2014年1月29日星期三

ESG Seminar - Sales Strategy to Align Sales Force

The Executive Study Group (ESG) seminar in January 2014 entitled “Sales Strategy - How to Align Sales Force to Deliver Their Best for Customers and Your Company” which was held by the ESG, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp (HKSTPC) on 28 January 2014. I would like to summarize the seminar for sharing below.

Firstly, Dr. Mark Lee introduced the content of seminar included "Serving Customer vs Serving Managers", "A Sales Management System (SMS)", "Outcome Control (OC) System", "Behavior Control (BC) System", "Key Components of a SMS", "Challenge of System Inconsistency", "Inconsistency Check-up Tool", "Implementation Challenges at the Company Level" and "Group Discussion".


Serving Customer vs Serving Managers
Dr. Lee asked Who is My Real Boss? If Customer is King, salespeople would put the customer first. If Manager is King, salespeople would put their district or regional manager first. Confusion could be a sign indicating that your company's sales force controls were in conflict with one another (Internal Struggling!).

Then Dr. Lee quoted Prof. Erin Anderson that "Strategy suffers and execution fails when companies don't help salespeople manage the tension between serving the customer and serving the company. A holistic sales force control system can improve alignment and results."


A Sales Management System (SMS)
SMS consisted the rules that governed the way a company to train, monitor, supervise, motivate and evaluate their salespeople. SMS demonstrated what management expects from its sales team. SMS is like a compass to guide the decision making.
There were three key components of SMS included Intervention, Compensation and Performance Criteria.
1. The degree of management's intervention in daily sales activities.
2. The types of compensation offered to salespeople.
3. The number and types of criteria managers use to evaluate salespeople performance.


Outcome Control (OC) System and Behavior Control (BC) System
There are two extremes of SMS which separate as Outcome Control (OC) System and Behavior Control (BC) System. Their goals and criteria are different.

What situations to choose OC System? It should be included:
1. Customers need information.
2. The sale is open.
3. Customers trust the salesperson.
4. There are many ways to close the deal

What situations to choose BC System? It should be included:
1. Your salespeople lack experience
2. You need to protect your brand (marketing)
3. You have high non-sales priorities (e.g. Cash flow and inventory turn)
4. It is hard to assign sales credit (e.g. Apple Store)

System Components of a Sales Management System
The following table showed Six System Components in SMS on OC system and BC system respectively.


Challenge of System Inconsistency
Dr. Lee said many companies function quite well somewhere in the middle between OC and BC system. OC system preferred by Successful Salespeople but BC system preferred by Managers. There would be self-contradictory for doing Both at the same time. If a company used many criteria to evaluate its salespeople but it also offered minimal or no monitoring and coaching that was a problem of Inconsistency.


Inconsistency Check-up Tool
Using the Six System Components in SMS as self-check tool to rate each component near OC or BC. If it is a straight line, meaning that you system is well balanced. If the line zigzags, indicating inconsistency and you need to take a closer look at how your sales function works.


Three Common Patterns of System Inconsistency was discussed. They were the ever-present manager, Sublime neglect and the black hole.
1. The ever-present manager
It is the most frequent type of mismatch. A company generally used OC system but Interventionist Managers focus on results but evaluation using BC system. They frequent monitoring their salespeople but no coaching. Therefore, salespeople resisted management's interference.

2. Sublime neglect
A company used BC system but they didn't provide salespeople with sufficient coaching from and contact with mangement. Therefore, they lacked of direction.
3. The black hole
It is OC system fundamentally but with opague evaluation methods. Salespeople feel like the company is customer and result oriented but those individual performance evaluations is a mystery. Under this culture, salespeople consider arbitrary and political, and then become cynical.

Finally, Dr. Lee said consistent system with the right location that some where in the middle was ideal. One of challenges of BC system was too many overhead.

Before the group discussion, Dr. Lee used NLP method to give us an exercise to choose the most common inconsistency and the least common inconsistency pattern of three patterns of system inconsistency.


Reference:
The Centre for Logistics Technologies and Supply Chain Optimization, CUHK - http://www.logitsco.cuhk.edu.hk/
HKSTP - www.hkstp.org

2014年1月27日星期一

罪與佛 - 苦海無邊金曲集

支持二次創作!
2014年度「佛教流行曲概念大碟」《罪與佛》 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WUaiJ0L2yM)

正所謂天下音樂出少林,潛伏長達六年之久,在少林寺大雄寶殿錄製的全新佛門概念大碟《罪與佛》,在全球樂壇投下震撼的原子彈。老納以其超脫俗世的清淨梵音唱出一段段至情至性的佛理,打破了音樂的框框,也超渡了眾生,弘揚了佛法。


《罪與佛》 -- 收錄多首膾炙人口既熱播新歌


搖滾吧!金剛經!
不是佛祖我不要
以佛之名
耶路撒冷的菩提樹


甜佛兒
於佛有愧 (III - 成人內容)
圓寂以後
今天只念一次經 (III - 成人內容)
那一簇迦裟
老衲不保留
Lonely Buddha Christmas / Lonely Buddha Birthday

其他佛曲:
僧人 (II)

一共33首苦海無邊金曲

Reference:
Parody Exemption Seminar 戲仿豁免研討會 - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/09/parody-exemption-seminar.html
保護二次創作!戲仿豁免研討會 - https://www.facebook.com/events/400504376739554/
戲仿作品公眾諮詢文件要點 - http://www.ipd.gov.hk/chi/intellectual_property/copyright/key_point_of_consultation_paper_on_Parody.pdf
戲仿諮詢文件 - http://www.cedb.gov.hk/citb/doc/tc/Consultation_Paper_Chinese.pdf
English version: http://www.cedb.gov.hk/citb/doc/en/Consultation_Paper_English.pdf
維基經濟學的思索 (Contemplation of Wikinomics) - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2008/04/contemplation-of-wikinomics.html


2014年1月25日星期六

HKSQ Seminar - A Strategic Direction for Hong Kong Wine Industry


HKSQ had arranged a seminar belong to Quality Life Series named "A Strategic Direction for Hong Kong Wine Industry on 25 January 2014 (after the workshop for Oyster Shucking and Wine Pairing). The seminar featured a blueprint for the development of Hong Kong as a supply hub of wines that beared the hallmarks of quality, value and innovation. Its characteristics were imperative to meeting consumer demands of the 21st Century and paramount to transforming the existing operational practices into a success industry formula. We were honor to invite three speakers for the seminar. In the beginning, Mr. Jack Ting (HKSQ Exco member) introduced speakers background and topic.


Then I introduced Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) background, mission and activities.


The first speaker was Mr. Eden Wong (General Manager, VplusU Company Limited) and his topic entitled "Current Challenges and Issues Relating to Wine Quality Assurance in Hong Kong and China: Retailers' Perspective".


People said Maotai (茅台) was Liquid GOLD and Wine (Grape Wine) was Liquid RUBY. Eden introduced wine trade's characteristics such as "Low Entry Barrier", "High Profit Margin", "Storable Commodities", and "Tax Free to re-export wine to China". Then Eden discussed the wine market in Hong Kong and China. It was observed that the wine import was increased significantly in Hong Kong since 2005. Six Major countries' wine import into China were discussed and they were France, Australia, Spain, Chile, Italy and US.


After that Eden explained the current challenges such as Retailer; and discussed about Quality Assurance included Product and Service Quality.


The following diagrams showed the type of Grape Wine (e.g. Markety Type, Geographic Segment, Grape and Product Category) and Old & New World map.



Finally, he mentioned the challenges in Hong Kong and China. He quoted HOFEX 2011 that average consumer wine knowledge in Hong Kong was still at least 15 years behind Australia. He also stated the different in Guangdong and Shanghai Wine Culture that less than 10% white wine imported in South China; but more than 55% white wine imported in Shanghai. Eden concluded that challenges were coming from: (i) Consumer lacks of experience to appreciate the wines and hence lower the purchase desire; and (ii) Retailer lacks of product knowledge to understand the market demand and hence weakening the sales performance.


Eden introduced Collection Wines' Values: Finest, Rarest, Craftwork, History and Collection; and its Vintage, Oak Aging and Complexity.

The second speaker was Mr. Andrew Yu (Solution Development Manager, GS1 Hong Kong) and his topic named "To Enhance the Image and Reputation of Hong Kong Wine Industry: Wine Standard, Quality Certification and Best Practices". His presentation included counterfeiting, cases sharing - France-China Wine Traceability and SIMS Trading "Scan and Share".


Andrew said Hong Kong Government Policy to retain the position as a Asia Wine Hub through fortifying the certification scheme for wine storage facilities, manpower training and eduction (e.g. HKQAA - Hong Kong Wine Registration Scheme & Wine Storage Management Systems Certification Scheme); Facilitating the movement of wine imports into the Mainland; and Combating counterfeits.
Then he mentioned some solution to cope with counterfeiting such as Variable Data (Data on every security label was different and was randomized); Just-In-Time Association (Label printer didn't know which label you would use for the product); and Interactive (Consumer could have more interactive indication during authenticate the product). The following diagram showed an interested solution. 


For case sharing, Andrew used "France-China Wine Traceability as sample to explain the objectives to protect country's interest by reducing illegal wine smuggling and uplift inspection accuracy, to protect business interest by reducing number of inspection sample and streamline custom clearance; as well as, to protect consumers interest by preventing counterfeits found in market.

Another case sharing was SIMS Trading "Scan & Share" which objectives were to provide an interactive and fun experience for consumer; to increase brand awareness; as well as, to gain market insights.


Mr. Adam Kwan (Assistant VP, Technology Development, PCCW) was the last speaker and his presentation was "To Improve the Profitability of Vineyard and Wine Business: Technology Adoption for Wine Quality Assurance". Adam's talk included Introduction of RFID, Technology Adoption for Wine - Warehouse, Cold Chain & ezTRACK, as well as other RFID application for Supply Chain Management.


Firstly, Adam introduced the RFID tag and its types included Passive tag, BAP/Active tag with Conditional sensor and Active tag.


The applications of special passive tag were demonstrated in the following diagram and samples. The tag's frequency decided its application such as LF (125/134 kHz) used as animal tagging for access control; HF (13.56 MHz) used as Smart card (e.g. Octopus) and also for access control; UHF (860-960 MHz) used as Supply Chain for Burglar alarm system (e.g. Airport Luggage Tracking); and Microwave (2.4 GHz) used as Electronic toll collection (e.g. Autotoll).



Then Adam shared an implementation case that the furnished & secure 10,000sf cellar (VIP & General Storage) accommodates 80,000 bottles of fine wine. The industry issues and challenges were mentioned and four problem should be resolved such as risk of mixed wine, loss of wine, operation efficient and goodwill.


The RFID enabled Wine Management System was introduced from receiving to delivery. Its benefits included Enhanced Accuracy Security, Marketing Effect, Future Proof & Scalability, and Enhanced Operations Efficiency & Productivity.


Mr. Peter Fung (Vice Chairman of HKSQ) presented a souvenir to Mr. Eden Wong.


Mr. Peter Fung (Vice Chairman of HKSQ) presented a souvenir to Mr. Andrew Yu.


Mr. Peter Fung (Vice Chairman of HKSQ) presented a souvenir to Mr. Adam Kwan.


Photos during the break sharing:



Reference:
HKSQ - www.hksq.org
VPlusu - http://www.vplusu.com.hk/
GS1 Hong Kong - http://www.gs1hk.org/en/home.html
PCCW Solutions - http://www.pccwsolutions.com/public/Home

Other HKSQ Quality Life Series activities:
20140112 - Workshop for Oyster Shucking and Wine Pairing
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/01/hksq-oyster-shucking-and-wine-pairing.html
20130124 - The historical development of Sheung Wan Hong Kong Island for the past 100 years (港島上環區百年變遷講座)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/01/the-historical-development-of-sheung.html
20130126 - The historical visit to Sheung Wan Hong Kong Island for the past 100 years (港島上環區百年變遷考察)
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/01/the-historical-visit-to-sheung-wan-hong.html
20130914 - HKSQ Tour to Heritage Sites of Central District
http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/09/hksq-tour-to-heritage-sites-of-central.html


2014年1月22日星期三

Kick-off Ceremony for the 30th Anniversary of CityU

Today, I attended the kick-off ceremony for the 30th Anniversary of City University of Hong Kong (CityU). CityU has established since 1984. Its previous name was City Polytechnic of Hong Kong (CPHK) and then upgraded to CityU in 1994. I had studied several degrees in CityU since 1989 and showed as follows:
1989 - 1992: Higher Diploma in Applied Science (AP Dept)
1992 - 1994: BSc(Hon) in Applied Physics (AP Dept)
1994 - 1997: MPhil in Chemistry (BCH Dept)
2005 - 2010: EngD in Engineering Management (SEEM Dept (previous named MEEM Dept))
CityU has 30 years old that my study life in CityU has 13 years.


In the beginning of the 30th Anniversary Kick-off Ceremony, dancing club student presented pop dancing.


University Council Chairman, President and Honour Guests gave us ceremony remarks.


Professor Way Kuo (President, CityU) gave a welcome speech.


Then the lighting ceremony was performed and the slogan named "Professional - Creative For The World (專業 創新 胸懷全球)". Then a short video about the ceremony and new 30th Anniversary logo was showed.


After that student representatives and all guests took a group photo with birthday cake for CityU.


Photo with Mr. HY Wong (Associate VP (Knowledge Transfer), Knowledge Transfer Office, CityU)


CityU Eminence Society member took a group photo with Prof. Way Kuo.


Reference:
CityU 30th Anniversary Homepage - http://www.cityu.edu.hk/cityu30/
CityU Eminence Society - http://www.cityues.org/

HKAS Training Course on ISO Guide 35

The Training Course named "ISO Guide 35: Current Requirements and Proposed Revision" was organized by the Hong Kong Accreditation Service (HKAS) in Lecture Theatre, Block M, Queen Elizabeth Hospital on 22 Jan 2014.

The speaker was Mr. Daniel Tholen (Technical Consultant, The American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA)) and his presentation content included the follows:
1. ISO Guides for Reference Materials
2. Guide 34 requirements in Guide 35
3. Guide 34 requirements not in Guide 35


In the beginning, Mr. Daniel Tholen briefed different ISO guides for reference material and its revisions.
- Guide 30: Terms and Definitions for Reference Materials
- Guide 31: Contents of Certificates and Labels
- Guide 34: General Requirements for Competence of Reference Material Producers
- Guide 35: General and Statistical Principles for Certification (Tentative revision title: General Guidance for the Assignment of Property Values)

Other new guidance documents were also mentioned such as:
- Internal Production of RMs for QC (Guide 80)
- RMs for Nominal properties (TR 79)
- Guidance for use of RMs (Guide 33)
The discussion would be expected on next REMCO meeting in July, USA.


"Guide 34 requirements in Guide 35" included Quality Policy (4.1.2) and follows:
- 5.12 Metrological traceability
- 5.13 Assessment of homogeneity
- 5.14 Assessment of stability
- 5.15 Characterization
- 5.16 Assignment of property values and their uncertainties

However, the current approach in Guide 35 did not design for situation of commercial Reference Material Producers (RMPs) because of Cost Considerations, Time to Market and Uncertainty. The guide was also difficult for many accreditation bodies use because of Statistics, Traceability and Uncertainty.

"Guide 34 requirements not in Guide 35" were shown as follows:
- Non-certified RMs (e.g. QC and PT)
- Demonstrating equivalence of replacement batches
- Uncertainty in the presence of degradation
- Qualitative RMs
- Stability under usage conditions (might not be addressed in revision)

The confusing topics in Guide 35 were discussed as follows.
- Minimum uncertainty for homogeneity must be > 0
- Minimum uncertainty for stability must be > 0
- Short term stability vs. Transportation
- Characterization in one laboratory using a single (primary) method

The proposed changes from latest circulation drafts were showed in the following slides.


Homogeneity testing was usually necessary and was able to use estimates of uncertainty from previous batches of similar material. (where Ubb - Uncertainty between bottle; Sr - repeatability)


The following criteria used for determining minimum number of units to test for homogeneity. (where Nprod - No. of production)


Other consideration of Homogeneity included to check:
- Within-unit homogeneity
- Trend in testing order and in production order
- Outlier difference between replicates
- the use interlaboratory nested design
- report minimum sample amount

Stability general consideration included use of information from previous batches of similar material, and allow u(lts) = 0, and it should test all properties. (where u(lts) - uncertainty of long term stability)

Short term Stability:
- Transportation
- Storage by user under alternative conditions
Long term Stability:
- Classical, or real-time studies
- Isochronus studies
- Accelerated studies

Characterization four types of studies as discussed in G34 was proposed to combine into three types of studies as follows.


Special issues of characterization on CRMs such as Purity, Secondary, Identity, Presence/Absence, Ordinal & Qualitative Properties, as well as Uncertainty were discussed.

Reference:
HKAS - http://www.itc.gov.hk/en/quality/hkas/about.htm
A2LA Seminar Leaders - http://www.a2la.org/training/biographies.cfm

2014年1月19日星期日

HKACM Classmates Visit to CUHK Herb Garden

Teacher Appreciation Banquet (謝師宴) was arranged by classmates of Chinese Massage Manipulation (推拿手法學), Hong Kong Academy of Chinese Medicine (香港中醫藥科技學院) at CUHK on 19th January 2014. We had lunch with Ms. Huang Hai Ping and her daughter. (Left fourth and fifth)


After that we visited CUHK Herbal Garden (中草藥園) and studied different herbal and its function of Chinese medicine. We took a photo in the entry of Herbal Garden


The history of Herbal Garden was recorded and we took photos for different herb.




Finally, we visited Prof. HM Lam's home in CUHK and found that it could see my office in Science Park.


I was honour to took a photo with Prof. HM Lam (School of Life Sciences, CUHK) and showed his book and paper (Nature Genetics!).


The following photos were taken from our class named Chinese Massage Manipulation (推拿手法學) which completed in Dec 2013.
Minda and I practised the technique each other.


Group photo after class completion.
(Left first row: Third is Ms. Huang Hai Ping (Asso. Professor of HKACM) and Middle is Prof. Sarah SC Hui (Founding President of HKACM))


Photo for receiving certificate (Added on 27th Jun 2021)


Reference:
CUHK Herbal Garden (中草藥園) - http://www.scm.cuhk.edu.hk/en-GB/research/facilities/herbal-garden
Lam HM, ed al., (2010) "Resequencing of 31 wild and cultivated soybean genomes identifies patterns of genetic diversity and selection" Nature Genetics, Vol. 42, No. 12, pp.1053-1059.
Hong Kong Academy of Chinese Medicine (香港中醫藥科技學院) - http://www.hkacm.com/
傷科推拿治療學 Chinese naprapathy 2014 (Pre-requistie: 推拿手法學 Chinese massage manipulation 2013)- http://www.hkacm.com/Tuina_Course_201312.pdf


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