EVOLUTION OF BPR

Re: A Company Like Me, Part 1

Posted on the May 12th, 2008 under CRM, Change Management, Enterprise 2.0, Organizational Transformation by Gregory Yankelovich

Paul Greenberg initiated a very interesting discussion. It is an excellent read in it’s entirety, but I will quote just a part of it here:

the contemporary empowered customer is enmeshed in some way with a network of peers, their expectations are dramatically changed. They are straightforward changes, though. They expect that they can interact with a company the same way that they interact with a friend or a peer who they can trust. That means that they expect a personal relationship to the company, not just to a person in the company, though that may be how the relationship manifests itself a larger number of times. That also means that they expect that the attributes, the characteristics of that deeply personal connection they have to a peer is part of the way that the company interacts with them. That means that trust and transparency have to permeate the company’s DNA. That means that the company has to have something distinct about them. That means that the customer is expecting the company to converse with them, not push corporate hype at them. It’s why you see contemporary marketing so geared toward buzz and word of mouth and engaging customers in conversation through use of social media like blogs, or engaging internal customers in a valued conversation through a wiki.

I also feel very passionately about the possibility of a “real” relationship between the institution and the individual, but I am less optimistic about achieving this state within the life expectancy of CRM 2.0.  There are three major obstacles in our way which imho would take much longer time to overcome:

1. Authenticity - many, if not most, institutions see the customer from the next quarter sales forecast point of view and no technology can change that. There is an opinion that the institution has no social conscience, only individuals that are part of the institution have it, so until there is a very clear, undisputable connection between authenticity and profitability it would be a long time before we see any meaningful change. I know there are exemptions and we all can name one or two institutions which have demonstratively got it, but we need much more - even now the truly successful implementations of CRM 1.0 are still only a relatively small minority relative to the number of attempts. Watch this video for experiencing an example of current institutional authenticity

 

2. Asymmetry - it is too common of an experience that an institution has a much louder voice than the individual. I can see great promise in current technology to change that, but the model has yet to emerge to the best of my knowledge.

3. Execution - it takes time to earn trust in a relationship, whether it is between people or institutions, time to observe a certain consistency in behavior and authenticity of intent, which I covered above. We all have experienced dealing with individuals who represented their institution in an exceptional way, but building processes and organizational changes to provide such experience consistently, across an institution, is still a huge challenge which is not a technology issue but a cultural one.

All these aside I do believe that change is the only constant and technology is a great tool to accelerate change.

re The problem with Forrester’s $4.6 billion prediction

Posted on the April 21st, 2008 under Enterprise 2.0 by Gregory Yankelovich

  Dennis Howlett, who wrote a number of enthusiastic posts about promise and proliferation of social software in his blogs, Irregular Enterprise and Accman Pro, seem to start loosing his enthusiasm for it’s value for an enterprise. At least it is my understanding of his post.

Power of many little voices

Posted on the April 18th, 2008 under Change Management, Enterprise 2.0, Organizational Transformation by Gregory Yankelovich

Whatever I have said before about “social enterprise” zealots, I need to take back now. They obviously saw something these, which many practitioners, like myself, have difficulties to apply to corporate IT initiatives. The Economist published a very interesting article this week “Disgruntled small investors in Canada flex their muscles” that is well worth reading, which describes how asymmetric relationship between large number of small customers and large institutions can unexpectedly be challenged by use of social networking and other tools of Web 2.0.

Following the example of their children and grandchildren, some small investors formed a group on Facebook, a social-networking site, to trade information, provide mutual support and plot strategy. Brian Hunter, the group administrator, says the site turned out to be an “amazing tool”. People who would never have met in real life, from pig farmers and retired loggers to MBA students and pastors, created a formidable interest group.

Campaigners were able to ensure that investors armed with information attended cross-country meetings held in late March and early April by the backers of the restructuring deal. “We had 300 raging grannies show up in Vancouver,” says Mr Hunter. “[The backers] got their heads handed to them at that meeting.”

The efforts of the campaigners paid off on April 9th, when Canaccord Capital, the investment broker that sold the paper to just over 1,400 of the 1,800 small investors, reversed its previous decision and said it would fully reimburse clients holding C$1m or less as long as the broader deal wins acceptance. Other companies have made similar promises and more are expected to do so before the vote.

If institutions are not capable to learn how to play on a more leveled playing field, the financial consequences can be devastating. That will probably apply to politics as well.

You go Grannies!