dchase Weblog Archives

SNAFU

Interesting. The accountants say that costs to businesses resulting from the WTC attacks must be considered normal above the line business expenses:

The impact of the attack was so pervasive, affecting virtually every company and creating such a broadly new economic landscape, that "it almost made it ordinary," said [FASB] task-force member Dick Stock

CRM - The Mighty Mouse of a new generation

Today's New York Times carries a story about CRM saving the day for companies in the wake of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Most of the vignettes illustrate businesses using technology to do what businesses does (searching inventory, communicating with employees, etc.) - which, unfortunately appears to be the way most people are defining CRM. One example:

On the other hand, insurance companies like State Farm and New York Life Insurance, whose customer relationship systems are still being installed, had no easy way to find policy-holders in the area. "We had to wait for them to come to us," a State Farm spokeswoman said.

Um, State Farm and New York Life don't have database of policy holders that can be sorted by zip code and employees that are able to easily to extract this information? This can only be done with CRM software?

Good customer relationships rely more upon business planning and employee training than they do on computer applications.

Peter Drucker, you're my hero

This month's issue of Business 2.0 has an excellent interview with Peter Drucker. My favorite quote:

"...no financial man will ever understand business because financial people think a company makes money. A company makes shoes, and no financial man understands that. They think money is real. Shoes are real. Money is an end result. What is a business? The only function of a business is to create customer [value] and to innovate."

Using money as the principal metric to determine the direction of a business is like using an SAT scores as the primary determinant for entering college.

I also wish more consultants shared his sense of purpose:

What do you want to be remembered for?:
That I helped a few people accomplish their goals