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Written by ZOOZ consulting and training | (972)-9-9585085 | info@zooz.co.il | www.zooz.co.il

  | Issue 35 |


Hello!

We are pleased to send you the new issue of LaZOOZ.
This monthly newsletter is sent as a free service to thousands of senior executives.
It features different sections each time, and does not include advertisements.

We tried to keep it brief, assuming that your time is precious and the work is plentiful.
Those who wish to learn more, will find links to articles and relevant information sources.
We hope that you will find the newsletter useful. We will be happy to receive any comments and suggestions.

Pleasant reading!
Ari Manor, CEO, ZOOZ


Details

An interview with a senior executive

Idan Kleifeld, CEO of MIS Implant Technologies

  • Number of company employees : 130.
  • Number of direct subordinates : 7.
  • We provide: dental implants, dental accessories and tools.
  • I have been in my position for : For four years. I was previously the VP of Marketing at Elbit Optic Systems for four years, Operations Manager at the Marks & Spencer section at Delta Galilee for two years, a Department Manager and Factory Manager at Kitan for four years, and a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. I studied Industrial Engineering and Management and received my undergraduate degree from the Technion and my M.B.A. from Haifa University.
  • What I like about the job : To see the company grow and develop by tens of percentages each year.
  • The most difficult part of the job : To make logistic and organizational arrangements for the accelerated growth we are experiencing.
  • Goals I want to attain : I want to see the company continue to grow and flourish at a rapid pace.
  • Our vision: With regards to quality, our vision is to make our products convenient for every dentist, and to give every customer a permanent smile. With regards to quantity, our vision is to be in the leading tenth of the global industry. This can be done by growing faster than the market (which grows at an annual global rate of approx. 20%). In order to grow rapidly we have focused on countries with a growth rate that exceeds the average, and have invested in quality and developing innovative products and technologies. We arrived at this vision and strategy, which we have implemented throughout the past five years, with ZOOZ’s help, with whom we underwent a strategy development process. Since we are very close to fulfilling our vision, we will reformulate our objectives for the upcoming years in the next six months. Fulfilling our vision mainly manifests in decision making. Our decisions are constantly being made vis-à-vis the vision. In order to adhere to our vision we also repeatedly communicate it to our employees and distributors.
  • An original product in the market : We are the only ones that market an implant together with a sterile drill in the same package. Every implant requires the dentist to use a set of drills. Our drill is provided free of charge, and has become a very important marketing promotion for us. This drill makes it possible for the dentist to perform an accurate final drilling, and prevents infection and rejection of implants. It supports our vision of convenience to the dentist and a smile to the customer.
  • Sources of innovation : A strong presence in the market, and in each of the industry exhibitions and conventions. Israel is also a wellspring for numerous entrepreneurs and inventors that come to us on their own accord with new ideas, some of which are even registered as patents. Once every month to two months we have a meeting and discuss new ideas.
  • Recommended professional book :
    Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t by Jim Collins. by Jim Collins. I truly believe in the importance of people in an organization, and in the metaphor of getting the right people on the bus and getting the wrong people off. 
     
     
  • Send feedback to idan@mis-implants.com
  • Would you like to be interviewed?: contact us
  • Information about Excellence in Customer Service workshops is available here (Page 25 in PDF Booklet).

Education

A must-read book for managers

How customers think.jpg

How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market / Gerald Zaltman / Harvard Business School Press

Published in The Marker Magazine, September 2007, in " The Management Bookworm " column written by Ari Manor, CEO of ZOOZ.

 

Gerald Zaltman is a Harvard Business School professor and a partner in OZA, a marketing research institute. He served as President of the American Consumer Research Association, is considered one of the most sought after marketing lecturers, and has written 14 professional books to date. His book “How Customers Think” focuses on how to conduct in-depth studies to better understand what customers want. This is a unique and important book that describes an assortment of tools to conduct advanced market researches, and particularly to expose the unconscious thoughts of customers. Unfortunately, the book is very difficult to digest, which occasionally happens when the author is an academic and the field is scientific and complex (market researches, and at length – brain science and cognition). In addition, many parts of the book deal with theory and methods in status nascendi that have not yet been properly formed and matured. However, two main topics in the book are critical for all Marketing professionals, and have been written in a fairly clear and comprehensible fashion. This bookworm, which tends to recommend only practical and readable management books, has decided to deviate from its habit this time, and will recommend these two topics to you.

 

The first topic is entitled “The Foolishness Called Focus Groups”. These pages should be photocopied and distributed to every Marketing Manager, Brand Manager, Market Researcher and Advertising Manager. Focus Groups are apparently the most common marketing research method in Israel, which focus on questioning approx. 10 customers, with the help of a professional facilitator, about their opinions and feelings toward brands and innovations in a specific product category. The book emphatically stresses that focus groups should not be used as a basis for decision making, for a number of reasons: it is not a scientific or proven method; it does not foster a relationship of trust between the facilitator and the participants (even though trust is essential to obtaining open and honest answers); the effectiveness of the questioning decreases tremendously in groups with more than 4 participants; attempts participants in the focus groups make to get attention or appease the group hide their true thoughts; and worse of all – focus groups do not succeed in getting to the bottom of the consumers’ thoughts and feelings (even when a participant manages to present an opinion or feeling, the context and reasons are not explained).

 

Studies show that 95% of our thoughts (even those that affect our purchasing decisions) are completely subconscious. And since the focus groups are not capable of exposing what happens in the consumers’ subconscious, other tools are necessary. The book describes a wide variety of these tools. One of them, Metaphor Study (using in-depth interviews), is the second part of the book that shouldn’t be missed. Metaphors are apparently the language from which the subconscious and memory are comprised, and therefore also constitute the best way to reveal subconscious thoughts.

 

When a consumer is asked about his feelings and beliefs in a one-on-one interview (for example regarding a known brand or any sort of innovative idea), some metaphors are always intertwined in his answers. For example, the first paragraph in this section describes a consumer’s opinion (the writer of this section) about a product (the book that is recommended here). Among other things, the following metaphors appear in this paragraph: “in-depth studies”, “assortment of tools”, “expose thoughts”, “a very difficult book to digest”, “methods that have not yet matured”.

 

It turns out that it is possible to analyze the common denominator of metaphors that consumers raise (by ignoring their other answers) and thus to describe central beliefs and feelings that are in consumers’ subconscious. For example, the metaphors “in-depth studies” and “expose thoughts” allude to “digging, revealing internal layers”, and this new metaphor, which is not explicitly mentioned, can be used to market the book for example (“Diamonds in the customer’s mind” or “digging for thoughts” will be more successful titles for the book than “How Customers Think”.

 

Likewise, the metaphors “a difficult book to digest” and “methods that … have not yet matured” allude to a negative opinion about the book connected to “inedible food”. Such an expose of negative opinions can lead to an improvement of the product, and in our example to increased book sales. For example, the author can be instructed on how to rewrite the book and turn it into a “tastier snack” in any way possible (changing the order of the chapters, adding clarifying examples, organizing the text into shorter and more comprehensible sentences, summarizing the main points at the end of each chapter, etc.).

 

A metaphor study, the second topic that is important to read in this book, changes the ways the customers’ needs are revealed. This is where its importance lies. For the first time it is possible to reveal subconscious attitudes in a systematic, efficient, and inexpensive manner. This is a true revolution in subconscious research, which may change the foundations of psychology, sociology, and behavioral sciences, and turn these areas into more scientific, methodical and exact.

 

The book covers many other interesting topics, such as an analysis of the Titanic sinking, which can shake any organization from the foundations upon which it rests. In addition, if you decide to delve into the other chapters, take into account that many of the pages of the book are essentially rough diamonds that the reader will have to polish on their own. The bookworm therefore wishes you pleasant, cautious, and gradual reading.

 


Invention

An innovation which surprised the world market and competitors

Executive Summary

Who invented the executive summary? We have no clue. But we can look at it as multiplication (the complete content has been duplicated and shortened) and of course also as a partial reduction (of the majority of the complete text). The advantage is obvious – managers are busy (and do not want to go into too much detail…), and the summary saves them precious time.

 

In fact, summaries are a significant advantage for the general public. Reader’s Digest – the bestselling magazine in the world, was invented by the Wallace couple in 1922, in New York. They summarized a number of books in each of the magazine’s editions, and sent them by direct mailing to subscribers. It was an immediate success – many Americans wanted to be on top of things and acquaint themselves with more books, but they did not have the patience and leisure to read the complete versions. The magazine is currently published in 50 annual editions, in 21 languages, and is published in 60 countries to 18 million subscribers. Eighty five years after the first edition, Reader’s Digest is still around and going strong and it generates approximately half a billion dollars per year. It seems that time will continue to be money, even in future decades…

 

And since brevity is so important to readers, we got the hint and will stop here… that’s it. Finished. Period .

 

  • For the Reader’s Digest website, click here
  • For information on Systematic Innovation workshops: see here or contact us
  • An article on the Six Inventive Thinking Tools can be found here .

Published by ZOOZ | +972-9-9585085 | info@zooz.co.il | www.zooz.co.il

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