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SUMMARY PERAFACE
/ MODERN SOCIETY AND RESPONSIBILITIES By Ahmet
Hamamcıoğlu/Editor Functions of
individuals are changing in information societies. We can say that all of the
individuals have to put forward their opinions, develop projects, follow up
developments, benefit from opportunities, introduce their productions to the
market, reduce the costs and build up the knowledge steadily accumulating. The world is in
continuous educating and development process. Continuous education comes to mean,
first of all, to develop oneself by following up the publications and
developments regarding ones profession. There's no limitation in learning and
evolution. They go up everyday. We have to know and use the modern communication
technologies. Today, we all have to be the pioneers of evolution and to add
value to the society. Projects at any level,
from introducing to producing, are being helpful guides to the individuals who
want to be the climbers. If the projects have some characteristics like
plausibility and reality, they easily find supporters to them and then catch the
successes. Modern societies are
asking for the best. They are open to the developments and not satisfied with
the present successes. Today, everybody have to deal with the social problems,
apart from their business. "You have to determine an attitude to go forward.
If you could not make any value, you'll lost" says Dave Ulrich from
Michigan University. The relation between
the quality of production/service and the quality of life is creating the basic
point of sensitivity and contribution to social responsibility. We live in the
country in which there are very big obstacles as heavy as country value. The
problem is that our people are staying back of the issues and not taking on the
responsibilities of them. Taking the responsibility on is a true approach, but
the main point is that we have to convince other peoples to take
responsibilities on. Further, we have to be the one who distributes the
responsibilities. The main point is
that "life quality". So the individuals who have some responsibilities
must contribute to life. We should contribute to be created of a Turkey in which
its individuals of it thinking, devising, producing and living in quality
standards of modern world. THE
TIES THAT BIND By
Steve Klinkerman, Managing Editor / Banking Strategies Magazine Is banking becoming a
totally dispassionate exercise? One would certainly think so, judging by the
proliferation of information technology in this industry. Increasingly, daily
sales and service decisions are based on statistical assessments of customer
preferences and relationship value, and transactions are migrating from the
personal banker to the personal computer. But former Harvard Business School
professor Fred Wiersema warns that banks are approaching things backwards when
they base customer approaches on sterile statistics. Wiersema talked with
Banking Strategies during the Bank Administration Institute's recent Retail
Delivery conference in Las Vegas. Question: How does
the banking industry stack up, in terms of its ability to make use of
information technology to serve customers in a way that is valuable, distinctive
and profitable? Wiersema: There are
more similarities than you might imagine. Everybody is facing big challenges in
dealing with increasingly competitive markets, getting and keeping customers and
using technology in the best way possible. One difference in finance is that
there are still many processes that conspicuously lend themselves to
streamlining. Significant additional efficiency gains can be had from
technology. This seems especially apparent within the context of mergers. But
one of the biggest challenges in banking is merger integration. Not only are
elaborate systems being combined, but also business models, workforces and
customer bases. Things get complicated rather quickly. Question: It seems
like there's a huge assumption being made that customer loyalty and
profitability can be held constant even as infrastructure is aggressively
collapsed. Wiersema: If
infrastructure implosion consumes 90% of our energy, and only 10% is left to
worry about customers, then we are putting things at risk. It is understandable
that the managerial center of gravity would tend to swing toward internal issues.
But when the pendulum swings too far, customers start sensing that they are not
getting the same level of attention. They feel a sense of abandonment. Then they
are ripe for the taking by other financial service organizations that are
willing to pay attention. Question: How do
managers capitalize on their newly won technological strengths while developing
the caring organizational persona you are talking about? Wiersema: The reality
is that many people in financial services are more comfortable with the physical
and numerical aspects of business. But it doesn't mean they are incapable of
building connections with customers. When given the chance, they can respond.
Typically, senior managers find it is an eye-opening experience to meet and deal
with customers directly. And I don't mean the ones with a high net worth and
social connections. I'm talking about the average customer who normally
interacts with a teller or a branch officer. But laboratory settings won't do.
We tend to get into all sorts of focus groups, where we can watch people through
one-way glass rather than sit in a room with them. We are viewing the customers
as if they are mice in the lab, just observing them. So how do you get beyond
close observation to intimacy? Let me give you some practical approaches. Give
each executive a list of three ordinary clients. The assignment is to call the
customers at home or at work and see what they like and dislike about the bank.
Just do that three times a month for three months, and you will be amazed at the
discoveries. The second technique
is a very practical one. Many banks have customer call centers. Slot two hours
on Friday afternoon, and put on the headphones and listen to the calls. Listen
to what the customers are complaining or raving about, and then listen to what
the customer service people are telling them. You will be alternately frustrated
and delighted, but you will get a fresh appreciation of how your bank interacts
with customers. Question: Put
yourself in the shoes of a hypothetical superregional CEO who has operations in
multiple states, more than $50 billion of assets and more than 10,000 employees.
Even if his immediate team goes through the regimen you suggest that might not
be the total answer for the organization. What he really needs is a broad-based
program that involves large numbers of employees and customers. Wiersema: You ask the
question that of course is on the mind of anyone aspiring to a market leadership
position. How do you evoke a company-wide determination to deal with customer
issues? Typically, the gap is
not with the people on the front lines, because they are dealing with customers
every day. So the question turns to the people in middle management. How do you
reach them? Every week at Dell Computer Corp., for example, half-dozen top
executives get together in a room, and they invite another hundred people from
the top and middle levels of the organization for a two-hour meeting. The first
thing that happens is that they get customers on the speakerphone talking about
complaints and service issues. Then they get into a discussion. What does this
tell us? What are the causes of this? Why haven't we been able to deal with this?
What could we possibly do about this? Question: This seems
to imply a shift from the traditional control mentality of banking to something
that is more flexible. The idea is not so much to uphold a rigid internal
hierarchy, but to meet customers' needs as expressed in any given moment. If you
agree, then how do you assure that outcome? Wiersema: I agree
that we would be moving away from a hierarchical, command-and-control structure
to something having a lot more equality and empowerment. In the empowered
organization, you may have 100,000 people exercising their intelligence,
applying their knowledge and making decisions. That's not to say that the
transformation should lead to extremes of spontaneity and improvisation, like in
jazz music. Alexander the Great basically conquered all of Asia. He called the
shots, but because he didn't have the technology to talk with his troops on a
moment-to-moment basis, he had to rely on them to make the right decisions in
the heat of battle. These were not unstructured decisions. The troops were well
trained and clearly understood the overall goals, so they could make the right
calls on the spot. The same principles were at work on D-Day in Europe. The
invasion was all planned. It was all orchestrated. We had our strategies in
place. But as soon as the Allies hit the coast of Normandy it was chaos. The
soldiers had to make the decisions. That's not jazz. It is orchestrated
empowerment. My main point is that
a lot of our command-and-control notions aren't applicable any more because they
are defensive in nature. They assume that the world isn't changing much. When
that's the case, then protecting and controlling things makes total sense. But
the world is changing, and the old-fashioned protective measures leave us
unprepared to deal with the onslaught of new competition. You don't win the
battle if you have a superb defense but no offense. Question: But the
superregional banker might say, "I've also been working with the major
consulting firms. I have all these information systems, I love statistics and
models, and I'm convinced that these tools ultimately will help me and my staff
make better decisions about how to serve customers." Is there some common
ground that can be found, so that information technology also plays a meaningful
role in helping the institution get close to customers? Wiersema: I have two
reactions. The first is that by the time you figure out all those things that
you are analytically comfortable with, by the time you have done all the
statistics, when you finally feel that you can act -- by that time the customer
is so fed up with you that he has probably written you off. If you over-analyze,
then ultimately you're not meeting a major customer concern, which is
responsiveness. The second reaction is that I believe people who think logically,
analytically, with statistics and numbers, really do much better if you give
them some tangible, number-based goals and activities to deal with. I would
point to three major customer priorities. The first is transparency. If
customers feel that you are accurate, reliable and responsive, that you are not
wasting their time and energy, then they give you better ratings. The second is
distinctiveness. Are you giving them a clear and compelling reason to choose you
over other alternatives they might be considering? The third is leadership.
Customers love to associate themselves with leaders, with winners, with
companies that are going places. You can back into
specific scorecard metrics that address these three broad priorities by asking
open-ended questions. Don't lead off by inquiring about specific performance
details, such as loan approval times, and then try to deduce which factors sway
overall customer perceptions and behavior. Go the opposite direction. For
example, ask customers which factors distinguish your bank from a short list of
alternative providers. As customers respond to this type of open-ended question,
themes will surface and repeat themselves. And these themes will give you a
data-driven way of tracking things. Question: This
approach seems compelling, but within a historical context it also seems to
border on the extravagant. Why should bankers go to such lengths? Wiersema: It all
comes down to the fact that the paradigm of competition has changed. Capital is
in plentiful supply, and the people who control it no longer run the show. The
real issue is customer scarcity. There's a shortage of customers and a glut of
suppliers. Hierarchical, mimetic thinking doesn't work under these circumstances.
If you do it the other way around, and say, "I'm just going to focus on
this set of customers, and on being this type of company, and this is how we are
going to be known, and this is how we are going to push things forward,"
then, yes, you might lose a few customers. But the ones that you keep are going
to be doubly happy with you, and they will be doubly committed to you, because
they know you are concentrating on something that they want to support. To line
up your strengths in this way, you need deep customer feedback. You can't
confine yourself to statistical output from a customer information system. Question: This has
some of the resonance of a test. You're subjecting yourself to the judgement of
the customers, and that doesn't sound like it's always easy to do. Wiersema: Precisely.
And at a personal level, this is one of the biggest challenges the CEO faces in
adopting a customer-centric approach. At the very moment when you're opening
yourself to the customer it viscerally hits you that you are not totally in
control. Suddenly you see that the customer is in the driver's seat. It's a
threatening feeling, and it's out of keeping with the cues top executives get
from within their own organizations. At the same time, the moment of interaction
can also be the moment of enlightenment about how to align the organization's
strengths with customer needs. EGYPTIAN
MONEY Modern Egyptian
currency (specifically paper money) ranges from the 25 Piastres (quarter pound
note) up to a 1,000-pound note. Unlike, for example, American bills, this money
is not the same size. The smaller the note denomination, the smaller its
physical size. Egyptian coins
duplicate the value of some the bills. There are 25 Piastres and 50 Piastres
coins. Because of this duplication, many establishments in Egypt it is rarely
possible to find coins. The value of 25 Piastres is so small that they are often
difficult to find in either coin or bill. Businesses often round up the prices
to the nearest pound. Monetary system as below: 1 Piastre (Guerche) =
10 Milliemes 1 Pound (Junayh) =
100 Piasters A STORY / MONEY FOR CANDYBy Sabri
Tandoğan from Unforgettable Memories A day of wonderful
spring... Leaves were in deep
green, the sky was is in deep blue...In some corner of the quarter, children
were adding more beauty onto the beauty. Suddenly one of them
said, “Come along! Let’s go to the uncle Şükrü’s shop to buy some
candy.” All of them but only
one accepted the idea in joy. When they asked that boy who was still waiting, if
he would come he said, “Yes,
of course, but some times later, you may go for the time being.” He was the son of a
poorest family in the quarter. His father died in his early ages. He is now an
orphan in his 4-5 years old. Mother was going to the others’ houses to work,
gaining money for her child’s breeding. When his friends invited him to go for
buying candy, he faltered, because he hasn’t got pocket money... At that time he was
very bored, he was in feelings of oppression... Then he thought about
what he could do... Suddenly bending
down, he collected a couple of broken glasses and went to the shop like others.
His friends have got candies already and they were leaving the shop. After last
one had left the shop he went into it very quickly and then left the broken
glasses on the bench. -
Uncle Şükrü! Is it possible to buy some candy to this money? That was a very
important moment.... When the boy was searching him thoroughly with the sharp
attention, the man who was the prettiest shopkeeper of the district saw the
situation and said: - Son... This is the
a valuable money, so you can buy what you want... ............. Around 50 years
passed since that time. I couldn’t able to forget that noble, elegant,
intelligent and experienced man who always appeared to me as a symbol of our
craftsmen. The boy in the above
story grew up, graduated from university and at last became a professor. He
tells this story when ever needed; he tells everyone about the role of uncle Şükrü,
the role just like the plaster between bricks; in existence of this society, and
in resisting to some mistakes.
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