Customer Academy – The Asset Register

This landing page takes you to the assets built for The Academy Of Excellence In Dubai. It is a growing repository of work which explains the ideas and the approaches of ‘excellence’ both in the region and in general.

There can be no business or institution left on Earth that doesn’t at least recognise the need to understand and then engage fully with its audiences. It’s hard to imagine that anybody would disagree or deliberately adopt a different approach.

It stands to reason that no matter how sophisticated our use of technology and how great our processes and systems, ultimately we are at the mercy of the way we, as human beings, interact with each other.

• Who and what we value
• Who we are in the minds of others
• The way that we choose where and how to spend our precious time and money
• The way we make others feel
• The way we go about our work – what we choose to put our effort into
• The degree to which we inspire and motivate

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Understanding this core idea is simple

Bringing the ability to make every instance of our dealings with each other, with our customers and partners a quality experience, and in a way that is right for any particular culture, is the real test of a human-centred enterprise.

Almost everyone speaks about customers and customer-centricity. Sadly they apply it as if the only real outcome is a transaction that leads to yet more profit. Profit made from people that the business barely understands.

Customer Relationship Management is now predominantly a strategy to ensure that everyone on the target list is a route to long-term sales and nothing much else. We understand that this is an extreme view and also recognise that profitability has to be a key aim to satisfy shareholders and investors.

However we see evidence everywhere that suggests that the balance has tipped too far in favour of commercial gain. The resulting cynicism in the methods and the consultants earning their living from them is all around us. It’s a simple fact that every one of us humans likes to be treated with respect and sincerity. Think about it…

• It’s the sales attendant who suggests we don’t buy the thing they are selling, or sends us somewhere else completely, with whom we form a more long-term bond
• It’s the colleague who plans their work around needs other than purely their own who we will go the extra mile for
• It’s the partner who is willing to join forces over a shared purpose who we will open the door of opportunity for and commit to working with

These examples touch on things that we really value, and it’s what we really value that drives our behaviour and our choices.

The Frameworks

These frameworks represent the initial context and agreements reached over three days in collaboration. Covered here are a mix of subject matter insights and objective assessment of the Academy’s core
purpose and vision.

There are many decisions still to be made and further clarity to be reached. We now have a strong foundation from which to make the right choices and that ensures that we will develop this Academy on firm principles that in turn will keep us aligned to vision and mission.

The First Framework

This framework is designed to make sure that we each understand our various perspectives, goals and ambitions while ensuring that we reach a common and shared purpose in response to our exam question. This clarified the ‘brief’ that we used to design the Academy proposition.

The Second Framework

This framework sets some key benchmarks for the programme to design against. This is where we started the process to reach absolute clarity around what it will take to develop an Academy. It is here that we created the foundation for shaping and designing the selected solution.

The Third Framework

This framework is where we put real definition and structure to what we mean by an Academy of Excellence. This will force us to set the frame, the scope and the possible options for delivering it. From here we can decide how to ‘package up’ our offers and which ones to release first.

The Fourth Framework

Although we still need to move into meaningful planning we have started to identify the most important operational dimensions that must be in place and defined in support of the Academy and in order to maintain the level of excellence we wish to be known for.

Dubai Economic Development

SuperCharging The Thinking

The Pursuit Of Excellence

The Quest For Relevance