In 2009 the Student Loans Company took over the processing of loan and grant applications for new students from England which had previously been carried out by 130 local authorities. The Company's document scanning system was launched before being fully tested. Its failure was critical, and the Company's contingency plan was both flawed and implemented late. The Company took 33 per cent longer to process applications in 2009-10 compared with local authorities in 2008-09, and only 46 per cent of new applications had been fully processed by the start of term. By September 2009, 241,000 applications had been received but not fully processed. This led to a dramatic increase in the volume of calls, with the Company receiving over four million in September - 87 per cent of which were unanswered. The Company had failed to communicate key messages to applicants that would have helped to reduce unnecessary calls. The customer service provided by the Company in 2009 was poor. The NAO also raises concerns about the Company's performance in managing Disabled Students' Allowance. By the end of 2009, only 4,000 of 17,000 applications had resulted in a payment, taking an average of 20 weeks to be processed. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Student Loans Company underestimated the challenges in centralising this service. Neither the Department's monitoring of the Company nor the Company's Board's oversight were effective. Substantial risks remain to the successful delivery of the service in 2010.
Under the Customer First Programme, delivery of grants and loans to higher education students in England is being transferred from local authorities to the Student Loans Company (the Company), a non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (the Department). In 2009 the Company began assessing applications from new students; by 2011 it will be responsible for applications from all students in England. Performance in processing applications and communicating with students in this first year was completely unacceptable. Many students waited weeks or months for their financial support. Fewer than half of all applications were fully processed by the start of term, and applications took on average a third longer to process than local authorities had achieved. The Company answered fewer than half the calls it received in 2009; in September 87% of calls went unanswered. Disabled students suffered disproportionately in 2009, as the Company devoted too few staff to processing their applications. The Company also demonstrated a number of IT failings in 2009: most importantly, it did not sufficiently test its crucial document scanning - the failure of which was the catalyst for the failure of the entire system. The Department underestimated the risks in centralising the service, the Programme Board lacked skills and experience, and there was poor communication between the Programme Board, the Company's Board, and the Department. There has been limited improvement in 2010 but uncertainties remain over the Company's ability to deliver and maintain a service that provides value for money.
“B.J. Bueno and his team at The Cult Branding Company respect and understand what so many strategists miss: before we can be experts on product, sales, or the market, we must fi rst be experts on human nature. They have a proven track record of building healthy, sustainable businesses for some of the best brands in the world—using the very process outlined in this book.” —BERT JACOBS, chief executive optimist, The Life is good Company “B.J. Bueno yet again deftly captures the essence of what is required to build and sustain a great brand. If you want to attract and retain highly profi table “brand lovers” rather than stalk new customers, then carefully read this book. B.J. wisely outlines why this is vital and importantly, how to actually do it in today’s marketplace! —DARRYL “DC” COBBIN, president, Brand Positioning Doctors, and former VP of Marketing, 20th Century Fox “Customers First tells the truth. I got a shiver up my back reading this book: What if my competitors read this and follow B.J.’s advice? I don’t care what size business you run, you could and should do exactly as this book instructs. As I was reading, I kept thinking of ways to get my customers to tell me how to be better.” —DAVID RATNER, owner, Dave’s Soda and Pet City MASTER THE SCIENCE OF MARKET DOMINATION... Brand Lovers are the best of your best customers. They power Harley-Davidson to the top of the enthusiast motorcycle market; they’re the core of Apple’s dominant position in portable devices; and they’re the reason why no other premium grocery chain can take a bite out of Whole Foods’ market share. Customers First, by top branding strategist B.J. Bueno, shows how your business will achieve this level of extreme customer loyalty through Brand Modeling, the objective and scientific analysis of your organization’s performance across a wide range of situations. An accurate Brand Model will arm you with hard data to pinpoint and engage your brand’s most passionate customers—and give you an action plan for inspiring and empowering these Brand Lovers to be your most effective evangelists. Much more than a summary of who you are and what you do, a Brand Model maps your business’s DNA to help you build an unbeatable competitive advantage. Through examples of real-world success stories—among them, IKEA, Nike, Coca-Cola, apparel upstart The Life is good Company, Starbucks, and Southwest Airlines—and a detailed sample case study that shows effective Brand Modeling practices in action, Customers First delivers strategic insights and proven techniques for you to: Differentiate your products in ways that are meaningful to your best customers Drive growth by creating brand extensions that are a natural fit with your existing products Significantly improve marketing ROI by avoiding customers not interested in your brand Visually and verbally communicate brand values that resonate with your best customers Brand Modeling evolves the current state of marketing to a new level of sophistication. In Customers First, B.J. Bueno shows how to use this critical tool to eliminate guesswork from your marketing efforts and focus more clearly on understanding (and pleasing) your most valuable ally in the battle for market dominance: The Brand Lover. B.J. BUENO is founder and managing partner of The Cult Branding Company, the premiere Brand Modeling and consumer insight research firm. He is a board member of the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association and a member of the Chief Marketing Officers board for international retailers.
Provides information on successful software development, covering such topics as customer requirements, task estimates, principles of good design, dealing with source code, system testing, and handling bugs.
Imagine a management philosophy based not upon serving a company's customers, but on serving the company's employees. Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies in India, has put such a philosophy into practice with remarkable results. His "employee first, customer second" mantra has been recognized globally as an example of organizational innovation, and was deemed a "new and radical management philosophy" ripe for the picking in the Western world by Business Week. In this book, Nayar himself describes his blunt refusal to treat the flesh and blood of HCL--its people--as "human resource" or as "intellectual capital" or even as an asset like all its other assets-and how his unique perspective led to an holistic transformation of his organization. By putting employees on top of the organizational pyramid, he argues, your company can fully realize the value created in the interface between customers and employees. This book leads managers and executives through the five core aspects of Nayar's approach, demonstrating how to create a sense of urgency, overhaul incentives and reporting structures, foster transparency in communications and feedback, provide platforms for achievement and personal growth, and finally recognize the potential of every individual in the organization. The "Employee First" philosophy should be the fulcrum of the transformation journey of any organization.
Not all customers are created equal. Despite what the tired old adage says, the customer is not always right. Not all customers deserve your best efforts: in the world of customer centricity, there are good customers...and then there is pretty much everybody else. Upending some of our most fundamental beliefs, renowned behavioral data expert Peter Fader, Co-Director of The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, helps businesses radically rethink how they relate to customers. He provides insights to help you revamp your performance metrics, product development, customer relationship management and organization in order to make sure you focus directly on the needs of your most valuable customers and increase profits for the long term.
"Talk is cheap." A cliché, perhaps, but the idea that what we do is more important than what we say is a fundamental truth. It applies in our personal lives and can extend into our professional work, too. Learning to let your actions do the talking can be revolutionary to a company that struggles to create enduring customer relationships. People who own operate, manage, or otherwise lead a company are always looking for ways to improve productivity, beat the competition, and ensure long-term success. Learning how to put words and ideas into action can be a key to success in the business world. Hooked on Customers is not about finding the right words, whether labeled as a "strategy" or not. It is an insightful, highly informative book that propels businesses into action. It explores successful customer-centric businesses, examines the ways they execute their strategies, and provides practical recommendations for business leaders to more effectively outperform their competition. A must-have for any business leader who wants to have a healthy relationship with customers, this book avoids the pitfalls that often plague others that offer business advice. Frequently, company leaders turn to consultants and other resources to recommend strategies that sound great but ultimately don't have any real meaning because they are a series of words without a tie to actions. Combining his own professional experiences working as a CEO with his extensive research and expertise as an international authority on customer-centricity, author Robert Thompson has identified the five routine organizational habits successful customer-centric businesses use when executing strategy. Legendary leading customer-centric businesses: LISTEN to their customers' values and feedback. THINK about the implications of fact-based decisions on customers EMPOWER employees with the freedom they need to please customers CREATE new value for customers, without being asked DELIGHT customers by exceeding their expectations Crucial to Thompson's discussion of these habits is the premise that there are no quick fixes. Customer-centricity takes time, determination, and company-wide commitment. It must be maintained and constantly pursued to ensure that it becomes part of the fabric of a business. In the end, the results are well worth it. Hooked on Customers helps leaders understand, adopt, and implement the five crucial habits that enable companies to not only survive in highly competitive, overcrowded markets but to dominate them, creating a legacy of success and inspiration along the way.
Emphasizing both strategic and practical aspects of customer care, this work explains how gaining customer commitment and motivating employees to deliver an excellent service at all of a company's touch points can ensure successful results and satisfied customers.
This report examines the past decisions taken on the Typhoon fighter aircraft and looks at improvements that the Department can make to its delivery model to get more from industry in terms of reduced costs and better performance in the future. The Department originally planned to buy 232 aircraft. However, in light of changed operational requirements and significant funding constraints arising from the pressures of the defence budget, it is now ordering 160 aircraft and will retire the 53 oldest aircraft by 2019, leaving a long-term fleet of 107 aircraft. Overall, it is costing the Department £20.2 billion, £3.5 billion more than it first expected, to buy a third fewer aircraft. This is equivalent to the purchase cost of each aircraft rising by 75%, from £72 million to £126 million. Problems with the availability of spares mean that Typhoons are not flying the hours required and the Department is forced to cannibalise parts from other aircraft to maximise the number of aircraft available on a given day. As a result, it is not fully training all its pilots. Support costs are budgeted at £13.1 billion, but could be as high as £16.6 billion across the life of the aircraft. The Department has identified potential savings of £3.5 billion to keep support costs within budget. The Department will need to both reduce the cost and increase the timeliness of future collaborative spares and repairs contracts. At present, the contracts do little to incentivise better industry performance and to penalise failure.
