Heterogenuity

Yesterday I happened to have a chance to go our for dinner with regional branch managers. CRDM business in Japan is composed of 17 branches and 3 of them were in Tokyo last night. One of my challenges now is to understand business deeper, helping identify root cause of identified issues and come up with viable options largely through number analysis. From that perspective, I was lucky last night to have the occasion to learn what is going on in the sales field through dialogue with them.

As financial analyst, I spend most of my time in the office, talking with VP of business, Mktg people, Operation people, and Regional Sales Directors in HQ or number analysis with the sole purpose of how I can help influence the business in a positive manner. Without on-hand field experience, I have test my assumptions with those mentioned above. Through the dialogue last night, I have identified the limitation of doing that in that each region has its unique business environment in terms of quality of reps relationship with dealers and hospitals, competitive environment etc.
I am still not certain about the degree of difference but my guts feeling is it is significant enough.
Then, I need to change my perspective for assumptions building to view business from homogeneously to heterogeneously, more sensitive to difference in each region. Thus ingraining the heterogeneity perspective in our culture will be the next challenge for me.