Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - Facing facts'

I've been following the recent furore about Tesco's trial of face-scanning technology in its 450 petrol stations with interest. Apparently, the technology allows the camera to identify the customer's gender and approximate age and then deliver an appropriately targeted advert.

The targeting of adverts on web sites based on previous surfing history is well documented, the monitoring of spending through loyalty cards allowing targeted promotions has been around for several years, and the offering of free Wi-FI to facilitate the capture of data and routes to market is becoming ubiquitous. For a long time we've been told that the average person is viewed on CCTV an estimated 70 times each day even if the awareness falls into our subconscious.

This somehow seems to be a step further but is surely no surprise in an age of ever increasing technological sophistication and complexity. Just this week, I realised I'd left home without putting my pen in my suit pocket. Did I panic? No, I realised that almost all my note-taking, planning and writing is on my iPad and I rarely use a pen these days. I'd never have believed that would be the case even a couple of years ago but I genuinely couldn't imagine anything different now.

And so it is with credit management. I was at the ICTF conference recently which brings together credit professionals from across Europe. One of the sessions there was a workshop looking at the use of technology and how to identify and source the best solutions. As I travel around talking to credit people I'm made aware of the advances in the software and tools being used and, equally importantly, of its integration into legacy systems, processes and procedures. In most cases, it's about more than being increasingly efficient or saving cost, it's about being more effective and adding more value to the business.

Whether we like it or not, the evolution will continue and - to some extent at least - we have to embrace it if we want to maintain our position as individuals and organisations. Do I care if Tesco is working out my age and gender so that it can show me an advert I'm more likely to be interested in? When I think about it rationally, not really!

Guest blog by Debbie Tuckwood, Director of Operational Strategy, Institute of Credit Management – ‘Education that sticks’

In my view many miss opportunities because they overlook people.  It’s easy to focus on process improvement and new technology for dramatic savings.  After all people development takes time and investment - both in short supply.  It’s tempting to run token training though hardly surprising when there’s limited long-term benefits.  Deep down most know that without effective people change is difficult, however is people development really achievable given cut backs in training teams and budgets?

I believe it is, given the right strategy and support.  Look at the Institute’s corporate membership scheme for large teams which involves all.  It’s set up to help secure budgets and regular support from an education specialist (20 – 30% discounts help too).  If you focus then on moving 10% through qualification programmes, whether linked to own training or an external provider, you build skills and the appetite for learning.  After all, isn’t people development more about longer cultural change and ‘education that sticks’?

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - 'Understanding the value of software'

I had an interesting meeting with our friends at Intuit last week, a company probably best known for its Quickbooks range of accounting software. But as well as producing financial software for small businesses, it also provides free small business training through its Financial Fitness workshops programme. It was this latter activity and its support for Start-Up Loans that led to our meeting.

 

I was pretty impressed by the products I saw and by the ways in which different financial activities can be integrated and monitored over a range of mobile devices as well as traditional Pcs, but I was staggered by a statistic they shared with me. I'm well aware of the 'lies, damned lies, and statistics' notion but – even if the detail is over-stated  - it's still incredible. I was told that 66% of businesses with up to 15 employees use no software at all to manage their accounts, either relying on an accountant to periodically pull together numbers from a pile of abstract pieces of paper and records, or simply muddling through with a combination of paper and/or spreadsheets.

 

I've been preparing for a presentation at the Milton Keynes Business Expo 3.0 Exhibition on 8 March where I'm addressing the topic 'Cashflow is King – Ten Top Tips', and this has made me think. Managing a business means knowing its position at any particular point in time. With a diverse range of simple and inexpensive tools available from a host of different suppliers that allow for the production of invoices, recording of expenditure, taking of payments, summarising outstanding debts, and a great deal more besides, you have to ask why any business, however small, would not use something so obvious and instantly available to make its life easier. I clearly knew there'd be a proportion of businesses that manage without any software or specific credit management tools but 66% is a real concern. I think I have just found an eleventh tip…!

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - 'Just the job'

Some of you who know me will know that, since I spend a fair amount of time on the road, I am an avid listener to audiobook biographies as I drive.  Last weekend I finished listening to the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. The audiobook is unabridged, and on 20 CDs lasting 25 hours so it took a few weeks, but what a listen and what a story!

  

I wouldn't suggest that he was an ideal role model for, in many respects, the book suggests Jobs' style and communication skills left much to be desired.  Nevertheless, he had some qualities without which Apple wouldn't have grown from a start-up in his parents' garage to the world's largest company, and without which the Apple products wouldn't have earned the reputation they have for simplicity, quality and intuitive use.  He brought ideas, art and technology together in ways that invented the future.

  

His ability to focus on a small number of projects or details to the exclusion of everything else allowed him to ensure they received absolute and undivided attention.  His relentless drive for perfection meant he never settled for second best and never compromised any of his design principles.  His ability to see the future for his and other products and predict likely trends enabled him to spot opportunities in the market that would otherwise have missed and indeed were often missed by other players already in those very markets.

  

Some leaders push innovation by being good at the big picture, others by mastering details, but Jobs did both relentlessly and delivered a range of products over 30 years that transformed whole industries.  He quoted Henry Ford as saying "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse; our job is to show people what they can have"; Jobs believed Apple should show people what they were going to want before they knew it themselves; he said Apple's task was to read things that were not yet on the page.  When you look at the graphical interface introduced on the Mac, iTunes music downloads, iPods, the iPhone and, most recently, the iPad, it's hard not to accept that he did exactly that.

  

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of his personality was his frequently cited "reality distortion field' which resulted in him seeing things as he believed they should be rather than as they really were, and in him refusing to accept that something couldn't be achieved.  At the end of the book the author says that almost all the many people he interviewed would share a litany of examples of how badly Steve treated them but end by saying how he got them to do things they never dreamed possible and which they didn't believe they were capable of.

  

If you get the chance, it's a cracking good read (or listen) and has some great good and bad examples from both of which there is much to learn.

To find out more about the Institute of Credit Management visit www.icm.org.uk

Weekly Blog by Philip King, CEO of the ICM - 'To tweet or not to tweet'

Tweeting to Rachel Bridge of the Sunday Times, recently, made me realise just how far we have come in our social networking strategy.

We've now been actively tweeting for over a year (philipkingicm: 1,244 tweets; 389 followers / icmorg: 313 tweets; 145 followers), I've been writing this weekly blog for almost ten months (this is my 41st), and our LinkedIn group (ICM Credit Community) has amassed 1,745 members. These numbers both impress me by how quickly they've grown, and disappoint me in that so many people aren't engaging.

The reality of course is that we are all different; we all want to consume news and communicate in different ways. For some, our magazine Credit Management is the only communication they want to receive; others want email contact; and others want a mix.

And this of course isn't limited to contact from organisations like the ICM; it flows through all aspects of life. I can't remember the last time I watched the TV news yet I'm an avid listener to news on the radio; I've recently become a Kindle convert yet I always insisted I never would because I love books so much.

So what's my point? I've recently seen examples of just how powerful Twitter and LinkedIn can be in generating contact and communication (particularly with the press) that otherwise wouldn't happen. The Sunday Times coverage for the ICM ten days ago came as a direct consequence of a Twitter conversation between me and the Enterprise Editor. I'm making contact with some of our Members in an informal way that would not take place by phone or email, simply because Twitter and LinkedIn provide the opportunity to do so, and those conversations sometimes lead to deeper, 'real' conversations as a consequence.

We shouldn't be afraid to embrace new technology and ideas. Some will fail early, some will last a while then diminish (Friends Reunited is a good example), and others will get stronger - although there's already talk that Facebook's popularity is starting to decline precisely at the point when some of us are just beginning to understand its value. Twitter, too, will no doubt one day reach saturation point and outgrow itself. For now though, by being selective about who I follow, Twitter provides me with access to news, views, information, and contact that I might otherwise miss or at least not see so quickly. It is therefore useful. And I've talked to credit professionals who use these media as a way of knowing their customers better and that can pay real dividends!

http://twitter.com/philipkingicm
http://twitter.com/#!/icmorg
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=94851