The Stingy CEO Opens His Wallet

I wrote this blog post a couple of weeks ago to be published in September. When I wrote this, I couldn’t have hoped that Windows Phone would become such a hot topic during the first week of September. Today’s newsfeed has been full of articles covering Microsoft’s Nokia acquisition. I hope this means that in the future the Finnish partner companies will have more and better opportunities to sell and distribute applications in Finland and in the global market. This way we can ease the life of the information worker and increase our customers’ productivity as widely as possible.

From our and our customers’ point of view the morning news is a concrete example of how people have different needs to use information systems which require devices and applications that are appropriate for the situation. The acquisition increases our opportunities to develop and offer solutions which improve our everyday lives.

I had been very pleased with my Nokia Lumia 900 mobile phone for almost two years. It fitted perfectly to my needs. Calls, text messages, social media services, quality photos, working browser, a good navigation application and a bunch of other useful features repaid the price of the phone quickly. Despite the excellent Windows Phone 8 operating system I had not updated my phone. Instead, I had bought new Windows Phone 8 powered Lumias for our employees whenever their old phones had reached the end of their working life.

This stingy CEO decided to splurge some money

Anyhow, a few weeks ago this stingy CEO changed his mind and decided to splurge some money. I decided to give up the Lumia 900 which still worked fine and invest in Lumia 820 instead of the sturdier Lumia models. The market price for the phone was around 300 euros.

The operating system and other features in the phone are most likely more developed than in Lumia 900. However, taken into account just the new features, the ROI wouldn’t have been high enough to make a profitable investment. What I did is that I haggled with my supervisor, the chairman of the board, for an application called CRM Call Tracker which costs only 1,99 euros in the Windows Phone Store. The application elevated the ROI to a whole new level. What level, you ask. So high that I don’t want to publicly brag about the percent. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.

That wondrous application offers all the contact details I want from the CRM. In addition to all the other contact lists I have, I can for example easily access the contact information of all the people I’ve met during the last three months and all the people I’m going to meet the following weeks. When I call a customer to confirm some details, CRM Call Tracker tracks the call to CRM. After the phone call I can add a call memo or even a calendar reminder, if the customer wants me to call him back or I didn’t reach him the first time.

I admit that I can be sometimes lazy. I didn’t track any phone calls to CRM before CRM Call Tracker. This was the case despite the fact that tracking calls would’ve helped me to predict sales. On average customers want to be contacted from time to time. Often a phone call leads to a meeting which leads to an offer which leads to a deal if you remember to call the customer after delivering the offer. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself.

Ps. I bought another Lumia phone at the same time for our Business Director Antero. It’s yellow. The phone, I mean, not Antero.

Pps. I wasn’t stingy even with the CRM Call Tracker. The application is now in heavy use and has its place on Antero’s start screen.