We’ve said this before, but we’d just like reiterate it, “Acentic looks at guest and consumer usage not just at technology- we are experts not geeks”. In this next installment of our “20 Rules of Acentic” Juan, a guest blogger from Acentic International Sales shares his views on LCD and WiFi in the blog below and gives us a great example of rule number 1: Know the Product (and most importantly know how it will concern hoteliers).


I recently visited an LCD manufacturing plant, and as I walked down the aisles I was amazed at the speed with which an LCD was assembled. Even more impressive were the figures reeled off to me by the plant director, just this one plant is able to produce 10,000 LCDs a day, a huge figure considering the number of these plants across Europe. So where do all these screens go? Well obviously they don’t all go to the hotel industry. Whilst 10,000 screens a day shipped to our customers would be great news for Acentic, it's clear that the hotel industry only absorbs a small part of Europe’s LCD production. The consumer market is absorbing thousands of LCDs a day, not only to replace the old living room 100 kg CRT but increasingly due to reduced space constraints and easy installation LCDs are springing up all over the home, from the living room to the kitchen to the bedroom and to the office. Just count the number of screens in your home!

Although a lot of this is due to the lower prices and reduced LCD space constraints, the main reason is that society is now screen based. Even with the proliferation of PCs and mobile phones the core screen for information and entertainment remains the TV screen and good old television viewing. Whether we want it or not the passive nature of the television screen primes over any other media including the written press and Internet. In fact, because the television experience is passive, it actually allows us to multitask. I can cook whilst watching/listening to the news, whilst in the case of many who don’t need to muddle between different pairs of glasses, TV viewing is accompanied by Internet surfing (31% of internet use occurs whilst we are watching TV). Note that the Internet usage is done using a laptop, with Wifi and not via a wired connection or via the television.

How does this concern hoteliers? There are three key points I’d like to highlight:
1. The LCD is key, your guests expect it.
2. The TV experience needs to be as passive as possible which means:
   - An intuitive, easy to use user interface that is uncluttered by gadgets-     note that easy to use doesn’t mean bland and static-     to the contrary it has to reach out and appeal to guests and guide them.
   -The offer of guest relevant TV channels which are easy to zap to and from.
   -The offer of guest relevant movies which are easy to choose and control.
3. The provision of WiFi access so that guests can partake in internet activities whilst passively viewing television.

For those in this industry that have suddenly come up with the idea that Internet browsing on the TV is the killer application, I strongly recommend that they actually study consumer behaviour before making such claims. Whilst the internet can enhance the TV experience the attempt to re-create a PC environment on the TV will fail, not because of technical reasons but because your guests, when in front of a TV, are zappers not tappers. A successful iTV system is one that allows your guests to multitask.

Last week we had our Autumn sales conference in the Westin Hotel in Warsaw. We were privileged to have with us as our guest, Jim Lawless. Jim has recently completed a book entitled “Taming Tigers”. His book is structured around ten rules or actions for taming tigers. A “Tiger” is the metaphor for the “thing that stops us”…it roars at us when we consider doing something that will require us from moving into unknown waters and we always intellectually justify to ourselves all the reason for NOT doing it.

We have all read or heard similar recipes for success, but what’s REALLY cool about Jim, is that much of his thinking is drawn from a real life challenge to him during a conference whereby somebody bet him a pound, that he could not become a jockey within 12 months and ride in a professional race, and at 37 years old, he wasn’t called slim Jim either! Against almost impossible odds, Jim won his pound and actually raced in a televised event at Southwell Races, (you can view some videos at www.tamingtigers.com).

What was also cool about Jim is that he drew some parallels to the behavior of our sales folk such as “understanding and controlling your time,” “head in your targeted direction every day” and “never give up”. People always give up on a bad day. Leave it a week and see if you still want to give up.
My lasting memory of my time spent with Jim is when he said to me, “You are writing your own story by the decisions you make. When you are 90 and in the nursing home, you will not have much paper left and you will be running out of ink. Your only story submission will be that you want to win at dominoes today and you hope you don’t smell!”

During our Warsaw sales conference, we visited the LG TV and monitor factory. I know what you’re thinking…how dull. I’m not a process freak by any stretch of the imagination, but if you want to learn about and see in action all those things you read about such as globalization, zero defect quality control, just in time delivery…blah blah blah, then visit the LG factory in Warsaw with 2500 people employed across many production lines. Each line has a moving conveyor, which takes 6 minutes from beginning to end. The start of the conveyor has an empty chassis and off the other end is a fully tested TV which is wrapped, boxed and taped up. Each employee has 6 seconds to complete their assembly task whilst the TV moves past them. If you sneeze, it needs to be quick. As about 5000 TVs roll off each line in an 8 hour shift, there isn’t enough room to store sufficient parts. The SAP system is online to their suppliers who they insist are locally based. The suppliers have to replenish materials HOURLY.

Jang Hyeu Lee, the President of LG, personally showed me around the facility and I was fortunate enough to have dinner with him in the evening so that I could ask him some difficult questions. I expected to be fed an evening of statistics, but the cool thing about Jang, which really surprised me, is that he spends a lot of time on the softer issues. When I asked him to outline his primary responsibilities and activities he said, “To add tension into the organization, if you don’t have tension, discipline and quality will go. The production starts at 6am. If anyone is not through the gates by 05.50, I personally will be talking to them. One cannot enter the factory gates, deposit ones belongings and be at your position to start  whilst breathing normally, inside 10 minutes. You must compose yourself, or you will let your colleagues on the production line down”.

When asked what were some of the greater challenges in setting up in Poland, Jang replied, “Managing sickness levels. Poland had a 10% sickness level. We give the workers production targets. If they succeed them by 10%, they get 5% more pay. They cannot do this without each other. I don’t manage people’s sickness, their colleagues do “ The sickness levels at LG are 0.9 percent.  
Everywhere you went in the factory there were pictures on the walls of individuals or groups involved in activities or receiving awards, in every staircase and every corridor. They take caring and motivation seriously. In hoping to catch Jang off guard, I asked him why if there was only one shift per day, it began at 6am…was there cheaper electricity early in the morning?

“We start at 6:00 so that our workers can miss the traffic and with them leaving at 2, they can meet the children from school.”
Overall we were overwhelmed and impressed with the LG TV factory in Warsaw and by Jang Hyeu Lee.

Recently we were here in Germany watching scenes from the flash flooding in Istanbul. A day later we heard from our hotel partners in Istanbul that the tremendous damages caused by the flooding had greatly affected the hotels there. Since some of the hotels were not operative anymore, we at Acentic stopped monthly movie invoicing until they got repaired and back up and running. This is an example of the customer care that Acentic exhibits.

In fact, rule number three on Acentic’s "20 sales rules" is to Know the Customer (including the culture). We feel it is our duty to know what is happening in the world and especially in the world of our customers. When disaster hits, as it did recently in the case of Istanbul, the people working at Acentic care.

Acentic wishes for fascinating Istanbul and its hotels there to recover soon from a catastrophe. We vow to continue learning about our customers and paying attention to what is happening in their worlds.

We are just establishing Acentic MEA and I’m just back from 3 days in Dubai where I met our new team who are eager to take Acentic’s products and services throughout the middle East and parts of Asia. It is always refreshing to spend time with a new and enthusiastic team who are setting out new plans. Dubai however, was not so refreshing. I worked out that it had been over 3 years since my last visit and I always remember thinking that they should spell it “Do-buy”… but not this time. (It is actually originated from Daba… a locust that devours everything in its path… but not many people know that!). There certainly were a zillion more high risers and infrastructure developments (the metro opened whilst I was there) but it felt like a crane museum. Lots and lots of ceased developments and it must be something to do with the desert, but it looked as if tools were downed 10 years ago.

Dubai has been hit hard by financial crisis and everybody seemed to have a story of hardship. My favourite lay in the fact that personal debt is not permitted in Dubai and when ex-pats lost there jobs and couldn’t pay bills on cars or accommodation, 24,000 cars were left abandoned at the airport and on the streets!

Despite the difficulties, service levels still put some of us to shame. I stayed in the Park Hyatt. Not the glitziest of properties but certainly one that is stunning and probably one of the classiest. It’s the fashionistas favourite where Elle McPherson and Tommy Hilfiger stay. So I blended in nicely. Boy was it quiet. On one night I was in the restaurant on my own but I still felt the service was fantastic. In fact the chef came out and asked me specific questions about my meal. Feeling clever about detecting a hint of a German accent, I asked him if he was missing Germany? I was shocked when he replied, “not really, are you missing Scotland?”. He had worked there and detected my accent… how cool is that!

Good luck to Dubai on a speedy recovery and good luck to Acentic MEA.

Tonight ME 0100 hours Thursday (10/09/09) as I sit in my wonderful Hyatt Hotel room reviewing the Acentic teams temperament I see that this afternoon and even now we have staff from Madrid in Lisbon; staff from Paris in Amsterdam; staff from Cologne in Warsaw and Moscow; staff from London just back from Hong Kong; and indeed a Scotsman in the Middle East. This is a testament to our peoples' commitment to despatch the right people for the unique requirements of each hotel, not just sell you a box. My board and indeed our customers are indebted to the contemporary Acentic team. Thank you!

As a technology provider to the Hospitality industry, most successful sales calls do NOT end in an order.

When I worked as a double glazing salesman whilst at school or in fashion retailing in my early years, not getting the order was failure. Do this too often and you were out.

If you are at an industry conference talking to a potential customer and at the end of the conversation he says that he would like to know more…. this is an advancement, this is success.

If you are at a function chatting to someone you met and the conversation turns to your businesses, and at the end of the conversation he remarks that he has a friend who would be interested in your products and services, that’s an advancement, that is a success.

An advancement is where the relationship with the customer is better at the end of the conversation than it was at the beginning. Successful selling is about advancing the relationship, and in tough times especially, it needs to be all day every day.