Connected to our Business
Summer School about entrepreneurship, we visited Chicago´s McCormick Place,
which is the biggest convention center in Chicago.
We as a group of
students had the luck to meet McCormick Place IT Director Ken Schmidt and
Manager Jessica William who gave us lots of examples about their daily work
life and how they lead efficiently to create an effective and clear organizational
culture.
But why is an
organizational structure for a convention center so important?
In this sector of service
it is all about customer´s satisfaction because customers who are satisfied
will come back. Especially a convention center like McCormick Place is
dependent on regular customers who are companies or business partners in most
cases.
I learned that customer
relations are as important as for a product or a service and to reach
successful customer relations it is very important that the customer needs are
reached. For this the whole team of McCormick
Place need to solve customer´s problems and deliver a good service. Therefore
Ken and Jessica told us how they create an efficient and fair organization
culture. This includes for example the way they handle inconvenient situations
with their employees or how they encourage teamwork.
By the side of these helpful
information about leadership and the importance of customer relations we got a
exclusive guideline through the McCormick Place. We visited the private rooftop
where the public isn’t allowed to visit. You can find here a botanic garden,
which shows sustainability and ecology. Furthermore we saw the big meeting
rooms for big companies or conventions, which need space for lots of people. 
Before we have visited
McCormick Place, I asked myself how this excursion is related to our business
ideas and what could we adapt for our ideas from this excursion?
I just thought it is about
presenting our new products at a convention and we could see which
possibilities we have there.
But after the conversation
with the IT Director and Manager, I realized that there is much more what is
related to our program. I learned how important it is to create a functional
and efficient organization culture. It isn´t about selling internet service to
users. It is more about customers should be satisfied and the reason why they
offer this service: they want to suggest people a possibility to connect with
other people.
You can adapt this easily to our business ideas. The product by itself hasn’t priority but what can a customer do with your product? You need to go deeper and asking yourself why do we offer this service or product to our customers?
This should be the reason for everybody of us to keep working on our startups and ideas.
It is quite the same writing a blog: Create an added value for your readers! ;)
Work hard, play hard!
Fabian
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @babofab!
Nice job Fabian, pictures are well integrated. Before you asked yourself how this excursion is related to our business ideas and what could we adapt for our ideas from this excursion? Thats interesting and I hope you found your answer. Good job with explaining about the added value which also customers of a blogpost need. See you! Marvin
ReplyDeleteI like your blog, Fabian! As mentioned you took impressing pictures to underline your statements. Especially what you are telling about satisfying the customer needs in relation to our start ups. I really like your focus on the customer relation management, because that is important for every service provider.
ReplyDeleteSee you later!
Eric
First of all Fabian you did a really good job and present us your thoughts about the McCormick Place in a really appropriate manner. As you, I thought in the beginning why we have to go to a Convention Center instead of working on our business models and concepts. But in the end I also realized that we as in our teams have to think about to create a good organization culture to get a successful business. The only think that I think you miss is that you could say more about the McCormick Place for example about Colonel McCormick or the theatre. So to sum up, you write a really good comment. You do a great job. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. See you.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Fabian! You were able to state the most important aspects of the presentation that we received that day and put into a well-strcutured text. What I like the most is that you actually wrote in an easy and understandabe manner, so that everyone is able to follow and to apply it on their own project. Creating an added value and furthermore seeing the importance in customer relations in order to deliver one's own message can hereby be noted as the most essential aspect for any business. You want people to understand what you want to achieve and this needs to be done in a clear and concise way. For your own business you could have a look into the following article of Richard Branson (founder of 'Virgin'), who mentions, that it is not only important how you treat your customers but also the importance of seeing your employees as your best customers. So here you go: http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/the-way-you-treat-your-employees
ReplyDeletePeace,
Sonja
Hey Fabian, great job! I really enjoyed your article about McCormick Place. Especial that you had a deeper thought on how the excursion is related to our program at Kendall, my impression was nearly the same! I think it's really all about customer satisfaction. If you're interested in the measurement of this core value? have a look on the side I'm posting below, you may have learned about it but it's definitely worth a look!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.qualtrics.com/blog/customer-satisfaction-measurement/