You need to LOCALIZE in-order to GLOBALIZE

For last few months news headlines have been filled with instances of business going bust and closing down operations in places which seemed to be the future growth engine. It seems globalization is no longer on top of agenda for any CEO. Instead consolidation or contraction is the IN thing. There is no dearth of reasons to blame for this change, few of these which meet the front page of business magazines are change in government policies, week currency, and unstable government. However one key reason which everyone is happy to ignore is, failure to LOCALIZE and according to me that is a key to success of any type of business entering a foreign land.

Let me give you an example from an industry which has been applied the principal of “Localization for Globalization”

Few days ago I was in India with a Chinese colleague. For dinner I decided to take him to an “Indian Chinese” restaurant, thinking he will find something of his taste there. After dinner he made a very interesting comment that the schezwan fried rice we had, nothing Chinese about it. It is not that Indian chefs no not know how to cook Chinese food, in-fact you will get a similar comment when you will take a Mexican to have quesadilla in Singapore or Indian to have Butter Chicken in UK.

What these restaurant chains have done is they have LOCALIZED the dishes to suit palate of places where they are. You cannot expect to succeed by serving spicy Hyderabad biryani in a place where people are used to eating salads and bread. Food industry has learned to ADAPT or in other words LOCALIZE to GLOBALIZE. Now let us go back to current trend of businesses exiting places which they considered promising just few months back.

Two most common mistake made by these businesses are –

• What works here will work there
• Everyone knows us

Before we get into depth of each, let me give you another example. Few years back I was in India and wanted to apply for a personal loan. I had heard about this international bank which had started operating in India. I called their office and asked them what I need to do to get a loan. The pleasantly sounding officer started giving me list of documents that I need (list seemed to be never ending), then I was asked to open a saving account with the bank and on top of that I was to travel 40 km to one of their branch to complete the formalities. Then I tried calling a local bank and I was told that their agent will come to my home on next day to provide details of the loan product and also take the required documents from me.

What do you think might have happened to the international bank I had called? The bank recently closed their operations in India and blamed it on market forces for this failure. However I think this international bank failed to LOCALIZE and that is what caused the failure. Not doing proper study of what product or service is available in local market and not appreciating what local wants is a perfect recipe of failure.

What works here will work there

No two markets are same, even if you are in business of selling apples. You cannot do apple to apple comparison when it comes to deciding what will work in each market. You cannot sit in London looking at Big Ben and decide how to sell a credit cards in New Delhi. What has worked in USA might not work in India, and what works in India might not work in Japan. You need someone on the ground to decide what and how to sell your product. Globalization is not just about selling products/services world over it is about studying the local market to decide what market wants and offering products to fulfil this need.

Everyone Knows Us

Tata is a household name in India, similarly Barclays is in UK, Walmart is in US but this does not mean that you are the centre of this world and everyone knows you. Establishing a name in foreign land is one of the biggest challenge and should be given highest priority in things to be done. Without building a trust around your brand you cannot convince people to buy your product. To build the trust businesses should remember that what worked in place A might not work in place B, so learning from local market again plays an important role.

If you don’t look at different markets through a different lens then you won’t be able to see what lies under the surface.Strength Weakness Opportunities andThreats are different for every market. Every new venture is a chance to learn and re-learn. Using same yardstick to measure success and failure in every market will end up shutting down business.

A note of caution is that it does not mean that businesses should not have any global strategy or global product line. What I want to allude to, is that we should be cautious before entering any market. Understanding wants and needs from local market are far more important than what we currently think they are. Also it does not mean that every market is always different, sometimes standardization is what local market require, a good example of standardization is Starbucks, go to any Starbucks in world and you will get the same taste of coffee. This is what one expect from Starbucks across the world but for majority of cases you need to LOCALIZE to GLOBALIZE.

Where will I put my money?

Last week I and my elder brother had a conversation around how will future look like. We were not talking about going to moon or flying cars, we were trying to determine what in near future will become the next iPhone or FACEBOOK. This does not mean that going to moon or having flying cars will not become a reality but it is something that I don’t think will happen in near future.

Like us I am sure that even you must be thinking about the contentious point in above statement. What is “Near Future”? It can be 1 year, 50 years or even 100 years, I don’t think there is any agreed and baseline definition of Near Future. So before we go ahead let us define what Near Future means with respect to this article. Our quest was to find a product or service that one should invest in now in-order to remain relevant in next 5 years period. Considering the speed of change I think anything more than 5 years is already too much in future to contemplate. So near future in respect to our discussion is from tomorrow to next 5 years.

All of us are too much involved in our day to day routine that we don’t get time to think about what is going to happen tomorrow. The only future we known of are the never ending business meetings and probably due dates for bills. Being on vacation I had some time to forget about my meetings and think about something outside my daily routine. And this conversation I had with my brother was a very thought provoking discussion. So I thought why not pen it down so that I can come back and validate it after I have lived this near future.

Neither me nor my brother claim to be the next Nostradamus so we should not be held responsible if future does not turn up in the way it is envisioned here. The knowledge or strategy I used to see what will work in future is not something I have developed; it was shared with everyone by great management guru Peter Drucker. According to him we should look outside the window to see what has happened today and determine how that will change the future. So it is not about guessing the future it is about gaining understanding of NOW.

Although at the end of discussion we did not decide on what product or service we are going to put our bets on. However from discussion came out three themes which I think can be used to create a framework to evaluate a product or service. None of this is rocket science; I am sure after reading this you will think you already knew it and is not new. But it is interesting to see how many people miss these things and focus on something other than these facts which are out in open for everyone to exploit. 

First theme which came out was “People Connection”, by this I mean any product or service that will connect people together will sustain. It is debatable if that people connection needs to be a face to face interaction or an electronic connection. My personal view is that no matter how user friendly mobile phones become but they cannot replace face to face interaction. But looking out of the window today, what I can see is group of 4 people sitting on a table and all engrossed in their phones. It should not be a surprise if all 4 of them are chatting to each over the phone other or posting photos of each other. It is a sad situation but I don’t see it changing in near future in fact all countries which are not impacted by the mobile fever will get infected by this virus soon.

However this theme is not limited to mobile applications, it will continue to grow in other forms as well. As the trend of small nuclear families increase we will see a bigger need for avenues for people to connect to other people. We will see more and more people who are neither connected personally nor professionally coming together to develop something out of the box. Trick to get riches from this theme is to create opportunities for people to connect.

A very fitting example of this theme is ZooBar in Mumbai, it is a hip bar at night but during day time it becomes a breeding place for entrepreneurs. This Hip Bar transform into a place where entrepreneurs can come together and use the facility as a work place.

Second theme which is shining bright is “Health & Lifestyle”, it should not be a surprise that we are seeing so many shops selling health supplements and gyms coming up in every nook and corner. There was a time when eating salad and soup was considered a sign of some health problem. But that has all changed; all generations both young and old are becoming more and more health conscious. After 5 pm City centre in Singapore transforms into a stadium with everyone working out and trying to burn the extra calorie one might have had during lunch, though lunch is mostly bowl of salad with soup. I am sure this is the trend in other parts of world as well, if not that is what is going to happen soon. Any product or service which is going to exploit this trend is for sure going to benefit.

Last but not the least is based on using the biggest asset that is available everywhere but is most underutilized i.e. DATA. Race between services creating data and those exploiting data seems to be a one sided with speed of data creation has left utilization of data far behind. Each one of us is creating an audit log of some form by every action we take. In some case an individual intentionally create this audit log like checking in through Facebook, and in other cases we are unknowingly creating audit log. Only way we can stop creating data is by locking ourselves in one room, however no one wants that, so let us not think of how to stop creating data. Future is going to be for products and services which will develop the capability to mine this data and exploit in the best way possible. And what is important to note is that it is not about using data within business but also about providing this data to customers. I recently saw a very good example of how Data has been used in a service, 1MG. it is a mobile application which provides information about medicines from different pharmaceutical companies having same salt as medicine prescribed by the doctor. Probably it might not be the first such service and many might already exist but the point is how this and other such applications are churning data which is already available and providing it to customers in innovative ways. 

With new products and services being introduced every day, I think those which are based on one or more than one of these themes will sustain and continue to grow in future. This vacation gave me a good framework that I can use to identify where I will put my money on, what about you?

Attracting New Customers and Ring Fencing Existing Credit Card Customers

Credit cards have become part and parcel of our life and almost in all developed and developing economies there are more than one bank issuing credit cards. However even in developed economies every customer that will “qualify” for credit card is not a credit card customer and at the same time customers who have credit cards do not hold one but many more. Attracting new customers and earning loyalty of existing customers has been a challenge for all banks. Working in credit card industry for more than 10 years and someone who owns so many credit cards that one can play poker with them, I thought it will be good to try and understand what attracts me to apply for a new credit card and what is the trigger that pushes me to use credit card for bank A or bank B or bank C. In this article I want to share some of the observations and insights that I found while trying to find these answers.

To start with first thing I did was to find a differentiation factor between each credit card I own or are available in market. It did not take me long to come to conclusion that all credit cards that I have come with same bells and whistle. There is none or almost negligible difference when you compare the 4Ps of credit card

• Product – Almost all banks offer same type of product contact, chip, contact less, VISA, MasterCard and so on
• Pricing – In many countries this is controlled by regulations and there is minimal or no difference between pricing attributes
• Promotion – Promotion or reward offerings are almost the same and as explained later only provides a temporary advantage
• Perception – Gone are the days when holding a American Express Personal Card was status symbol. Credit Card are now a mass market product so creating a perception of being special by holding a credit card is very difficult  

Of these 4Ps Product and Promotion are areas where most of the card issuers have been focussing on. However looking just under the skin, I think both of these are not a long term and assured strategy to gain growth in credit card business.  

Promotion and rewards seems to be the preferred line of attack, and most of the innovation is focused in this area. Consider an example from Singapore and I am confident that situation will be same in other parts of the world. Few years back DBS bank launched a credit card “POSB Everyday card”. This card gave 7% cash back on grocery purchase made in Carrefour. It was like a revolution and everyone I knew was flashing this blue POSB card. Fast forward few months to current situation, now POSB Every day is just one in the whole gamut of cards offering exactly same amount of cash back on grocery purchase. Being first to offer an innovative reward gives an early advantage however innovation in this area is easy to replicate. Since the rewards offer cannot be patented, the initial cash-in-on is short lived and others in race can easily finish one's advantage.

Looking at other area of Product where innovation is controlled by not just the issuer but also by regulators and acquirers. Changing the way customer make payment from magnetic to chip to contactless to mobile to something we don’t know now is a continuous journey. Innovation in this area in trying to do something outside industry trend can be a very expensive proposition. Dependencies on others make it more difficult to use this as a carrot to attract new customers and earn loyalty from existing customers.

Another thing is that both these innovation focus more on retaining existing customers and does not give enough to acquirer new customers.

So what is required to break this oppressive uniformity in credit cards? What can we offer to existing customers to earn their loyalty and to new customers to attract them to adopt the plastic money?

Talking to any marketing guru, answer to these question lies in doing an extensive market research involving interviews and surveys of different customers segments followed by analysis from the experts. I obviously do not have the resources or bandwidth to perform this. However I did knew 3 people who could help me to look for some answers in this regards they were I, Me and Myself. So to make life simpler I rephrased the above questions to

“What is the deciding factor for me to select credit card issued by bank A over bank B and what is the attracting factor for me to request a new credit card?”

Starting point for my research came from famous song from Passenger “Let her go”…

-          Well you only need the light when it’s burning low

-          Only miss the sun when it starts to set

-          You only know the value of credit card when it is not in pocket..

To solve the mystery of what credit card meant to me (and hopefully for others) I decided to take out the card of the deck from my purse and keep them in a safe location away from my sight and mind.

**To tell the truth moving from 20 to 0 cards was like asking me to stop going to Starbucks so to handle emergency situations I kept 2 cards with me. I still don’t know what made me select 2 out of 20 as that was the exact answer that I was about to explore.

After completing 1 month of this experiment the insight that I got was different from what I had expected. By not using credit cards for one would have expected a drastic loss in cash back credit and air miles (that I could have used to fly around the world). But that was not the case, by not using credit cards I in fact made significant saving in my monthly expenditure. This was a worrying observation.

Please don’t think that I am an insane who is worried because I saved money. On personal front I am very happy, but my professional self is worried by this observation. As I mentioned I have been working in credit card industry for last 10 years so my worry is that if every one of our customer discover this insight then I am out of job.

In current situation I think the complete business case of credit card is to fuel customers towards

• Accelerated spending
• Mindless spending
• Latest and greatest spending

This a concerning factor, with world economies moving towards a recession this cannot be a sustainable model and needs to change else all issuers will be out of business very soon.  

Probably we should look at credit card from a different viewpoint and focus not just on promotion and product but also on something else that is missing now. We have to change the impact of credit and by image I am not referring to card face but the way people think about credit cards. We have to look at transforming credit card from not being just a more of making payment into a financial management tool. A payment device which not only makes me do purchase but also helps me manage my expenses and prevent overspend.

Only 2 simple features Control & Track can help renovate credit cards. Giving customer Control of his expenditure and providing him information to Track his spend pattern should not be complex to implement. In-fact procedures required to give these tools to customers might be currently being used internally within banks.

Let us first look at Control, by control I mean allowing customer to take control of his expenditure. To allow setting limits on different type of transactions that one can perform using the credit card. Imagine making an online purchase of movie tickets and receiving a warning message stating that you are going to exceed your monthly spend limit for entertainment and you still have 15 more days before next billing cycle. Such message will make the customer think twice before confirming the purchase. A simple change and step towards avoiding mindless spending by customer. Many people do budgeting at start of the month, what a suitable tool it will be for them to set limits for their credit card based on monthly budget. No worry your credit card will not let you go Out of Control.

Track is a part and parcel of Control, what good is control when you are not able to track what you want to control. Consider a statement which tells me how I have been spending when compared to other people of similar demographic segment as I am. Where do I stand in comparison to others in my country or state? Can we think of issuer telling its customer that you are overspending in entertainment and you should consider reducing your spend or giving recommendation on where to go for next dinner so that you can save some money by using the credit card.

I don’t think any of these is difficult to provide to our customers. We issuers are sitting on a data mine which contains all the required information to help our customers Control & Track spending. If you are thinking that what will bank gain by allowing customers to spend less, a simple answer is loyalty to one card and easier onboarding for new reluctant customers. If I really want to Control & Track my spending I better use only one card else I don’t gain anything.

These are all view from research done by I, Me and Myself so can be different from other experts. As a customer and avid user of credit card this is what will attract me to use a particular credit card and I hope that is what You, We and Ourselves will prefer.

Most banks are focussed on looking at the new technology innovation which is going to change the “card face” of credit card and ignore the soul of credit card. We need to think why majority of people have only one Saving/Checking account but same individual has more than 5 or none credit card.

Getting Dressed for AGILE

In current day customers are spoilt with so many products and options available. This makes “Innovation and Time to Market” as the only sacred mantras which can help business in attracting and retaining customers. Every organization is looking for methods and ways to reach achieve shorter delivery timelines. In this endeavour AGILE delivery methodology is being looked as the elixir for this. Look around and you will notice that every organization is talking about LEAN and AGILE delivery and recruitment sites are filled with organizations looking for troops of product managers and scrum masters. Every IT professional is expected to know how to play POKER (not the card game but planning poker). If you are setting up a new organization it is very easy to set up an army of AGILE practitioners. However for an organization having a strong infantry force following WATERFALL, it can be very challenging to upgrade into a force of AGILE iron man.

I am not an AGILE evangelist, but with limited experience and knowledge that I have gained I am very confident and positive that AGILE can help in improving the way we delivery IT. In this paper I don’t intend to explain what does AGILE prescribes (internet is abundant with articles to provide information on AGILE methodology). What I want to cover here are pointers that companies should consider while implementing AGILE and what they need to consider when they start AGILE journey. 

Before we move on, it is important to understand that AGILE is not a rocket science. In very simple terms it advocates delivery through CAP (Collaboration, Adaption and Participation).

·         Collaboration between teams working on delivery. Instead of a top down approach for delivery, it promotes people who need to deliver to get together and work out a best way to deliver.

·         Adaption to changing environment. Unlike waterfall where introducing change to a project needs a complex process, AGILE endorses change. It does not mean that AGILE encourages making changes but is not averse to introducing changes.

·         Participation through constant engagement and involvement of business/customers. This I feel is one of the most positive ideas behind AGILE. Keeping customers engaged in delivery process ensures that they are always on-board throughout the journey of product development. This allows them to provide constant feedback which can improve the product and also gives them early view of what is being developed.

Now coming to the crux i.e. how to get dressed for AGILE? To transform from traditional waterfall to AGILE following areas need to be considered. I have categorized them into essential and catalysts. Essentials are the must haves and should be main focus of AGILE transformation process and catalysts are desirables which help in expediting and strengthening of implementation.

Remember without essentials catalysts cannot deliver any miracle. But what I have gathered from discussions with others most of the organizations put more emphasis on catalysts and leave some of the essentials. Believe me we can build an AGILE organization without catalysts, but missing one essential can lead to a disruption of delivery engine. Let me start with catalysts first and then move to essentials.

·         Co-Location – nothing scientific about this, having everyone at same location working together and discussing face to face avoids any type of communication gap and also helps in quick resolution of queries and issues. In current world it is almost impossible to achieve this in global organizations. This does not mean that AGILE teams cannot work if they are not co-located. With so much advancement in communication technologies it is very easy to communicate with colleagues working from different locations. What is important is that teams collaborate and participate regularly.

·         DevOps – another buzz word in software industry is DevOps – Continuous Delivery, Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration. These are methods which help in delivery process but are not essentials for AGILE. Trying to implement AGILE and DevOps together at same time might create more confusion and resistance in people. Organizations need to ensure that their army of professionals do not start taking AGILE and DevOps as synonyms and there is always a clear distinction between these two initiatives. This does not means that DevOps should have less focus but these initiatives should be clearly demarcated

·         Tools - like with every other initiatives tools complement the process they are meant for. Tools themselves cannot do anything. Tools facilitate or make some processes simpler but they should not be sole of AGILE implementation, focus should be in ensuring that a particular process is followed and not usage of tool e.g. excel can be used in place of Jira etc.

Moving on to Essentials without which AGILE journey will be doomed. As stressed earlier all these are important and there is no order or sequence in which they should be followed, every item under essentials is MUST-HAVE.   

·         Senior Leadership Support – You might find it amusing but fact is that implementation of AGILE needs to follow WATERFALL. What that means is that it needs to follow top down approach. Without support and reinforcement from senior leadership you won’t get required muscle power to change the delivery engine. If senior leadership have apprehensions about how AGILE can change your fortunes than we should be rest assured that you are starting your voyage on a boat which has a hole. It is not just lip service that is required, senior leadership needs to be involved and reassure the teams whenever there are doubts on direction they are navigating. Also it should be kept in mind that this journey is not FOC (Free of Cost), leadership should be ready to put in resources to fuel the movement and on top of it willing to risk few deliveries on the way. Remember such a big transformation requires a constant push and encouragements from leaders.

·         Training – one of the obvious must-have is training. Training the team on methodology itself is important. Training needs to be focussed on introducing the new methodology but also focus on highlighting differences with what they are doing now and how the change in process will bring benefits to organization. Organizations should not just invest on classroom trainings but also provide hand holding through coaches and experts.

·         Organization Structure – One of the key to success is that organizations need to be structured towards AGILE delivery. This is one hurdle which is most challenging to overcome.

People tend to believe that implementing AGILE will result in making them redundant. This can not only result in delay in AGILE implementation but also create a force working against the initiative itself. AGILE is just a different way of working it does not make any role redundant. We should remember that chocolate cake cannot be made without chocolate; it does not matter if it is baked in an over or in microwave. So first thing every organization should do is to develop a good screenplay. Talk to various teams and explain them what role they will plan in the new ensemble. Don’t leave them to figure out what they should be doing.

Second item to execute is breaking the walls. To better understand this point let us look at how most of the organizations are currently structured.

Obviously above picture is a very simplistic view of delivery engine but idea is that organizations are structured to create specialized teams which works with other teams by means of handovers created at different stages in form of requirement document, design document, technical specification, code etc. People tend to become oversensitive about their work and try to defend their boundaries in organization. Organizations cannot become AGILE without breaking these walls.

One of the foremost principal of AGILE is collaboration and participation and that requires open mind set and also team structured to work without boundaries. Teams need to have willingness to share responsibilities of others and also happy for others to assist in their work.

Though the name is AGILE, but transformation to AGILE delivery can become dead slow if any of the essentials are not taken care off.

Get the essentials right and add some or all the catalysts and see how AGILE can be AGILE transformation.

Take Haggling out of Estimation

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Haggle ˈhaɡ(ə)l/ verb - gerund or present participle: haggling dispute or bargain persistently,  especially over the cost of something.

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Estimation (or estimating) is the process of finding an estimate, or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. The value is nonetheless usable because it is derived from the best information available

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After spending some time to thinking about what will be a good start for this paper I finally decided to just put meaning of two words haggle and estimation. I am sure all of us at some point of time in our IT profession have been part of hopeless discussions either asking or providing justification on an estimate which someone thinks is higher than imaginary figure or is less than this imaginary acceptable figure. I am sure many of us will not agree to comment suggesting it is a hopeless discussion. People passionate about having these discussions will ask, what about governance and checks which are required to ensure that we do not overspend or under-spend allocated budget? I don’t dispute that we should not have any governance or checks around estimation process, cost plays a very important factor in success or failure of any delivery so it needs to be questioned and agreed. However it needs to be done with some rationality and should not end up in a haggling exercise similar to making a purchase at flea market.

 Consider a typical project estimation review meetings in your organization, my guess is that it will involve people from different business units, architecture teams and technology products sitting together and reviewing the effort (doesn’t matter if it is man days, hours or dollar value) for various projects. Depending on the budget at stake people involved in discussion could range from CEO, Directors, Vice Presidents, Product Leads etc. It is a simple rule, more money more scrutiny hence more questions all this translates to more time spend on examining estimates. Everyone comes to these meeting with a figure in mind which is based on individual knowledge and what is reviewed is an estimate which in most cases is submitted by an expert based on vast wealth of knowledge gained through years of work.

 These review meetings are supposed to ensure that whatever number has come out of estimate exercise has considered everything that is required and is worth spending compared to benefits that will be delivered by the change. However in high number of instances these end up in discussion on confirming that number that is estimated is the actual number and why can’t it be reduced further to an acceptable figure. Worst is that most of the times these questions are raised by the person in group who has no idea about what that estimated number is going to deliver. Laughable are situations when someone is asked to justify why estimate are less than an imaginative figure.

 It is like IT professional being asked to review an estimated provided to construct a bridge on a river. Normal human tendency is to probe others so what this IT professional will do is try to use his frame of reference which probably might be to create an application for Android phone which has been downloaded by 1 million users. What type of questions can we expect in this review meeting… Why can’t you construct the bridge in 1.5 million dollar instead of 1.7 million dollar?

 I call such discussions hopeless is because no one is going to win these debates and what is lost is time which translates into cost for all people participating in such discussions. Sometimes I wonder if anyone has performed any analysis on how much money is wasted in having such discussions. I will like to reiterate that we should blindly believe the person who is performing estimates we should definitely question the person who has estimated. But what should be scrutinized is what is behind the numbers and not number value itself. And most important should be scrutinized by someone who understands the underlying complexities on whatever is being estimated. 

But now things are changing for good and most of the organizations have realized that instead of wasting time in estimation we should invest money and time in delivering benefits. And AGILE estimation approach is a very positive step in this regards. I think AGILE estimation method helps to resolve two of the main problem we have been facing in waterfall estimation-

• Smaller Chunks – In waterfall model we estimate for a fully furnished house with all fittings completed, but in AGILE what we estimate is each room separately. Though I am still taking baby steps in AGILE delivery world, however I feel user stories are an excellent way of compartmentalize requirements. They provide small and manageable chunks to estimate and deliver. Someone mentioned to me that we should make estimate “palatable” in other words should not give a heart attack. Estimating user stories is a good way of making estimates tasty. I am sure we have encountered situations where requesting for 50,000 for one thing makes life a hell however requesting 5,000 for 10 things is like walking on roses. 

• Removes Black Box – In standard waterfall process requirements are written by person A in BRD, person B provides estimates based on BRD and later person C questions the estimates. Problem in this model is that all the three person work in a black box just handing off expected end products. In such situations if estimates are within an acceptable range everything is smooth however if it is not then we get into long discussions with all form of WHAT, WHY, HOW and WHERE questions. On other hand AGILE estimation process promotes is that A, B and C all work in collaboration during estimation as well. Here again person B is going to estimate however not the differences is person A and C are aware of what that estimate is based on.

•  Comparative – One of the most important reforming estimation technique promoted by AGILE delivery is that it is not re-inventing the wheel every time. Unlike waterfall model in which every project is estimated as an individual entity, AGILE estimation is based on comparative estimation. Past experiences and learning are not lost, every user story is estimated compared to other user stories within the project or to ones which are already executed. So estimations becomes an apple to apple comparison exercise which reduces time significantly. 

• Reduces Re-estimation – one of the draw-back of waterfall model is to estimate for all or none at first. One of the reason why everyone is so much focused on ensuring estimates are as close to actuals is because budget approval are taken based on estimates. And these numbers are based on All-Or-None approach. In number of instances what happens is after realizing that estimates exceed acceptable range we start to figure out how to break requirements into phases and look at famous MoSCoW categorization of requirements. And after investing lot of time in this re-estimation is done and this cycle keeps going on unless the estimates come within acceptable range. AGILE on other hand avoids this because user stories breaks business need into small manageable chunks for estimations and based on that these user stories can be prioritized and delivered.

 I will like to end this paper on a simple note that estimate is just an educated guess whatever scientific method and automation we build around this, it will not turn it into a true reflection of actual effort. So our focus should not be in ensuring that estimates are always palatable but to deliver benefits what underlying change will deliver.

Credit Cards In Social World

Living in a world that is shrinking every other second can be very challenging.. I am not referring to any scientific theory.

This is the new world of social networking where distance between two human is not measured in miles of km but in number of connections between them. Whenever I in a public transport I see almost 80% hooked to FACEBOOK, TWITTER, WHATSAPP, BLOGS or some other social networking site busy commenting, liking, twitting or sharing some thing. These social networking sites are bringing people across the world together and shrinking our planet earth. I am certain that this is situation not just in Singapore but also across every nation and every city in this world.

With this avalanche of social networking site swooping down on us, something that we need to ponder and deliberate is “are we doing enough to mould our credit card industry to blend into this new world”? Both as a credit card customer and also as a member of this credit card industry I feel that we are not doing flexing enough muscles in this area. In this paper I am putting some thoughts around some areas where we can use these social networking mediums in providing a better experience and offer new services to credit card customers. There are 3 main areas in which we need to design our social media ventures –

·           Engage “participate or become involved”

·           Collaborate “work jointly on an activity or project”

·           Communicate “share or exchange information or ideas”

Later in the paper we will see in more details on what can be done in each of these areas. But before going into some more details, first and foremost principle we need to understand is that every social media opportunity is not same. What this means is we cannot have same social media strategy for FACEBOOK as that of TWITTER, each one of the tool is meant to be use for different purpose. Defining a common social media strategy is like taking finding a venue for a group which includes non-vegetarian, vegetarian, teetotaler, drunkard, smoker, non-smoker all at same time. With this mix it is not possible to keep everyone happy at the end you will make one of the group low. Being one of the most non-socially active person in my social network I am not the authority to decide what strategy will work best for which tool. However one thing is for sure that all these tools have there own nuances which if not understood can lead to a failure.

Let us now move on and start thinking about being social..

SOCIAL OFFERS

There was a time when people did not bother to let others know about their plans for dinner or family outing and term check-in was mainly used in terms of boarding of an air flight. But now in this socially connected world people love to “check in” into restaurants, food courts, movie halls and what not. And not just that you will see people share photos of what they ordered for dinner at restaurant they just checked in. Now think if someone from your credit card bank posts a comment on your wall and recommends a good dish at restaurant you checked in or recommends a movie at the theater you checked in. And by the way, you also receive a post informing you that you can get a 10% discount if you make payment using mybank credit card or send a personal message to the customer through whatsapp or twit a discount voucher, which can be used at that shop?

Isn’t this exciting? With just one post we have not just made our customer happy but by posting on that FACEBOOK WALL that belongs to our valued customer we have also left graffiti for friends and family members to come and see what we have to offer. To achieve this we probably don’t require someone with credit card knowledge but someone who likes to eat food or watch movies.

SOCIAL HELP

Every bank has a customer service help line for our customers to call for help. And almost all banks have one toll free number, which can be used when customer is in same country as bank, and an international number, which can be called for help when outside the country. This is a service, which was par excellence when we had landline phones or non-smart mobile phones. In this socially connected world, yes our customers are on smart phone for most of the time of the day, however they are no making phone calls. And when you go outside country making an international call to call for help might itself be a complex process. It is much more cheaper to get a free wifi connection or a cheap data plan compared to keeping phone on international roaming or getting a new number in every county you visit. Also who cares to remember customer service phone number?

Now think, of having a twitter handle, which is easy to remember e.g. @saket_mathur, and can be used by our customers to tweet for help. Consider a scenario where our customer is in a problem and has lost his card and now needs some help to comeback to his country. In this situation how can we expect him to call a help line number and go answer myriad of questions from selecting language preference, entering credit card number, selecting that call is not for fee waiver etc etc. instead of this we have him tweet for help and we immediately enter into conversation and try to figure out how to get him out of problem.

Isn’t this more meaningful service being offered? Remember happy customer will share, retweet, like a good service. To achieve this we probably don’t require someone with credit card knowledge but someone who is in love with twitter.

SOCIAL LISTENING

Gone are the times when people used to meet once in a while and bank problems were of least interesting topic to discuss. But now in this new world, every incident irrespective of where and when it occurs is available for everyone to read and comment. And with so much of time being spent on social networks people tend to start making preconception about others. Also we need to remember that more than 50% of our customer are not going to call us to inform their displeasure and unhappiness but will post it on facebook their part of the story. I don’t think we do anything about this (unless the post is picked by some journalist), in this shrinking world ones image can be built or spoilt by “words of mouth” or “posts of facebook” or “tweets on twitter”.

Now think if we have someone who looks for negative and positive references to our bank and is able to start a conversation with the customer to understand the problem and help to salvage the situation by resolving the issue. It is important to note that SOCIAL LISTENING does not mean we into a melee with unhappy customer, instead try to understand the problem and resolve it in a mutually acceptable way. Remember when we go social it means we are SOCIAL every thing we do is SOCIAL i.e. seen, liked, retweet by the world. Don’t just look for bad press but also positive feedback, imagine sharing a good feedback about yourbank and immediately receiving a thank you note from the bank. You will feel that someone is listening to you.

Isn’t this more reassuring to our customers. To achieve this we probably don’t require someone with credit card knowledge but someone who is able to understand customer problem and able to resolve problem as a human and not based on documented scripts and rules. 

SOCIAL PARTNERSHIP

A standard practice that almost all banks follow before coming up with a new product launch is market research and probably engaging an external consultancy firm to tell us what our customers wants and how should we design our product offering to make our customers happy. In most of the cases a sample will be selected (this sample based no statistical theory will be indicative of complete customer base). If this sampling and market research was reason for success and failure of any product then I don’t think any product will fail at all, however we know many times every after following all steps we end up with a product which our customers discard. With this new generation which is stuck to social media, it is much more easier to reach out to all customers. And the best thing is majority (much more than sample used for market research) are ready to engage and collaborate with us.

Now think of a scenario where mybank wants to launch a new affinity credit card, for this if I want to decide charity organizations, which our customers will like to partner with. Instead of spending thousands in market research, we can probably create a blog explaining the product features and ask customers to provide comments and list of charity. This type of partnership between customers and financial organizations is yet to be seen. Very soon we might also be engaging customers to perform USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING for new products, at the end they are the real users. We all like to be asked for feedback and everyone feels proud when feedback is used to improve something.

SOCIAL SECURITY

To start with this is not about we providing social security support to all customers, instead it is about how can we use information available in social networking sites for improving security measures. We like it or not but it is not good posts, blogs, tweet that are shared, posted, tweeted on social networking sites but also negative. Every bank spends millions of dollars to ensure there systems and procedures are leak prove and are capable of identifying any activity which could result in money in wrong hands. Think about using posts and tweets made by customer or even friends list to identify customers, which potentially are or might use our banks servicing in supporting wrong causes. With ears and eyes on social networking sites we could be able to identify and avoid many unpleasant events.

What next?... This is not meant to be a complete list of ways we can ENGAGE, COLLABORATE and COMMUNICATE with our customers. I am sure many of us will like to consider concerns about our personal data being used by banks, it is definitely a challenge that needs to be reflected in carving the social media strategy, but one thing we should consider is that someone checkin into a restaurant wants everyone to know that he is going there to eat food and does not want to keep it a secret.

This is just a thought for all of us to see how we can start molding and deliberating in our own circles on using social networking for beneficial for the customers and growth of business. Probably soon we will allow customers to login to bank account using facebook login or will use twitter handle name as customer identification or will have our risk and fraud strategies based on what customers posts or who are in their friends list.

It is just a matter of time and some money to come closure to our customers.

Author – Saket Mathur (Vice President, Barclays)