No need to worry, I am not going to touch any sexual prudery.
It just came to my mind that R.O.I. – Return On Investment can be further enlarged to E.R.O.S. – Expected Return On Support, for the benefit of those – individuals or organizations – that mainly provide services, of any kind.
ROI is frequently understood as a numerical differential – i.e. plus less minus – between what is given and what is received.
By EROS I intend to add to this theorem a corollary, that is “expectation”.
And by S – Support I intend to widen the meaning of Investment: not only money that can be counted or weighed but also non tangible investment – that is, “support” – that comes from intellectual relationships.
Intellectual property is quite a delicate matter, we are all too used to think of property in terms of tangible “things”, even people.
In the Risk Management Business – RMB in short – and with all its complexities, we cannot afford to ignore that there are many aspects and factors (just to remind the still unresolved definition dilemma of ISO 14001) that affect RMB’s processes.
Whatever widget we make, however large or tiny, there’s much intellectual work in it.
But we keep thinking of “things” and we value them in terms of their physical features, mostly “weight”.
Just think of food – USD per pound – or cars – USD per HP or KW – or hotels – USD per room square yards – or restaurants – USD per dish.
What about valuing what’s behind – and before – the tangible widget that we prize so highly?
We have to be more careful in looking for and finding – and improving!!! – the people intellectual activities that make what we buy and what we are delivered.
We live in times that make us buy more and more via Internet, B2C sales become more and more usual.
When we buy on-line a pair of shoes we cannot try them. We have to rely on the people who present us the shoes.
When the presentation appeals to us, we confirm the order, otherwise we don’t.
The implied risks are obviously two-ways: for the seller and for the buyer.
When I buy e-books and items on-line I am asked to comment them and my comments are made available to the public, whatever my comments are.
I appreciate this approach: both my seller and I do analyze the respective expectations and the respective feed-back.
It’s not only a question of “investment” anymore, it has grown up to be “support”.
We still generally give a poor meaning to the “after-sale servicing”, yet we complain how expensive for us it is, when we need it – and how time consuming.
Isn’t this buyer’s support?
ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 31000 still have not clearly addressed the issue that the risks for product quality – or risks as a general matter – include before- and after-sale communication and support to the buyer.
Just dial any call center telephone number and look at your clock, whatever it is: minutes go by, as the tears of the Rolling Stones’ song.
Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, RMB is a very risky business, we can hurt ourselves if we do not do it properly – it’s just like any other business: money-making is the most immediate indicator but it’s not the most meaningful.