Running an exhibition is indeed a good opportunity for us to listen to opinions from the public, no matter if they are potential customers or not. I could never imagine I would have the chance to learn a good lesson from an experienced business consultant about the tricks to China market.
After around a 2-hour discussion and reading on her blog (you have to be patient in front of experienced people who are willing to offer help), an inspiration came up to my mind that it is not exactly about the tricks to China market, but the re-thoughts of the key values of our IT-related business: solution to address our customers’ concerns.
While agreeing to Circle’s points of view that the appreciation of RMB does annoy Chinese companies, mentality can hardly be changed. For example, it is far from possible to persuade most of the Chinese exporters to post their products online, using e-Commerce bundled with ERP or cost-effective order taking and inventory tools like GearApp, and let them be sold bit by bit. Having chats with some of these businesses proves that my concept is right. They are only looking for buyers from different countries and that this is exactly what the HKTDC is doing (it is not difficult to find a lot of buyer and seller areas), just as what HKEX is helping Chinese companies to go public. More >
CRM, the abbreviation of Customer Relationship Management, has been a buzzword for a decade and has become an old term now. While it is treated as commonplace as ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning), HRM (Human Resources Marketing), E-Marketing, etc., why should we bother discussing it again? More >
For small and medium sized enterprises, choosing a suitable business solution to automate and expand their businesses is always a hard call.
Using the traditional text editing software to issue orders or quotation for several years, SMEs are prone to replace this by using some database software. Nevertheless, in recent years, database software has sprouted like never before. You can easily get over a million results should you search ‘database software’ or ‘management software’ on the internet. So what should be the selection criteria for a SME to choose the most suitable one? More >
A seminar called “User-Centered Design Principles: Users and Usability” was held by the Hong Kong Design Centre on 25 August 2009. Dr. Jon Dodd, the speaker of the seminar, gave a very inspiring introduction on what User-Centered Design (UCD) is and how important it is in all development projects of web-based solutions.
With over 13 years practical experience gained helping organizations create effective web solutions, Dr. Dodd presented a systematic methodology to guide project stakeholders working through a low-risk web-based development. If my memory is good, one of his projects about development of a website for an airline company would require more than 50% of the whole development schedule (e.g. about 8 weeks) in usability study. During the usability study, a focus group of a number of people was set up to deal with the company and their customers then comment how to enhance their existing website to increase the reservation rate of air tickets. More >
