIDE THE MILLENNIAL MINDSET Millennials grew up in a time of child-centric parenting, in which they were routinely consulted about their wishes and included in adult discussions. This approach spread to schools and sports, and the effect was a flattening of hierarchy in Millennials’ lives. As a result, they see their older workplace superiors not as authority figures, but as peers—approachable and easily available to hang out with, learn from, and run new ideas past. This lack of intimidation is not a lack of respect. Millennials simply don’t recognize traditional boundaries.
Employees approach workplace technology very differently, based not only on age but on work experience, according to Brett Belding, senior manager of Cisco IT mobility services. “Diversity is broader than most people define it,” he says. “It’s important to address everyone’s needs, from the most technically acute to those who don’t ‘speak geek.’” Here’s how his team’s approach to IT support is evolving: Moving toward self-support. As little as seven years ago, all technical help at Cisco was provided by an IT help desk, accessed via a phone number prominently displayed throughout the company. However, the IT team became aware that more tech-savvy employees had begun to create their own wikis or blogs to share information about technical issues. Belding’s team not only adopted some of the wikis, they expanded the idea so that now the default method of getting help with a technical issue is to go to an internal website. (The help desk is still available as a backup.) The team uses focus groups to fine-tune the help language. The goal is to make the IT support information accessible even for employees whose tech expectations had traditionally been “I make a call, and someone fixes this for me.” Self-support is cost-effective and scalable. It’s also in line with Belding’s goal of “consumerizing” IT strategy. “If you want to create a Facebook account, sign up for Gmail, or download an app, you don’t call somebody—you sign up with a few clicks,” he says. “For Millennials, that is the mindset. You don’t pick up the phone.” Allowing choice. “The assumption with digital natives is that they will show up with the technology they want to use, because technology is critical to their lives,” Belding says. “And if you want to hire the best employees, you need to allow them to work how they want.” Accordingly, Cisco has loosened up its requirements for work technology. The company used to stipulate that all its employees had to use Windows; now they can use a range of operating systems and products. Cisco has also embraced "bring your own device" (BYOD), allowing employees to use the personal device of their choice. “The workforce is undergoing a huge shift in attitude,” Belding says. “So we provide choice, then give employees a set of applications that can make them really productive, no matter what device they’re on.” —Lee Lusardi Connor
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MILLENNIALS IN THE WORKFORCE
34%
2014
46%
2020
SOURCE: UNC KENAN-FLAGLER BUSINESS SCHOOL, “MAXIMIZING MILLENNIALS IN THE WORKPLACE,” 2012
Second, technology changes behavior. Millennials were raised to adapt to rapid change. With hundreds of software upgrades, the Internet, and interactive toys, Millennials learned to manipulate digital information before they could read and write, and in some cases, before they could speak. Because of this, nothing is ever “finished.” Constant change is normal. Millennials were also immersed in a new entertainment platform: video games. And it shaped them. How do you learn in a complex video game? You do not read a manual; you participate and learn the rules intuitively. Leadership is rotational and you use your team players and their individual skill sets as needed. After mastering one level, you discard what you’ve learned, because the rules change at the next level. Boomers were taught that if you screw up, your career is over. Meanwhile, Millennials were trained that making mistakes is the only way to learn.
FOCUS ON THE WORK Both Boomers and Millennials have crucial skills, experiences, and insights for your business. Moreover, Millennials have something to teach management about new technology, a new workforce, and a new customer. We are in a marketplace in which technology allows smaller companies to compete with big brands; in which old jobs are disappearing and new ones are being created. To keep your company both relevant and harmonious, create an environment where all generations can thrive. Here are a few ways to do that. • Groom for leadership. Don’t simply hope that new hires will figure out the way your company does things; show them. Develop an internal apprenticeship program to give them
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the proper training in your company’s methodologies. This is where Boomer experience pays off in dividends. Become a valued mentor instead of a boss. • Flatten your hierarchy. If you are clinging to traditional management styles, then you are waiting for decisions to go through the chain of command, and that creates bottlenecks. By flattening your organization, training people to make decisions without you, and giving them the tools they need, you create an organization that moves faster. And that makes all generations more productive. • Consider a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). ROWE is a flexible management strategy, created by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. Because it focuses on results, it allows individuals to work in the way that suits them best. For example, Boomers tend to see work as a “place you go to”—the office—while Millennials see it as a “thing you do,” to be done anywhere, at any time, even in a coffee shop. A ROWE approach can accommodate all styles. Consider each project a mission, with deadlines and tactics, and yourself a mission leader whose job is more support than command. Let each team member set his or her own goals for the week, do all you can to support those goals, and stay in touch with weekly check-ins. In this way, talented individuals can rise to the surface and be given greater and greater responsibilities. And this keeps the best people in any generation engaged and excited by their work. Business consultant Brad Szollose helps smart companies understand how technology has transformed a new generation and how that impacts businesses. He is the author of the bestselling Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia.
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SUCCESS IN ACTION
CHIEF TALK BUSINESS LEADERS
share KEY LESSONS THEY’VE LEARNED
INTERVIEWS BY LEE LUSARDI CONNOR
R
oberto Milk was sitting in a Portuguese class at Stanford University in 1995 when his idea hit. The professor was saying that many artisans in Brazil’s rich handicraft tradition could no longer make a living. What if, Milk thought, artisans in developing countries could connect directly with buyers through the Internet? “Artisans could charge the price they wanted to charge, with no middleman and with a platform to tell their story,” Milk says. “And customers around the world could purchase incredibly intricate and beautiful items at prices they hadn’t seen before.” The idea for the business was, in a way, in his blood: one of his grandmothers was an artisan in Peru, another was an American missionary, and Milk himself loved to travel and collect handmade items. With his girlfriend (now wife), Mina Olivera and a handful of family members and longtime friends, Milk launched the international marketplace NOVICA in 1999.
Understanding the local culture and norms is crucial.
—ROBERTO MILK
By the time of its fifteenth anniversary in June 2014, the company had eight regional offices, counted 75,000 people in its “impact group” (artisans, their family
ROBERTO MILK, NOVICA: GROWING GLOBALLY
members and community members) and had sent $50 million to artisans around the world. The company’s goal: to benefit at least one million people. “We’ve been cash flow-positive for the last seven years, but whatever we make, we’re recycling right back into the company. We are still in growth mode,” Milk says. That growth should accelerate as NOVICA begins to power the marketplace for the United
States Fund for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) this fall. The NOVICA CEO talked with SOLVE about some of the lessons he’s learned while managing a global workforce.
Communicate and Set Clear Goals. When I think about workers in our regional centers, I say, okay, what’s the CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 >> Fall 2014
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SUCCESS IN ACTION
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deliverable? What are their goals and how do I give them the tools to achieve them? We set some clear-cut business goals having to do with things like the number of new products, new artisans and sales. From an operations standpoint, we may set goals having to do with logistics or product quality. And we are transparent: there’s a quarterly company contest that measures all the metrics everybody is evaluated on. We call it our World Cup of Arts and Crafts. We also ask regional directors to come up with three goals each year that are specific to their region. For example, Mexico may want to open a satellite office in Oaxaca. Coming up with these goals helps directors take ownership. We make sure our global offices have all the technology tools they need. For example, regional directors can show local artisans real-time rankings and ratings of their products. In the past, an artisan might have had 75 products at his market stand, and his or her feedback loop was limited to whatever tourists came by. Now they are empowered to make judgment calls about product based on what people are clicking on and purchasing. Many people in our company are multilingual, which is a benefit. That said, we primarily use English, so it’s important that regional directors be able to communicate in English. We have a constant flow of management visiting the various regions, so that’s one of the fun parts. We do group calls via Skype all the time because you can count on it a little more than you can count on the phone lines in many of our countries.
Educate Yourself on Cultural Differences. Understanding the local culture and
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norms is crucial to managing a global workforce. For example, in Latin America and Africa, there’s a high value placed on having a cheerful demeanor, to giving of yourself in terms of personal details, and to asking people personal questions that you wouldn’t ask in a typical American workplace. On the flip side, in Asia you have to be very careful about asking too many questions. And whereas a hug would be an appropriate greeting in Brazil, it’s definitely not appropriate when meeting a new colleague in Thailand. You can do an Internet search 30 minutes before you leave for a trip, then practice a little bit on the plane. It really can be that easy. Also, when you’re in the country, use every interaction as an opportunity to learn more about it. Ask your taxi driver about his favorite restaurants, or sports, or what’s going on in the country right now. It’s great preparation for small talk during meetings and business meals.
Make Life Balance a Priority. When you have offices around the world in different time zones, there’s a nonstop flow of action items. I’m the father of four young children, and trying to stay healthy and fit, and trying to grow NOVICA in a major way, so balance has become one of the central issues in my life. In our family, we have what we call our “sacred time.” That’s from seven to nine each evening, and I don’t let anything interrupt it. I try my hardest to be very present, and not on my phone but doing things with the kids—playing, going outside—and then reading and telling stories at bedtime. If someone is truly in balance with family, hobbies and work life, or at least attempting to be, I think he or she can be a better leader.
DANIEL LUBETZKY, KIND CREATING A HEALTHY CULTURE
S
purred by his own inability to find healthy, tasty food during his global business travels, Daniel Lubetzky created KIND Healthy Snacks in 2003. Its goal: to provide products with “ingredients you can see and pronounce.” Today KIND makes 5 of the top 10 products in the nutritional-bar category, new product lines are being introduced, and sales have increased sixfold over the last six years. Lubetzky is also the founder of PeaceWorks, Inc., an organization that brings together neighbors on opposing sides of political conflicts to create healthy, profitable foods. KIND, too, has a strong social mission, with robust programs that encourage customers to do kind acts, and fundraising help for worthy causes. “What turns me on is finding creative ways to impact the world in a sustainable and profitable way,” says Lubetzky, the Mexico Cityraised son of a Holocaust survivor. “I feel a very deep sense of trying to prevent what happened to my dad from happening to others. That’s why I do what I do.”
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SUCCESS IN ACTION
our version of kudos. They are given to people who go above and beyond in supporting other team members.
Allow Yourselves to Argue.
Still, Lubetzky emphasizes the need for the business to be sustainable on its own merits: “What drives our sales is not kindness—it’s meeting people’s lifestyle needs better than any other product.” The KIND staff, which has expanded 10 times since 2013, now numbers 350. But don’t call them “employees,” or call Lubetzky “the boss.” “Nobody works for anybody here,” he says. “We all work with each other.” And while many companies talk the “family feeling” game, Lubetzky and his team live it. Here, he tells how.
Cultivate Team Spirit. The most important thing about creating a family feeling in a business is to feel it in your heart. The effort has to be sincere; it’s not just a formula. It doesn’t hurt that everybody in our company is a shareholder, and everyone has aligned incentives for the company to succeed. Part of their compensation is tied to the value of the stock. That said, the culture itself is very much connected to a team spirit and team effort and accomplishments. Once a month, every team member is invited to celebrate another team member with “KINDos,”
It’s essential to be open and transparent, but also constructive. Like a family, we have disagreements, but like a family we air them and work things out. Last week, two team members did something I felt was not consistent with our spirit. I invited them to my office and pointed out, “Hey guys, this and this are not in our culture.” They accepted it and grew from it. At the same time, if I make a mistake, people can come into my office and teach me what I’m doing wrong. All of us are human beings. I make mistakes, everyone makes mistakes. If your intention is to not be a jerk, the mistakes tend to sort themselves out.
Change the Dynamics of Competition. You can learn business tactics from all kinds of places. Here’s an example: I have four very young children, and my wife and I are trying to get them to stay in bed through the night. They tend to invade our bed at one, two, or three in the morning. So we told them we would give them a sticker for each time they spent a full night in their own beds. My oldest son said, “Daddy, am I winning? I have eight stickers and they only have six or seven.” I tried to explain that they weren’t competing with each other, but competing with themselves. We then changed the dynamics so that they all need to win, to help each other. If they work together, if everybody wins, they’re going to get one of those minicars they can ride on.
Make the Culture Explicit. We are growing very fast. More new people have joined us in the last two years than in all the prior years put together. I was scared about whether the culture would die. So now, every quarter, I sit down in person with all the new hires and talk about our culture and values at KIND. That meeting is not about products or how to sell; it’s purely about culture. We also distribute an electronic booklet to all new hires that talks about our values. And throughout our office you will see quotes about our culture painted on the walls. Being surrounded by that probably does have an impact on how people relate to one another.
Nobody works for anybody here. We all work with each other.
—DANIEL LUBETZKY
Try a Little KINDness. For any company who’s interested, we have a program to inspire kindness within the workplace. We provide two complimentary KIND bars for every team member in the company, whether it’s the janitor or the CEO. One is to eat; one is to give away—whether to another team member or to a total stranger—to exemplify a simple act of kindness. I would love to offer this program to any readers of SOLVE magazine. They can register at www.kindsnacks.com/offices. The “eat one, KIND one” program is available while supplies last and is solely owned by KIND, LLC. Time Warner Cable Business Class is not responsible for the promotion, distribution of KIND product, or the outcome of the program.
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Do You Have
CEO A.D.D.?
Is your packed schedule and constant stream of messages literally driving you to distraction? Use these strategies to find your focus.
BY WILLIAM G. BLISS As a business leader, you may feel that everyone wants a piece of you—and in fact, that’s probably the case. Your office is likely deluged with memos, voice mail, e-mail, and all other forms of modern communication from employees, direct reports, suppliers, customers, sales representatives, and shareholders.
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After all, business leaders are increasingly conscious of the need to be accessible and transparent with all stakeholders. And who can blame all those people for vying for your attention? They know you’re the one who can make a decision or make something happen. Let’s be honest: there’s probably a part of you that welcomes all this contact. You are likely naturally curious
and enjoy hearing about new ideas from advisors, employees, or industry experts. You probably relish the chance to get people excited about solving problems, or about exploring new ideas or strategies to move your business forward. Those qualities are what help CEOs and C-suite executives rise to the positions they hold. The downside is that technology has made opportunities to be interrupted and taken off task more plentiful than ever. In fact, some leaders feel so distracted that they wonder if their problem could be called CEO Attention Deficit Disorder. Do these sound familiar? • You end the day saying something like, “Man, today was really busy but I am not sure I got very much accomplished.” • You sometimes feel overwhelmed by your priorities list. • You have difficulty paying attention when others are speaking, and frequently interrupt them. • You are quick to start on projects or tasks but slow to complete them because you have so many distractions. Assuming you have nodded your head to at least one of these statements, what can be done? If you really want a different outcome, change must begin with you. You need to make some moves to ensure that you are implementing great and impactful initiatives, instead of being overtaken by
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interruptions on a daily basis. Try to adopt the following new habits. Focus your daily efforts on moving forward the top three to five priorities in your annual operating plan. Compare these priorities with what you spend your time on each day. The most successful executives spend at least 50 percent of their time on moving key priorities along. Start your day the night before. Before you leave each night, plan out on paper exactly how you will spend the next day, taking into account meetings, research, phone calls, and “thinking time” to move the key priorities along. If you know you will inevitably need to allow an hour or so to be available for
addressing some unique or crisis situation, plan for that. Evaluate how you did at the end of each day and week. Learn to say no more than you say yes. According to Warren Buffett, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.” It may feel easier and nicer to say yes to requests for your participation, energy, and counsel, but your time is limited. You need to guard it. Enlist the support of your executive assistant (EA). I have prescribed this approach to a number of executives, and they report significant success in focusing on priorities in this way. The EA is told what the most important priorities
are and is empowered to allocate calendar time only to them. The EA can also determine, based on the agenda of a meeting, whether his or her boss’s presence is really necessary. Will these changes be hard or uncomfortable at first? Absolutely! But the reward is that you will once more have control over your time—and your business will thrive as a result. William Bliss is the CEO of Seneca, South Carolina–based Bliss & Associates Inc., which provides advisory services to business leaders. He is the author of the ebook Success in the C-Suite: Top Seven Strategies for Achieving Extraordinary Results.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR BRAIN “Attention is a muscle of the mind, and you can strengthen it,” says psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of the international bestseller Emotional Intelligence and, most recently Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. “There’s a new movement in business to help train people in what’s called mindfulness, or paying full attention.” This state of being fully conscious in the present moment, which has roots in Eastern spiritual traditions, is being enthusiastically embraced by U.S. businesses. Steve Jobs was a devotee of meditation, and his influence rippled throughout the Silicon Valley and beyond. Today Google, Goldman
Sachs, General Mills, and other major companies offer training in mindfulness to their employees. Numerous top CEOs say they practice meditation daily, including Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff, Bridgewater Associate’s Ray Dalio, Def Jam’s Russell Simmons, and Tupperware CEO Rick Goings. Bill George, former Medtronic CEO, incorporates discussions of mindfulness in the management classes he teaches at Harvard Business School. “For 10 to 20 minutes a day, you basically practice concentrating,” says Goleman. “You watch your mind, notice when it wanders off, bring it back to its target. It’s like going to the gym and working out your
triceps. Every time you lift a weight, it strengthens your muscles. The mind works the same way.” The benefits, research shows, include reduced stress, improved memory, greater equanimity, and better focus. How can you get yourself some of that? As you might imagine, there is a wealth of apps and other tools for guided meditations. Goleman offers a series of guided audio exercises on a CD called Cultivating Focus (morethansound.net). Check out Calm.com, the Omvana app for iOS, or Mindfulness Meditation from Mental Workout for iPhone, Android, Mac, and PC. –Lee Lusardi Connor Fall 2014
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GUIDE TO GO
TECH JARGON
DECODING
Eight terms your IT department wants you to know B Y M I K E D E C K
Today, the Internet is the foundation for nearly every business interaction, which is why having a grasp on common tech terms is essential for senior management and staff alike. This basic knowledge helps people work more efficiently and communicate with the IT department more effectively. Further, learning how to speak the language of IT helps leaders make better decisions about how a company should operate and what kind of tech investments it needs to make. Here are some must-know terms about your technology infrastructure:
ETHERNET The Ethernet is the
ETHERNET PRIVATE LINE (EPL) An EPL is a private connection leased from a telecom carrier, allowing a business to connect multiple LANs in different geographic locations, as if a single Ethernet cable had been run between the two sites.
VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK (VPN) A VPN allows remote employees to access the company’s LAN while still preserving the network’s security.
VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL (VOIP) VoIP means your
LOCAL AREA NETWORK (LAN) The network your company’s
company’s calls are being transmitted over the Internet, through your LAN, as opposed to traditional analog phone lines. Companies using VoIP can implement a sophisticated system without investing in specialized switching hardware or hardwired phone lines for every office. Additionally, employees can use smartphones or software-based phones on their computers to use their business line from any location that has an Internet connection.
computers and other devices directly connect to is called a LAN. Generally, it’s confined to your business workspace and provides access to private resources like shared printers and internal file servers. A properly configured LAN enables employees to easily access the information and resources they need, while providing a layer of security that keeps your private data safe.
THE CLOUD The term the cloud refers to physical datacenters full of servers that are connected to the Internet. Today, everything—from storage to phone systems to virtual servers that run your company’s custom applications—can be accessed through the cloud. Using the cloud, a company can leverage IT services hosted and maintained by a
physical medium used to transfer information across a network.The realworld connection between your computer and a hub or router is an Ethernet connection. When IT advises you to check your Ethernet, it’s asking you to see if the Ethernet cable is plugged into your computer and the wall jack.
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third party on these external servers. Cloud-based services offer more flexibility in terms of scaling compared to selfmanaged alternatives. (For the latest on cloud adoption, see the Spring and Summer 2014 issues of SOLVE at www. solvemagazine.com.)
DIRECT INTERNET ACCESS (DIA) DIA is a direct connection between a LAN and the Internet. For your home network, you might use a DSL or cable modem to connect to your Internet service provider (ISP), and use shared existing lines (either phone or cable) to physically connect your home to the ISP’s facility. With a business DIA, companies access the web through a dedicated connection—meaning that no one else can use it—and get the benefit of robust bandwidth at all times. A DIA is also symmetrical, meaning that the upload and download speeds are the same.
VIRTUALIZATION A virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of an actual server. With virtualization, you can purchase a single physical server, then create multiple virtual servers to run on it—each of which can have different configurations or even different operating systems. For example, you can run your e-mail server on one virtual machine and an application server on another, while both are hosted on the same physical hardware. This provides flexibility in scaling and recovery, because virtual servers can be moved across physical machines in case the one you’re using fails. Mike Deck, a specialist in software development and life cycle management, is the CEO of EchoVantage, a company that delivers a new approach to marketing analytics.
Fall 2014
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