Wisdom from Abroad

I was taking in the sunshine on the bow of the Star Ferry moving right-on-time from Hong Kong to Kowloon. After a brief conversation about the weather I discovered that the man standing next to me - a Mr. Liu - was a government minister from Beijing on holiday. I asked about the explosive growth we were seeing in Hong Kong and Shang Hai, and about China’s preparation for the Olympics. He said, “Housing, food, clean water, transportation, hospitals, education - these are the things we are focused on now. Did you like our new airport? I bet people were very friendly to you”. I agreed, the airport was terrific, and the ground transportation and logistics in the city were terrific - from friendly cabs to an extremely clean and functional subway system. Then he said, “You are here and doing business because of our base, because you like our focus. You can see what we are doing. In America, you don’t have so much focus. You are distracted. That will always make it very hard to do business.”

The people in Hong Kong will be the first to admit that there are problems - but consistent with the cities fascination with time pieces - the infrastructure is being developed to operate with remarkable precision. I took a moment to think about my clients, and their commitment to the core infrastructure that supports their businesses. Mr. Liu would tell us that we are wasting energy if we try to innovate without first building a basic platform to support our business needs. Can your customers “see what you are doing” in terms of your investments in your business? How do the customers see your investment in a new CRM system? How do they see the results of an employee training program? The wisdom of Mr. Liu is to tighten up your infrastructure in a way that is reliable “Always on time, every time on time” and that is tangible for your customers.

I asked Mr. Liu if he would like to visit America, he said, “I see American TV. Not so sure I want to go!”