Customers have a life cycle like products. If marketers can understand customers, they will have better profitability. The stages are: Reach & Awareness – Customers become aware of the company, Acquisition - Here company can identify the specific prospect by collecting information such as name and address on them and entering it into the CRM database, Conversion – In this stage, a company converts a prospect into a customer which includes the initial sale, Retention – Here first time customers are converted into continuing customers , and Advocacy – this is the final step in the life cycle where regular customers  are converted into advocates for your company and its products. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/customer-lifecycle-and-crm-75251

The IVR system bears a very diversifying opinion among companies. Some who favors it, does so because according to them it improves call center performance, improving brand perception and a few companies believe that IVR systems enhance profitability. Those companies who do not favor the system does so because they believe that the system is too difficult to implement, it is too expensive or can't action results. A large number of companies feel that customers don’t like the IVR system. Companies who still have a misconception about the utility of the system and is not accustomed to the advanced IVR technology is, therefore, unaware of the fact that IVR systems can actually give profit through real-time analysis of data and customer alerts generated by voice-to-text services. Read more at:  https://www.callcentrehelper.com/companies-avoid-ivr-surveys-because-%E2%80%98customers-don%E2%80%99t-like-them%E2%80%99-15319.htm

CRM helps companies to maintain healthy relationship with clients. CRM software improves two aspects of business: productivity and profitability and the right technology, if implemented correctly, not only improves business, but also improves the user experience for your clientele. But, it is important to acquire the right technology. This article writes about few factors that are important before adopting any CRM software.  Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/5-factors-to-consider-when-selecting-the-right-crm-solution-for-your-business-73169

According to successful CEOs and marketing experts, the survival of any business in the near future will rely on maintaining close relationships with customers. In this competitive and dynamic world, the ability to predict, adapt and change are the basic necessity for organization’s survival. According to Shawn Casemore (President and Founder of Casemore and Co Inc.), there are three fundamental areas of business that affect the profitability of any organization are:
• Customers
• Market
• Employees

 But for the growth and long-term survival of an organization, they need a close relationship with their customers. Three steps to create a close relationship with your customers are:

• Shift away from a functional mentality.
• Build offerings that deliver value.
• Tune into customer feedback.
To know more about these steps and professional view regarding marketing, please follow this link: http://www.industryweek.com/customer-relationships/increase-profits-creating-closer-customer-connections

The market is becoming more competitive nowadays. Companies like General Electric, Honeywell, Raytheon and IBM have managed to save billions of dollars in cost savings by process and quality improvement through Six Sigma. The majority of companies like to implement DMAIC methodology because they have existing processes. The remaining minority of Six Sigma practitioners is using a Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) approach to design a new product. DMAIC mainly focuses to improve the existing processes in such a way that final products can be produced with extremely low defects i.e. 3.4 defects in 1 million opportunities. Design for Six Sigma on the other hand, is about the design, development and commercialization of new products and processes for Six Sigma quality. To know more about DMAIC and DFSS, please go through the link: www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/design-for-six-sigma-dfss/design-six-sigma-dfss-versus-dmaic/

Lean Six Sigma is a managerial concept combining Lean and Six Sigma that results in the elimination of eight kinds of wastes / muda (classified as Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-Utilized Talent, Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Extra-Processing) and an improved capability of performance. The term Six Sigma is statistically based on the provision of goods and service at a rate of 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). A mnemonic for the wastes is "DOWNTIME”.

Over the years, this methodology has helped many firms to achieve process & output improvement. However, how about implementing lean six sigma concept to improve operating a city? That’s interesting! That was beyond our imagination. However, Tyler, a city located in Texas, United States, implemented Lean Six Sigma concepts to manage various projects and of course, with a saving of 5 Million US dollars, it can be said that the result was in its favour! Tyler Senior Public Relations Specialist Serena Butcher said the idea behind Lean Six Sigma is to identify waste and variation, so the city can save time and money and overall be more efficient. Mayor Barbara Bass also addressed attendees in a recent gathering to celebrate their success, saying, “In five short years, we’ve changed the culture of how we look at our jobs at city hall.”

To read more about how implementing Lean Six Sigma concepts actually worked for the City of Tyler, visit the following link address:

http://www.tylerpaper.com/TP-News+Local/197509/lean-six-sigma-city-of-tyler-celebrates-over-5-million-in-savings-with-program#.U0I6iqhgXgw

Well, nowadays retail banks are more focused in implementing data analytics techniques and models into their day to day decision making processes. Data analytics not only provide solutions to attract and retain profitable customers but also by the help of various tools and techniques like data discovery and visualization, it is possible to analyze the various aspects which are associated with customers. Retail bankers are trying to discover the relationships and correlations in large amounts of data using customer intelligence derived from analytics. Big data analytic enable them to track customer behavior and preferences to achieve higher level of customer satisfaction which definitely helps to achieve stakeholder’s wealth maximization. For more information, please go through the link: http://spotfire.tibco.com/blog/?p=22990

Big Data and Analytics have become very much popular nowadays. Every industry is incorporating analytical techniques to handle big data and predict future outcomes. The recent addition in the industry list to play with data is the airlines industry, who have started to love it. From carrying on regular and vital maintenance activities & optimizing them, to capturing customer behaviour in purchasing airline tickets, Big Data is surely helping the $743 billion global airline industry to earn profits. In what ways Big Data is actually supporting the airlines industry?

Have a look at http://www.datanami.com/datanami/2014-01-03/how_big_data_helps_airline_profitability.html for more information.

Outsourcing is an important dimension in this modern era of business, which is responsible for the execution and the handling of specific operational tasks. It allows an organization to allocate its full resources to its core area of interest, instead of deploying a substantial amount of resources in order to achieve specific operational tasks. Outsourcing provides strategic flexibility to an organization, apart from enabling it with a sense of concentrated focus towards its core playing field. 

With the Cloud services in offer, Globalization as its advantage, with competitive offerings from various outsourcing vendor organizations, Outsourcing is the taste of the time we are currently living in.

It is a bulls-eye strategy from an organizational perspective. 

Follow this link for a complete view on this aspect

https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&ved=0CFAQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fast.umich.edu%2Fpdfs%2FWhat-is-shared-services-102811.pdf&ei=8ewMU4GJNYazrgfetIDICQ&usg=AFQjCNFMU-Vool8nS2YKrDuPULXGevM80w&bvm=bv.61965928,d.bmk

The American Society of Quality (ASQ) is having its 2014 Lean and Six Sigma conference from February 24-25 in Phoenix, AZ, USA. The theme of the conference is “Sustaining Results Through a Culture of Quality,” focusing on new and unique applications of lean and Six Sigma, lean and Six Sigma in service, change management and the human side of lean and Six Sigma." Attendees can learn how oraganizations can embrace, apply, sustain and continuously leverage Lean and Six sigma methodologies to increase efficiencies, profitability and return on investment.  

The full program and session descriptions can be found at http://asq.org/conferences/six-sigma.