EVOLUTION OF BPR

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!

"Social" CRM?

Posted on the March 31st, 2008 under CRM, Change Management by Gregory Yankelovich

It is amazing what I am learning lately! Seem that I was so dip in strategy, planning and implementation “trenches” that I largely missed all these developments around Enterprise 2.0. Proverbial drinking from a fire hose! There is a lot of writing on this subject in a blogosphere, but most of it focused on tools rather than business processes which can or should be supported by these tools. Calls for yet another revolution are giving me indigestion. I know about demographics and aging population, but rumors about our deafness are greatly exaggerated (my apologies to estate of Mark Twain), there is hardly a need for such a shouting. However some good conceptual ideas for practical utilization of these tools to improve flow of information within an enterprise and between enterprise and its market participants start to bubble up.

Brent Leary reports in his blog on Microsoft Convergence conference:

.. without exception the main themes coming out of all three of these events is the growing importance of social CRM - how social media and web 2.0 tools are being incorporated into traditional crm strategies to reach their customers and prospects in a more meaningful way. In fact social CRM has very little to do with software, and everything to do with acknowledging that customers have the power to engage with whomever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want, however they want and how dramatically they wish to do so. So the masses can more easily amass without the boundaries of the past, and drive how they’ll consume information as well as how they will do business. Which means that old maxim of business not being personal is no longer the case, if it ever was. Business IS very personal, so CRM has to be way more than great software, productivity gains and integration. These things are important, but so is understanding why people blog, leave comments, digg or stumble, create videos, etc.

It seem that the tools start to tip the scales of asymmetric marketing warfare to the benefit of buying public, but personally I am yet to see any meaningful results as a consumer. I still have to call my “friendly” bank at least two times to remove some silly charges and my requests to stop mailing flyers and other garbage to me are being ignored at a great expense to the bank (Thank you Bank of America!) and to environment. I do acknowledge the power of outrage as illustrated by the slaughterhouse debacle, but such a fury cannot and should not be expected in every experience of customer mistreatment. Only future will tell how much fury current banking practices will manage to gather in their pathetic attempts to manage mortgage disaster as illustrated in this Citi gem.

“Social” CRM will become social when enterprise executives stop hiding behind the lines of powerless or uninterested “troops” and engage directly into dialog with their customers.