Though there is not one company out there that doesn't claim to put their customers first, Arussy notes, very few actually have a sustainable and profitable relationship with them. His book Passionate and Profitable details the critical decisions and trade-offs companies must make in order to focus their efforts on the customer. These choices, Arussy contends, are often tough but necessary to establish a relationship that goes beyond the occasional and accidental. Tim Sanders, the co-founder of Yahoo, says that, "education without execution is just entertainment - and Lior illustrates this beautifully in his book."

In Arussy's book Innovating IT: Transforming IT from Cost Crunchers to Growth Drivers, he takes a look at IT operations at a critical juncture: IT organizations must re-define their identity, their role, and the contribution they will make to the accelerating pace of technology commoditization. In this visionary volume, Arussy offers a revolutionary thesis: IT must become a manager responsible for a product, and that product is information.

Prior to establishing Strativity Group, Arussy was an executive at Hewlett-Packard as well as various start-up companies. He contributes to business publications such as The Harvard Business Review, and his syndicated column, "Focus: Customer," reaches more than 600,000 readers worldwide every month. He received CRM magazine's "2003 Influential Leaders" award for his thought leadership and contribution to the industry. Its editors called Arussy "a true customer advocate." Arussy also served as a juror on Fast Company's Customer First Awards in 2005. His accomplishments have been reported in The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, Business 2.0, and Wired magazine.

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In this live presentation based on his popular book, Arussy keeps his audiences entertained while challenging them to radically alter the way they approach customers and their definition of the customer's role in the organization. He presents both the methodology and principles of CEM and enlightens his audiences on how to use this to achieve an immediate return on investment and increase customer loyalty. His presentation is brimming with exercises that you can apply to your own business, including real-life case studies from GE, Disney and American Express. Arussy's presentation takes a critical stand on customer relations and offers a new approach for businesses who want sustainable and profitable relationships with their customers.

Your employees are there to make money and then go home to spend it. Welcome to the world of interchangeable employees. In this presentation, Arussy discusses a new and different type of employee. The Passionate Employee comes to work to fulfill a personal mission. These Passionate Employees, Arussy tells us, relate to their work as if they are on a personal calling—and they exist: your company just has to find them. Arussy discusses the serious business implications of reluctant employees, who do not care about delighting customers or innovative products. At a time when employees create differentiation for your business, the reluctant employee is counter-productive. Arussy encourages companies to search for passionate employees by creating a culture that will nurture their passion rather than stifle it.

For this presentation, Arussy looks at companies and their sometimes troubled relationships with their customers. He believes that companies, in the name of consistency and cost-reduction, continue to devalue the customer's total experiences, trying to offer them less while attempting to charge more. Risk tolerance at companies is shrinking as they become more risk averse. Complacency sneaks in as the first successful product is realized and then it stays there—to the detriment of everyone involved. Arussy shows us how growth and innovation are tied to risk tolerance. Simply put, the greater the risk the greater the breakthrough innovation. The problem, however, is not just the formal attitude toward risk. It is also the culture the feeds it. Until the formal approach toward risk and the acceptance of risk as part of growth will change, companies have no chance in developing breakthrough innovation that adds value to customers.

Following years of information production, IT must now reexamine the relevance and usability of the information produced—or see its role in business diminished. In this session, Arussy will examine the current role of IT and propose a new framework to transform IT into the core of the organization's innovation and growth process. Utilizing multi-discipline ideas from art and science to music and literature, the session will propose a fresh view of information and its role in the organization. Arussy will explain what the role of information in an organization really is (and what it should be.) He looks at the difference between production-based Information and User-based Information. Arussy tells us how to transform information into a change accelerator, how to connect into the Innovation compass of the organization and how to sell the value of information to users. Inspiring and provocative, this interactive workshop full of practical ideas ready to implement, will have your company reconsidering everything they do.

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