I am in the industry business for almost 20 years (I thought I would never say that!) and the funny thing is that I hear the same stories all over again and again.
People are different, economy is different, competition is different but the core business issues remain the same or quite the same (we can argue here).
In retail and CPG, stories such as the ones about inventory management, out of stock, merchandising, training the sales reps… and customer centricity are not new bit are still making the headlines in these industries. The customer centricity one is key and links all the others together.
As a retailer it is obvious to say customer is key or king in their business but it is one thing to say it and another to actually do something about it.

I was at NRF show in New York City a few weeks ago and I was amazed by the number of sessions, discussions and meetings with customers and partners where it was all about customer centricity. And, for the first time in twenty years, I can see it happening. The reason why? Time has changed and it is faster and easier to take the consumer’s aspiration and need into consideration. Why? Digital world and social networks are THE answers, or at least a big part of it.

In a session with CIOs of Walmart, McDonald’s and BestBuy, 5 minutes after the beginning of the session, the three of them jumped on Social media, customized and personalized customer experiences… customer centricity! Twitter, Facebook and others are where you are face to face with your target audience: listen, ask a question, test and implement. You are in direct line with the consumers, the decision makers but it’s a miss or win opportunity. This is not about transactions (well, at the end yes!), it is about collaborative marketing, it is about building a community around your brand, it’s about loyalty… and trust is a key word in that new landscape.

Ranjay Gulati, Harvard Business School professor and author of "Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business," on how to deliver what customers really want.

Another trend is Business Analytics or how to leverage the amount of data companies collect through their customer interactions. Collecting data is not new; data analysis is not new either. What is new is how companies leverage the data to provide personalized and customized experiences whether online or in store or through a mobile device. Customers have the data and now there are tools and solutions that help them do the analysis and activate that data for better customer satisfaction and loyalty. [Read the Lego story with Bruno Aziza]

Did I say Mobility? Okay, this is another major trend and change in the existing landscape for retailers and CPG manufacturers. In Japan, 58% of the population using a cell phone is browsing the internet with a mobile phone and they are 45% in China, 16% in the US. And they are between 23% (US) and 74% (South Korea) to buy content with their mobile phone! [Source: Sucharita Mulpuru Principal Analyst, Forrester Research]
Okay, I do not think this is a major trend. I believe this is a shift in the way people access online information and how they buy. Soon, this will be a must. [Read more from NRF’s Blog]

Finally, major insight from the week spent in NYC is that IT retail spend is back! Based on new IHL research study, retailers are investing +3.9% in IT in 2010.

The good news is that, with our partner ecosystems, we focus on all of these trends: stores, business insights, mobility, digital marketing/ecommerce. See further detail here: www.microosft.com/retail; www.microsoft.com/consumergoods; www.microsoft.com/hospitality

On a side note did you notice the increasing number of people taking pictures of slides from presentations? I personally do not see a lot of value in doing this as you take pictures of slides you don’t know what they are about because of your focus in taking that picture rather than the speaker and also because most speakers will send you their presentation upon request anyway.

Check this out!

This is a 4 minute-video that describes how we can work together to grow our business. This presentation was made for Microsoft Alliance Partners.

Who you are, and the perception I have of you can be very different from your reality. Perception is a human thing and it’s all about it. Furthermore, we don’t have the same expectations nor what we put behind value does mean the same for both of us either. Why this is great for you and not for me, why there is a huge value for me in doing this and little for you... Going further, communication is also key in that process of having someone being on the same level of understanding as someone else. “All” is about giving you the ability to trust me and persuading you there is another perspective of the reality you are seeing.
HSBC campaign below is a great example of what I am saying.

Getting closer to the ground and to our business reality, a great example is SQL Server vs. Oracle11g. Perception? SQL is for midmarket companies, SQL Server cannot run mission-critical apps, it is less secure, it does not meet our business requirements, Microsoft is more expensive anyway,… you name it. While Oracle has been on the market for ages running and synchronizing huge amount of data for enterprise companies, big ones.

Perception based on “we know what we own, that’s far from perfect but this is what we have and there is no need for a change” is why I hate it! I hate it because it is not true. I hate it because I can prove SQL Server 2008 is more effective and is definitely doing a better job running mission-critical apps than the competition.
We can help your customers save money, be more effective, make better decision faster, run their mission-critical apps better. The reason why I am saying that is based on facts. Facts that show why SQL Server is the data platform of choice. Need support to sell it? Shoot me an email.
See below for additional resources and proof points.

SQL Server 2008 reduces cost and delivers more value

Why SQL Server May Be More Suitable for You than Oracle RAC

Leaping forward: SQL Server 2008 compared to Oracle 11g

Want more facts?

As of April 14, 2008, SQL Server 2008 holds the record TPC-E benchmark at 1126 transactions per second (tps). SQL Server outperforms Oracle 11g at the 100‑GB, 300‑GB, 1‑terabyte, and 3‑terabyte TPC-H price/performance benchmarks.

Partner benchmarks:
SQL Server 2008 attains the world record scale on the SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application 3-tier benchmark on a 4-processor server using industry standard blade servers with 34,000 SAP SD Standard Application benchmark users.

Unisys sets a world record for extract, transform, and load (ETL) performance by loading 1 terabyte of data in less than 30 minutes. This was achieved by using SQL Server 2008 Integration Services

Camstar, a leading provider of Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) for global enterprises, reported a world record scale of 205 Manufacturing Execution System transactions per second, 14 percent higher throughput, and a 60 percent space reduction due to database compression. These results were achieved by using Camstar’s MES application, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server® 2008 compared to SQL Server 2005.

Based on a SQL Server 2005 case study published on May 2007, RedPrairie has seen a shift from 95 percent of its customers requesting UNIX-based solutions to 70 percent of its customers requesting Windows-based solutions. RedPrairie estimates that, by using the Microsoft application platform, it can deploy its solutions for less than half the cost of using UNIX-based hardware and software. Read the full SQL Server 2005 case study.

In Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BI Platforms, SQL Server is placed in the Leaders quadrant. Although Oracle is also in this quadrant, Microsoft is the highest-rated company for its success in making its vision a market reality, whereas Oracle is the fifth highest.

From Tokyo – Japan -

ASIA High Tech Summit 2009 ended minutes ago. 60 customers from Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China attended this Microsoft event organized by the High Tech Industry team. It was a two day session with impressive content delivered by customers. Innovation and supply chain were in every mouths. Professor

from Kinki University opened the summit with a deep dive into the economic situation in ASIA and why innovation and not only labor and cost is the key differentiator and the path to growth. 8 partners (HP, Accenture, Infosys, PTC, Siemens, Camstar, Dassault and Panasonic) were part of the event bringing their customers on stage and showing their solutions on their booths. The presence of 3 top PLM partners illustrates how important Innovation and Innovation management are critical in this market. During the show, we also did a series of 3’ podcasts to be shared internally with Microsoft sales people. Purpose of the podcast is to quickly show the field why to engage with these partners based on the value proposition and performance Microsoft + Partner bring to the market.
In summary, on a partnership perspective, the following ingredients were key to the success of this event:

• Anticipation: planning started in June 2009
• Collaboration: integration of the partners in the agenda through customer presentations
• Alignment: Microsoft and Partner local catchers
• Engagement: joint customer facing
• Follow up

Looking forward to ASIA High tech summit 2010!

No, we cannot say that but for sure the markets are showing signs that the worse might be behind us. We need to be ready when better times will come. I’ve been meeting many partners recently and they are saying they’d better be ready when the demand is back.

Be ready means to be in front of customers with solutions to meet the new demand. New demand in the new normal economy. Disturbing isn’t it? Working together we can make that happen. Innovation, alignment, prioritization and focus are the key words. Together we can do it. There are great technologies already available and huge ones that are coming up: SQL Server  2008, Windows 7, Windows Azure, Windows Server 2008R2, Office 2010, Silverlight… so many opportunities not to be missed.

To Innovate is even more critical in this new world. Innovate to exceed the customer’s demand, Innovate to stay ahead of the curve, Innovate to differentiate yourself from the competition…
But your innovation has to be seen from your customers. Together we can make this happen. We need to leverage every opportunities to show the value of your solutions when on top of Microsoft platform.

In a week from now I’ll be in Japan together with a few set of partners to meet with Asian customers. Together we will show the value of innovation and the value of your business solutions. A couple of months later, there will be the biggest Retail show again taking place in NYC in January not to mention the shop.org tradeshow that took place in Las Vegas in September. These shows are as many opportunities to meet customers and to tell our story together. Don’t miss them!

Nowadays the focus is on the short term. What are you working on? "close deals" most of us would say. While it's important to have the sales force focus on closing their deals, it is critical to maintain the right level of investment to generate the demand. During tough times, innovation, R&D and demand generation are even more critical. To that, I'd like to add awareness and thought leadership. These last two are the ones to suffer these days because of a lack of metrics to show enough ROI. The current economy and the short term focus result in less marketing awareness tactics that lead to thought leadership. One of the consequences can be seen in the pipeline.

Is your pipeline strong enough to meet your revenue objective?

This is probably an area where being able to rely on a strong partner ecosystem is a must. Sharing pipeline is key (even though this is something that can be done better) but to generate the demand to grow the pipeline is still key in how we can be successful working together. As said before, openness and honesty are very important as you cannot jointly engage without these two.
In recent days, I've been meeting with Global ISV partners to discuss joint engagement model. Successful meetings where those where a common target was identified. It's well know that despite you cannot agree on everything, if you have the same enemy then it'll become easier to fight alongside.
Find that "enemy" and build the go to market plans to win together!

Too often we are heads down on the day-to-day business and we loose sight of the big picture. We want to do something together and we want to do it now but do we know why, or actually do we know how this will help our businesses? Of course we are professionals and we know what we're doing but starting asking the right questions will not hurt. Step back a little bit would you.

Questions you should share with your partner before you jump into action:

• Do we have a business plan? Are the local teams in sync with corporate? 
• How much revenue do we want to generate this year?
• How many wins do we need to meet the revenue objective?
• To generate these wins, how many opportunities and how many leads do we have to have in the pipe?
• How many customers and prospects do we want to target?
• How are we going to execute the strategy i.e. is there a process in place, ROB, sales alignement, pipeline review...?
• Are our sales and Marketing teams aligned on the objectives? Do our sales forces understand the value of the partnership?

Of course, this list is not exhaustive but allow the two partners to seat down and talk about what they really want to do and what really needs to be done to achieve the business plan.
Then maybe the customer event we are talking about is really what needs to done to be successful or maybe not. Stepping right away into action is necessary at some point but we first need to know what the target is before shooting. And this is even more true in today's economy where targeting is key to show your customer what value you can bring and how your solution can help them be successful.

It's very easy to ruin a business partnership built in years in just a few seconds but it takes a lot of time and effort to build it. There is no partnership without a good Relationship. Relationship relies on people and whatever the partnership agreement, if you don't have the right People, you'll never be able to achieve your goals. Change one member of your team and the partnership can be at risk. Change Management, event minor, should be considered all the time. People, but also Communication is key to manage a good partnership. Never fear to over communicate, never assume the teams on both side are already aware. It happens all the time to think "yeah, we all know about it, it has been discussed during our last monthly call", well, it also happens all the time to hear people saying "first time I've heard about this, who took that decision and when...". Communication also means Honesty and transparency. As my mentor and manager at Carrefour used to say : "Always do what you say and say what you mean" and I add: "and always deliver on your promises". After 16 years on business, I think this is the best advise I've never received