The Perfect Coffee Shop 

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

My love affair with coffee started in the ‘dosa’ joints of Calcutta during my college days. The hot sugary liquid, served in a steel cup placed in a matching steel tumbler, was the best coffee that a college allowance could buy. The ‘filter coffee’ that they served was way better than any instant coffee that was available then or even now.  

I had the real taste of coffee much later on my business trips to Europe and the US. The coffee shops attracted me more for their ambiance rather than the coffee. They were places where one could just sit and watch the world go by.  As the years passed, I realized that I savored the coffee aroma more that the coffee taste. The smell of freshly brewed coffee is stimulating as well as refreshing. I made it a point to visit a coffee shop at every opportunity. I would choose small family run coffee shops because I thought the coffee and the food was authentic and so was the conversation. 

Those were times when the electronic appendages that are a dominant part of our life today were still in their infancy. Coffee shops were a great place to catch up with my reading, a habit which I sorely miss today.  

The coffee chains like the CCD and Barista started proliferating the metros in India right about the time I decided to give up my full-time job and set up a consulting practice of my own. Coffee shops offered the anonymity to work uninterrupted as well as set up meetings with clients. The added bonus was the constant wafting coffee smell. 

The ambiance in the coffee shops in India ten years back were a lot different than today. There were distinct categories of people for each of these chains. Barista and Costa had a more Business clientele whereas CCD catered to a younger crowd.  

The coffee joints, at least in Delhi, have changed a lot in the past ten years. Highs real estate costs have forced many of them to shut shop. The clientele too has changed over the years. And the coffee has got more expensive. 

Unlike their European counterparts, the Indian coffee shops do not offer an opportunity to ‘observe’ life as you sip coffee and catch up with whatever it is that you want to do. Umair Haque in his article ‘The Bistro and the Promenade - What We Can Learn from the French Way of Life’, has some very interesting observations gleaned from his own life in Paris and Montreal. A point in case is his observations about the way the chairs in the bistros are usually placed not across each other but side by side allowing conversations, laughter even falling in love. People gossip, share grief or in silence watch the world go by.  

Watching the world go by is therapeutic! It is fascinating to observe people. With my keen interest in marketing and therefore consumer behavior, I game the process challenging myself to predict the next move of the young couple or the old matriarch, with equal fervor.  

For me the Perfect Coffee shop allows me to work on my device if I need to. Read. Plug in my device to recharge if I need to (yes, I have been refused at a few places in Delhi). Watch life go by when I want to.  

There were a few places that matched my expectations. But all of them are gone. Or their coffee has become too esoteric for my liking. My need to ‘smell the coffee’ urges me stay in the hunt for that elusive Perfect Coffee Shop. Every day I keep looking. 

Selling is not an end game:

Selling is not an end game:

The Indian consumer is witnessing a massive up gradation in her lifestyle courtesy the highly competitive marketplace and the seemingly unending access to cash that the e-commerce portals invest in the form of product discounts to buy a huge consumer community.

This augurs well for the consumer community since they are now able to lay their hands on a whole range of consumer goodies including white & brown goods. Their new acquisitions drive them up the socio-economic ladder and gives them bragging rights over their newfound status. The frenzy around flash sales is a point to ponder over. Behavioral scientists are having a field day studying the new Indian consumer and her buying journey. Marketers are scrambling to up their game to be a few yards ahead of their competitors and grab market shares.

The problem lies in the next level of the value chain – service delivery. To keep costs low, firms are outsourcing a large component of the value chain. This is a segment where there is a huge opportunity to create brand experience and therefor brand loyalty. However, this opportunity is often missed out The outsourced workforce works on a cost-based model. Typically hires in this segment are not from the rururban SEC. Their concepts of the softer skills required to build brand image (time schedules, communication, presentation) are often not at par. Their environment many a time prevents them from comprehending these issues and why they are big for the customer and therefor the brand. 

The yellow boxes represent missed opportunities for the brand to create a superior brand experience and organizations need to closely monitor service delivery parameters.

I have myself had some recent experiences with a well-known electronic retailer. I have connected with the store, the customer support, sent them a detailed and long email. I even connected with them on twitter. All I got was another bored call-center voice asking me how I would rate their service on a scale of 1 to 10!

Outsourcing non-core and sometimes even core components of the value delivery process for a brand is a reality and is not going anywhere. It is at once an opportunity as well as a threat. An opportunity for entrepreneurs to offer creative and high-quality options at low cost. And this opportunity will continue to grow. The biggest threat for the brand is its inability to live up to customer expectations or competitive benchmarks. 

The New World Order

FIFA World Cup Football is a spectacular event that captivates audiences from more countries than any other spectator does. Passion rides high and teams, supporters and the whole eco-system that makes this grand event a success prepares for months and years.

The 2018 event was no exception except for the fact that it kept throwing up more surprises as each game progressed. The high and mighty of the game as in individuals as well as teams were left behind, overshadowed by teams written off even before the games started. Eventually, all the favorites were filtered out by their performance and the crown was passed on to someone not exactly new to the game.

Like in football, the business world also keeps filtering out the old giants who looked invincible is humbled and newer, nimbler businesses that were born ‘just yesterday’. A case in point is the once almighty GE. An erstwhile bell weather co, GE has produced some of the finest managers of the western world. There was a time, if you polled the top CEOs of the western world, most of them would have had a stint in GE sometimes in their career.

GE in the past has been the center of attention for the leading market shares it had in the domains in which it chose to operate. Under Jack Welch, GE grew into a huge behemoth with its leading presence in power, healthcare, engineering and host of other industries. GE is also credited with inventing some of the management concepts like Six Sigma, that is even today, practiced by many companies across the world.

According to some, GE’s advantage lay in its system of professional management, epitomized by its investments in executive education and management development. Leading academics were part of the education process that managers at GE went through. Jeffry Immelt carried on the tradition of Jack Welch and had Eric Ries, author of the chart topper book ‘The Lean Start-up’, as a part of the advisory team that guided GE managers as they struggled to survive.

GE may not be a write off yet. It might make a comeback like IBM did under Lou Gerstner. Only time will tell us about GE’s future.

With a wealth of knowledge, experience and resources available with them, why is it that companies like GE, Nokia, Kodak, Motorola and many more leaders of the industry fall behind? Is it the ‘boiling frog’ syndrome, lack of vision, unwilling to acknowledge change, refusal to give-up power? Or is it a combination of all of these and more that ensures a rapid sinking to the bottom of the pile?

If you look at the list of richest people in the world today, you will find the top three – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates & Mark Zuckerberg – all made their money in tech. But within the tech community itself you will find ample examples of companies that have followed the like of GE – Yahoo, My Space to name a couple.

It is therefore, not the changing industries and favorites of the moment, but the way we run our businesses that are responsible for the future fate of the organization. Finally, it is how we play the game!

Do You Have a Business Plan?

The argument for business plans goes both ways. Many an urban legend talks about entrepreneurs who have built billion-dollar businesses without having any idea about what a business plan is. On the other extreme there are those who have created equally successful businesses where every step of the way has been part of a structured plan. What therefore is the reality?

Let us start by assuming that you are of the belief that business plans are a whole bunch of crap created by suits from consulting organizations and eulogized in MBA programs. I am also assuming that you are one of those lucky ones who had a eureka moment and decided to act on it? Great! What next?

You start by developing the solution and think of ways to tell the whole world (your target audience) about the super-duper solution that you have for them that will make their life oh! So smooth. You need money which you may not have. So, you scrounge, beg or borrow till you have your business off the ground. And again, let’s assume that your product / solution flies off the shelves and you scramble to make more. You need more space more money and more arms and feet (and minds) to keep your new-found success from vanishing as quickly as it came. There you are – a successful entrepreneur.

Let’s look back and see what made you successful – an idea; your understanding that the idea could make money; your belief that some people would be willing to pay you for your solution; your decision to run with it; money; production; distribution; people and some balm to placate irate people when you goofed up. And congratulations, you have the mental ability and maybe some paper napkins to helped you on your journey. Tell you what - someday in the future, there will be too many zeros to take care off, too many people on either side to remember them by name, too many loose ends; too many products to be sent to too many destinations. And when you feel totally overwhelmed, you may reach out for that piece of paper, your laptop or the software that your friend spoke about to keep your head above the water.

Whethe you are the genius with a huge capability to churn all the wheels in your mind or the simple joe, we all plan if we are serious about making our ideas work. Sometimes a paper napkin gives us the head start that we need but other times, it may be a worthwhile to give a structure to your thoughts. For lack of a better name, you may call it your ‘Business Plan’.

The Customer Service Pitfall

I have always had this grouse that most companies and individuals in companies stumble and have a great fall when it comes to customer service. I also believe that most companies, specially the ones with multiple national lineage have the processes and intent in place but goof-up happens at the frontline level where either the executive is either incapable of having a perspective or is limited by the company’s policies of not empowering them to take on the spot decisions.

I am very happy to have encountered an extremely pleasant and satisfying experience the other day and I have hopes that the some of the organisations are stepping up their game.

I had done my weekly shopping at the Hypercity outlet in Noida, a suburb of Delhi. On returning home, I realised that the cashier had kept aside one of the items at the time of billing and had forgotten to put it my shopping bag. After speaking to customer service, I was given a complaint reference number and asked to visit the store and contact the store’s customer service for complaint redressal.

I had some extensive international travel right after this incidence and so was unable to visit the store. It was only after approximately two and a half months that I could actually visit the store to replies some groceries that were running low. I went up-to the Customer Service desk and gave them the reference number and the invoice of my previous purchase and complain. I was informed that the ownership of the store had changed, and that the database of the existing store was merged with that of the new owners and the executive therefore had no access to the referenced complaint.

This is when the story takes a turn for the better. The CSE very politely said and I quote: “sir, I am sure your complaint is genuine, and I apologise for the inconvenience you have been put to. I cant not resolve this problem of yours but I will give you a merchandise worth the value of the missing item against your current purchase. Please complete your check out and collect the merchandise from me”.

The entire episode took less than two minutes to resolve. The customer (me) was happy; the store brand got a few positive ticks and the CSE did his job. What was the level of difficulty – very low. Why is then that the larger lot of service providers are unable to retrieve the situation and create positive moments of truths for their brand and company? Why is it that these companies do not empower the front lines, the people interacting with real consumers, to take decisions that cost little but give huge returns in terms of customer goodwill, positive WOM and may be also some brand loyalty?

My only regret in this incident was that I forgot to ask the gentleman’s name. Next time for sure.

The Internet has made location redundant. Has it really?

In 1997, the Book “Death of Distance” by Frances Cairncross popularized the concept that The Web made distance redundant. Twenty years is a long time for the internet to have established its dominance and made all of us servile to the web.

While there is no doubt that our lives have come to be dominated by it’s almost omnipresence, but if you peep into any shopping area or a bank or eatery, there seems to be overwhelmed by a rush of people to buy their products or services.

Business.com in a 2017 report claims that for e-commerce sales as percentage of total retail sales, China has the highest share at 15.9% followed by United States of America at 7.5%.

We also have witnessed a surge in retail real estate prices in most growing economies in the world.

So why is it that in spite of our growing addiction and dependence on the ubiquitous mobile phone and a plethora of other such gadgets, commerce is still dependent on the traditional methods of exchange and interaction?

The possible reasons for this could be many:

In a recently published essay “How Geography Shapes—and is Shaped By—the Internet,” written by Chris Forman, Avi Goldfarb, and Shane Greenstein, the authors attempt to answer the question, “What consequences did the spread of the internet have for geographical location of economic activity?”

In an interview with Sean Silverthorne of Harvard Business School, Shane Greenstein states that “though internet technology ostensibly diffused everywhere, it did not get experienced as the same technology in each location”.

Moving away from the business side, many of us would rather hear a living human voice no matter how human & intelligent ‘Alex’ may sound. The Voice Assistant Market is right now on fire but could be a novelty factor or a fad driving it. Human beings need appropriate responses from other human beings to perpetuate their own self-worth. Machines are years away, if at, in providing us that same sense of wellbeing.

The future of the newspaper as we know it

Something major happened in my life this May. Something I never thought would and I am still at times struggling with this new reality. I stopped my subscription of all the newspapers! Well not all of them. I retained one – Times of India.

Why was TOI the chosen one? For one, the wife would once in a while rustle through Delhi Times catching up with all the Bollywood gossip. And second, I still had withdrawal symptoms that the familiar rustle could take care of in case of severe depression.

What’s so earth shattering about someone stopping his news paper subscription! The global news paper industry with the exception of a few countries like India is grappling with this phenomenon every day.

It becomes significant when you consider that a) I am on the wrong side of fifty b) that it is habit which maybe is more than forty years old c) news paper subscriptions do not create any dent in your pocket and therefore is not a significant saving d) I read at least four news papers every day and e) when I am adopting a new way of accessing news – digital!

The change did not happen overnight. It has been quite some time that I have been switching between the virtual and real world while accessing news. It has taken me much longer to give up the familiar ‘thump’ of the newspapers landing on my balcony where the vendor expertly throws it every morning and untying the band and staring at the headlined news of events that happened late last night as the world slept. And then sitting with my favourite cuppa and trawling through the rest of the paper.

Here is what made me want to change:

• I have much better access to news via gadgets that fit so conveniently in my pocket
• I have a choice of what kind of ‘news’ I want to read and can use the services of a news aggregator which makes it so much easier to separate the wanted from the unwanted
• I can easily clip and save information that I cannot consume right now but can have easy access some times in the future
• I have the ability to access news as it happens
• Any significant information that is useful to someone in my network can be instantaneously sent across to him
• Even after going through the more news sources now than before, I feel I am managing my morning time much better
• Archived copies can be accessed easily
• I make a small contribution to the environment

How has my experience been in the last few months? To be honest, I am not sure if am over the old habit as yet. The reason being that there is a huge difference between newspapers and how they manage their digital products. I somehow prefer the ones that convert the item of your choice into a PDF file. That way, the news and graphics stay as organized as they were in the actual paper. I also find that some of the images, especially data, are of such poor quality that you really cannot read the information.

It is time that news paper publishers looked very seriously at digital products and the user experience. The younger people, who are the bulk of the population today and would also be the bulk of the consuming class, are more comfortable in a digital environment. And as per my own experience they are not used to reading print versions of newspapers, and have to be lured to newer forms of news access. Without this audience, the publishers stand to loose a large portion of their advertising revenue which is the mainstay of this business. That to me does not make business sense.