Year end guys. 2020 was a tough year for many of us. Don’t lose faith.
Wishing you guys a great 2020 plus new year.
1. Snowboarding 奥伊吹
First time snowboarding
I don’t know how to snowboard, so I watched lessons online before the day :) It is kind of out of my comfort zone.
We rode the 新幹線 (Shinkansen) for 35 minutes from 新大阪駅 (Shin Osaka Station) to the place. We got started very early, sun raised on one side, lighted up things on the other side of the train. The train speeded up to more than 300km/h, me with a hot coffee bottle, enjoying the beautiful morning at year end.
A bus took us through a beautiful scene of Japan countryside, snow paved the road sides, white mountain range and snow rivers. We finally arrived at the place.
This is my very first time snowboarding. It was hard at first, just like many other new things. I could not stand up and frequently felt down. Step by step, I started out with stance, walking, lean, turn and stop :). Woops, after so many tries, at the end of the day, I become much better with a full ride from the top to the bottom of the slope. Interesting that, even though I have never done snowboarding before, I can still manage it if I give enough tries and fix the previous problems in the next tries. Hand on actions matter right? Most meaningfully, it is a full day to relax after a long year working. 2020 was a tough one, for me and for many others.
On my way back, I saw this scene with a mountain range covered with snow, and sunset. A super cool, cold and grateful moment for me.
I know I fell in love with this country. I’m indebted for the help of my family, colleagues, friends and my managers-mentor. Without them, I could not make it through this year. And with that, life is full.
2. Customer centric mind
Am I thinking of customers enough?
The most customer centric person I have ever come across is Jeff Bezos of Amazon. He has done crazy things like keep his biz email at jeff@amazon.com and unhappy customers just can email him directly. Imagine being a Jeff employee and receiving a forward email with a big question mark.
There is no such company with no customer complaints or product claims. The point is how we accept complaints and solve the issue. There are businesses that do not give a damn about customer complaints. That is why I like Jeff's unchangeable attitude and high level of commitment to customer service.
For me, I’m trying to put myself to customers' shoes everyday in and day out; but I’m not confident that I know them well. Things are fragmented and always changing. The same as even if we spend years with a friend; we still don’t know them well enough. Until something unpleasant happens. In this case, a simple way to know someone better is together with them through ups and downs in life. The relationship will be much better just by simply spending more time with them, just listen and do something small but consistently, especially at tough times. And maybe, if we can just be with customers day in and day out, just a little bit more communication so they open up more and we get to know them better then. I think I should call it sympathy instead of customer behavior or marketing research.
3. The unavoidable cloud based-marketing
The fast changing landscape of data-based marketing
As customers are moving away from brick and mortar models to ….the cloud (e-commerce and apps). Mass media and paid ads are fading away fast. I saw a heated fight between mass media and social media, free and paid contents. Let's say CNN, New York Times vs. Twitter, Instagram, Medium and Substack.
I checked out Casper - a high tech and luxury public [sleep] company, as they called themselves. What caught my eyes is [Technology-Based, Data Driven and Agile Business Drive Margin Expansion]. They built Casper labs to solve emotional needs, thermal needs and mechanical needs of a body (technology based). Most importantly, they capture data from multiple sources: their website, social data, customer reviews, app, customer research, retail store data, retail partner data, Facebook Analytics and competitive insights, then go get the things out of these data to drive margin. It is like a role model of consumer goods business: infuse technology into products with a strong marketing machine backed by a data machine.
I have seen many companies have the same approach but at different levels of concentration to this data based marketing approach. One of the big barriers of a good data based- decision making system is the data machine itself. The approach is costly since it needs a data collection, data analysis and insight synthesis. It also needs good data people who are quite rare in the human resource market. These people need to know marketing, know how data work ( ex. basis statistics, or basis R, Python) and data communication. It is a mix of many dots related to business operation.
In an article on WSJ, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels predicted that the cloud will be everywhere next year. Marc Benioff of Salesforce is the CNN Business CEO of 2020. Biggest IPO this year in Japan is an online marketing-tool developer Plaid. These are clear signs that the next revolution in sales and marketing would be cloud based tools.
The good news is that, in recent years, multiple cloud based companies have emerged such as Salesforce, Tableau, HubSpot, Marketo, Palantir, Google Analytics. Also, many other specialized apps as marketing tools can be integrated into a current system through API, providing full gears for the next age of digital marketing.
So what would happen to paid ads and mass media? This is indeed an interesting question to watch out in the next few years.
4. Strategy vs execution
Which one is more important from a Japanese viewpoint?
Obviously, it is a hard question; but look like both are equally important. Maybe, at different leadership levels, people have different emphasis on these both in their career.
With the internet and social media, ideas flow freely. I just sit down in my room, with an internet connected device and I know roughly how things are going in Silicon Valley. For example: people are fleeing the Bay Area for Miami and Austin :) Most business leaders know what strategies work and what do not work. There are just a few people who really know how to set strategies and truly have a vision. The rest is how to make it happen. This is when execution comes into play.
From a hiring perspective, there are skills that are relatively easy to change, harder but doable and very difficult to change. Strategic skills are in the second catalogue: harder but doable. Looking at the 3rd column, I feel like these very difficult to change skills are directly linked to the ability to execute a defined strategy: integrity, energy, analysis skills and tenacity, for example. Especially, when a company grows bigger, all it needs is robust, precise execution to get stuff done in the way things should be.
From Japanese perspective, people are highly focused on details, carefulness and clear points. It is quiet conservative in a sense. That is why Japan stands out in industries that require continuous improvement such as automotive, machines and electrics. Moreover, now think about the execution of a group, a company and a society, not at individual level, Japanese seems stand out when it comes to group work.
Showing up on time everyday and getting stuff done with great focus are not so easy though.
5. Online vs Offline UX
Make online UX a greater marketing tough point.
Back then, a few years ago when I first saw a video in which a lady used a virtual reality mirror to check out a variety of clothes to find the one best fit her. That was astonishing. Then why not AR and VR become the next big thing in user experience, trying to close the gap between online and hand on experience.
Then the virus came, like fuel, it accelerated marketing people to close that gap. AR opens up various opportunities for marketing though:
To show customers products via AR apps, not just telling them
More meaningful interaction online, same experience if people go shopping
Have more fun, excited moments with AR apps, together with phones and products.
Try on stuff before buying, free to be creative and build your own products.
The market already made a move, trying to provide a more authentic online experience with 360 degree showroom view, online showroom, virtual clothing try on. It creates a cool customer touch point and a great data source. Lets have some fun with IKEA kitchen VR in the following video:
There is still a big gap between hand on and VR experience, especially authentic feeling, being outdoors and being socializing. However, the internet has its own interesting experience and can deliver a unique virtual experience; so I think someone should get into that space, make something interesting, such as a virtual museum the same as a real museum.
6. Time doing vs. Time Talking
How much should I do and how much should I talk?
Talk shows and business/tech conferences are great ways to share ideas and build communities. But I do not think we should focus on shows and conferences. We all should hand down and build things.
This is the place I believe we should focus on. There are guys, always on talk shows and conferences, nice pictures on SNS but not so nice products to customers. I have never gone to shows like TED Talk :) Sorry but:
When an online course tells you how to make money in real estate remember they are making money by selling online courses.
When a conference covers how to build an online business remember they are building an event business.
Learn from what people do as much as what they say.
7. Favorite Tweet
Just Japanese kids crossing the road
8. "Coloring the ocean purple"
What is the smallest but most meaningful step I can do?
Fresh graduated from a pretty good tech university in VN, I started out my career at a quiet big FMCG company with a big ego in mind and an ambitious dream. I failed. Completely. Vietnam is not Silicon Valley though. I learned the lesson of getting small things done well, being patient and persistent, just like Seth Godin describe below:
There's a dangerous prank that relies on thief-detector dye. This dye, sold as a powder, is quiet bright and a tiny bit goes a long way. Once the powder touches the moisture on your skin, it blooms into a bright purple and won't easily wash off.
Drop a teaspoon of it into a swimming pool, and all the water in the pool will become permanently bright purple. But if you drop it in the ocean, no one will notice.
When you seek to share your best work- your best story, your shot at change- it helps if it's likely to spread. It helps if it's permanent. But even if it's extraordinary, it's not going to make a difference if you drop it in the ocean.
That doesn't mean you give up hope.
It means you walk away from the ocean and look for a large swimming pool.
That's enough to make a difference. Begin there, with obsessive focus. Once it works, find another swimming pool. Even better, let your best customers spread the idea.
Seth Godin
Business people are ambitious. Sure million bucks are much more worthy than thousand bucks. Million followers on SNS are much better than thousand followers. But everything started from scratch. So begin there. Begin to purple the small swimming pool before getting it to the river.
9. The Hermès strategy
What define a luxury brand
The Hermès strategy revolves around our values: spirit of conquest, creativity, craftsmanship, quality, authenticity and independence. Creation hinges on two pillars: our craftsmanship activities and our exclusive distribution network.
Among these values, it is hard for me to understand the independence and spirit of conquest. But I fully got the idea of creativity, craftsmanship, quality and authenticity. In fact, the Hermès's strategy is built on:
Creation at the core of Hermès
Uniqueness and performance of the craftsmanship model
The dynamics of an exclusive distribution network
An entrepreneurial spirit and freedom of purchase
Burberry strategies look almost the same. People know how strategies of a luxury brand would look like but the point is still the execution.
10.What really matter, in the end
Only three things matter, according to Buddha
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
Buddha
The end
Toward the next newsletter on January 15, 2021.
Wishing you guys a prosperous new year.