Topic: Get VOCAL! Turning Chaos into Order and Growing Profits through Customer - Supplier Relationships

Abstract: One of a program manager's most critical skills is the ability to turn chaos into order. There is no place in business where this skill is more needed than in the customer-supplier relationship, especially where the supplier provides complex products and services to the marketplace. Too often, this key relationship is adversarial, stemming from or resulting in mistrust, poor communication, misunderstanding, disorganization and poor results. The presenter developed the VOCAL customer engagement process in 1999 and has used it to turn around and improve customer relationships in numerous accounts over the last several years, transforming chaos and confrontation into profitable partnerships. VOCAL is an acronym that stands for Visibility, Ownership, Communication, Accountability and Leadership, the essential elements that power this proven customer engagement process. The presenter will share his experiences, lessons learned and war stories from implementing the VOCAL process and how project and program management and teaming principles are used to turn the customer-supplier relationship into a competitive advantage.

Presentor: Larry A. Brown

Presentor Bio: Larry A. Brown is a senior program manager in the Corporate Quality organization at Cisco Systems. His experience spans over 27 years in various manufacturing, process reengineering and program management roles with several high tech companies, including Sun Microsystems, Novell and Advanced Micro Devices. Larry is the author of Get VOCAL! Growing Profits through Customer-Supplier Relationships, published by Cisco Press (September 2006). He has a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from Michigan Technological University and a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language from Brigham Young University. Larry and his wife Tamera live in Alpine, Utah and have four daughters and four grandchildren.







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