The ACX Consulting Blog v.2.0.

As of Friday 27th May, our new research is officially published and activated. In the retrospect, the overall preparation process went smoothly. We had little discussion formulating the scope and objectives of the research, determined that the research should have two stages: a survey and a set of case studies carried out based on the initial findings of the survey. Our team had few debates as to what questions should be in the survey, and agreed on the project outputs. As far as the platform is concerned, we initially deliberated whether we should develop the survey platform ourselves or use a ready-made product.

Having reviewed the available open source scripts (well, we are offering open source solutions, what else could be more logical to use than an open source application?) and having tested a few apps, we chose PHPSurveyor, v.0.99. After figuring out how it works, we set up the survey structure and worked on the questions until we reached.

When it was about time we hit the Start button, it became evident that the app is not behaving as it should, and it may potentially jeopardize the whole process. We went to the PHPSurveyor's website in search of the solution, and found out that the new release, v.0996, has this bug fixed already. The greatest thing about most open source solutions is that they are free (we didn't need to pay for the upgrade), all changes are documented, and the installation process is fairly simple even for those who's done it at least once, and we've done a fair share of installations by now.

Anyway, in about 20 minutes, our research, having migrated to a new version of the survey engine, was up and running using the settings we had already programmed earlier and the bug was gone. We did tweak a couple of system-generated messages to fix and customize some language issues, but other than that, everything else was fine. We started our survey, and in a matter of hours first results started to arrive. I will keep you posted on the progress.

Posted by CEO at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ACX Consulting has launched a new research on the influence of online marketing technologies on consulting companies and their marketing and PR strategies. Our team has already started the preparation process. More details will be available soon...

Posted by CEO at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our company has recently received an invitation to participate in the 6th Annual CIS, Central & Eastern Europe Airline Engineering & Maintenance Conference to be held in Bucharest, Romania in September. Should be a pretty interesting event. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Posted by CEO at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently, while working on the new projects, I noticed that establishing mutually beneficial business opportunities is a tricky thing. People don't seem to bother to answer emails in the middle of a promising conversation thread, cutting off the communications in its entirety.

It seems to be a popular trend going around when people are abruptly dropping the conversation and declining to reply to further emails when they feel that they do not clearly and obviously benefit from the results thereof. To put it in plain and simple English: "All of a sudden, I'm not interested in talking to you and I don't have enough guts and politeness to reply to your emails, so I'll just pretend my Outlook Express has developed an allergy to your incoming emails and hope you're dumb enough to believe it and not blame me".

I am sure most of us have been through hundreds or thousands of conversations that have lost their edge and are of not too much interest anymore. However, even though the matter you're trying to avoid may not bring you ten thousand dollars on the spot, there is no need to ignore a person communicating to you by not answering his or her emails. Of course, spam and other unsolicited emails should be treated adequately, no doubt about that, but...

The nature of contemporary business can be described as limitless opportunities and alternatives within a few clicks of a mouse. If you're not answering emails, somebody else would. If you are not thinking ahead into the future by severing further contact opportunities, then someone else is going to work with your partner. Most likely, a person who got dumped will make a point to spread negative publicity about you amongst his or her social network members.

One of the marketing gurus (don't remember who exactly, would appreciate a hint) said that a satisfied customer would bring three additional clients, but a dissatisfied customer would take away ten existing customers. This math is pretty grim for anyone selling goods or services and it applies to all areas of marketing and sales, as well as to HRM, logistics, etc..

Recently, a friend of mine shared a link leading to a serious website dealing with the subject of customer loyalty, Netpromoter.com. Two concepts have caught my attention, the concepts of promoters and detractors (basically, the same concept as the one I referred to above regarding satisfied and dissatisfied customers), and of good and bad profits. To save everyone time I'd just post a link to their page describing these concepts, and I am sure you'd agree with me that having too many detractors by ignoring your current or potential counterparts' or prospects' emails will eventually hurt your business.

Another implication of this issue has to do with business networking and relationship building, and I am planning to share a few thoughts on this matter in my next post.

Posted by CEO at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)