By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is The Alan Parsons Project’s Poe project, Tales
Of Mystery And Imagination, the only album of theirs worth buying:
A decision that VoIP
should not be monopolized by Philippine telcos is expected next week from
the country’s National Telecommunications Commission, according to Business
World.
The two-year debate on who can offer VoIP and on what terms
is expected to end with a ruling that while VoIP may be provided by the state
telcos, it can also be offered commercially by companies such as ISPs.
Deputy Commissioner Jorge V. Sarmiento said the final NTC
ruling will not veer from the “essence” of the last draft ruling issued in
March, which said VoIP falls under the definition of VAS in the 1995 Philippine
Telecommunications Policy Act of the Philippines or Republic Act 7925, Business World said:
“VoIP is expected to drastically drive down monthly
telecommunication charges in the Philippines. With VoIP, the NTC expects
international call rates to drop to $0.10 a minute from $0.40 a minute.”
…
NetSuite’s happy – as they should be, as
they should be – with the decision of the
St. John Sea Dogs, a team in an organization called the Quebec Major Junior
Hockey League, to adopt NetSuite.
Sorry, if First CoffeeSM knew or cared the first
thing about hockey there’d be some cute hockey terminology in a pun here, but
frankly it rates in interest somewhere just south of test cricket and just
north of buzkashi, the national sport
of Afghanistan, where teams of men on horseback try to pitch a headless goat
carcass across a goal line. Games may last as long as a week. Anything goes.
NetSuite also counts the Oakland Athletics major league
baseball team as a customer.
As a start-up hockey franchise, the Sea Dogs team realized it
needed consistent, targeted communication to season ticket holders and
potential fan base. It’ll use NetSuite for its entire back office, including
financials, customer data, and product inventory, tying all touch points into a
central repository.
NetSuite features a technology called NetFlex which will
help the Sea Dogs integrate with Harbour Station’s online ticketing system. The
hosted system also allows scouts, who are based throughout Eastern Canada, to
access calendars and enter expense reports.
The hosted feature particularly appealed to the team. David
Turk, executive director for the Saint John Sea Dogs said “we don’t have an
internal IT staff, so NetSuite’s on-demand model was particularly attractive.”
First Coffee
SM doesn’t know if NetSuite has any
buzkashi clients.
...
See, there really
aren’t any rules as such in buzkashi,
which is Afghan for “take away the goat.” About the only rule is that women
aren’t allowed to play or attend, although some watch from rooftops – even the
horses are male studs. Broken bones are common and whips are used on both
horses and men. There aren’t any boundaries either, horses commonly charge into
crowds and it’s one of the few sports where fans stand a better chance of
getting injured than participants.
Trust First CoffeeSM on this – if somebody comes
up to you and says hey, I got two front-row seats to the buzkashi but I’ve got a client meeting so I can’t use them, they’re
yours, that person is not your friend.
...
A tip of the coffee pot to Preston Lau, named Entone
Technologies’ head of sales for the Asia Pacific region.
Having held senior positions at Alcatel, Thirdspace,
Kasenna, and SGI, Lau was involved in commercial IPTV deployments at Taiwan
Chunghwa Telecom’s MOD service, Japan Softbank BB’s BBTV service, and Hong Kong
SuperSUN’s pay TV service.
…
“The most disturbing trend in business today,” says business
coach, Mandy Bass, who hosts the call-in talk show, Success Academy on Radio, “Is the erosion of customer loyalty.”
On Friday, September 2, at noon Eastern time (9 a.m. Pacific
time) business
retention specialist Lee Holden will be a guest on the live program.
Listeners can access the show online at www.WorldTalkRadio.com.
According to Holden sixty-seven percent of the customers we lose, go somewhere
else simply because we did not stay in touch. Instead Holden proposes a process
he calls “Proactive Emotional Marketing,”
designed to keep customers feeling good about a business.
Holden, who works primarily with small business owners, says it can cost ten to
twenty times more to gain a new customer than to keep one you already have. He
has found, he claims, that if businesses focus on client retention as part of
business strategy, they can reduce advertising costs by 20 to 40 percent over a
three-year period.
...
Afghanis have played buzkashi
for over 500 years, except under the Taliban, today it’s regarded as an
imitation of ancient battles. It’s usually played on special occasions such as
weddings, the Eid, New Year’s Day and local carnivals, and only at weddings in
some part of the country. And while there aren’t any referees, it’s custom that nobody ties the carcass to
his saddle – it must be carried – or hits his opponent on the hand to
snatch the calf. Tripping an opponent with rope is considered bad form.
...
DDC HRO a human resources outsourcer, and
Singapore and Shenzhen-based Temasys International, a provider of
consulting services for companies wishing to access the China marketplace, are announcing a joint marketing and sales
agreement for outsourcing China Motion Telecare.
China Motion Telecare Co. Ltd. is a subsidiary of China Motion Telecom Holdings
Limited and provides outsourced call center, contact center, CRM and HR
services in China.
The agreement provides for collaborative market representation, analysis and
joint sales activity with particular focus on the deployment of Chinese-language
support services for customers and employee audiences in U.S. and European financial
services, telecommunications, IT and retail sectors.
With eight years’ experience in call center outsourcing, China Motion Telecare
has five call centers and over 4,000 operators across China. It holds licensees
to operate in the whole of China and is the largest outsourcing organization
which provides national call center coverage in China. It’s looking to expand
its international operations beyond current call center services into the U.S.
market, targeted to Chinese-speaking consumers.
David Kinnear, CEO of DDC HRO says there’s “vast untapped potential in China to
provide outsourced services to the western market.”
…
Clarity Customer Management Inc., which bills itself as something called “a
customer experience company,” is announcing an agreement to provide customer support and technical
support help desk services to a national wireless ISP. Clarity will act as
the company’s customer support department, and expects to expand the staff
dedicated to this client to approximately 60 individuals over the life of the
contract.
…
According to an intro to buzkashi
on Afghan Network,
“Horsemen are frequently carried away and in their excitement they will bump,
hit and jar opponents. When they return, they are usually bruised or have a
broken limb. Sometimes, they choose a
site for pitch near a river and a few horsemen conspire to drown their
opponents. The Afghans play for high stakes and take the game very
seriously. It is not uncommon for riders to continue in the game with cracked
ribs, broken limbs and various head injuries.”
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