The threat of Private Social to B2B business, especially in IT Products or Services

In the early days of the internet era, an IT consulting company started a forum of decision makers and senior IT leaders to gain insights on their pain points and opportunities to engage. Participation was by invitation to begin with, later opened up for aspirants, selectively approved. To keep the group focused, membership closed when the count reached 200. The forum created multiple threads on technology, leadership challenges, industry specific groups, and finally groups for current and potential users of vendor solutions.

Driven by some early adopters, the forums gained popularity offering candid and uninhibited sharing of views on various subjects, much to the nervousness of the company. They appointed a moderator who befriended the group fairly quickly with her friendly yet incisive comments, making her part of the inner circle. She seeded thoughts and discussions which benefited the company and thus no censorship was imposed. The most commented and visited forums pertained to ERP and other solutions gaining popularity with enterprises.

Quickly it became a forum that the group depended on for most of their technology decisions driven by experiential sharing overriding the marketing case studies shared by vendors or paid research from esteemed consultants and haloed market leading research entities. Pain points, what not to do, what to be wary of, formed bulk of the content; shared learning improved the possibilities of success for the receivers. Observing the unprecedented success, the idea was flogged by some of the IT vendors with limited traction.

The first mover advantage sustained itself even when the seeding company changed hands through multiple acquisitions until … on behest of one of the sponsors, the acquirer attempted to clamp down on some of the negative comments. The group had gained life of its own; senior IT leaders used their collective clout to create an independent group with no sponsors or any strings focusing on the magic sauce that kept the group cohesive; the unbridled sharing of knowledge and discussions on the now fast pace of technology change kept the group going.

At their annual conference, the Vendor’s senior leadership probably feigned surprise when the CIO mentioned that he was part of a closed mobile messaging group which discussed threadbare every vendor, their solutions, pros and cons of implementation partners, and at times even pricing ! The closed group on one of the most popular messaging solutions was a sought after group by CIOs. Most of them visited the group multiple times a day and posted their queries, trials and tribulations, to which responses were quick and worthy.

The story more or less repeated itself with another major global IT solutions vendor and a couple of amused CIOs who were giving feedback to the CEO and the Sales/Marketing team about why they have had challenges and slower takeoff in recent times. Their monopoly was shaking; while they had some doubts on seeds of the root cause, their fears were confirmed in this discussion. There was no social media feed alert or trends to analyze, this was scarily hidden from public view and it impacted them in a big way.

For the CIO group – of the CIO, by the CIO, for the CIOs – loved by the customer, the global giants as yet have no antidote; closed conversations within the group virally impact revenues and profitability though miniscule at the moment, can potentially grow to gargantuan proportions. Technology led disruption to technology providers who also offer social listening tools ! No one anticipated or were prepared for this impact. Consumers have used public social media to get better customer service, private social media opens new channels for B2B.

My CIO friend who coined the term Private Social, attempted to provide steps to reduce the impact to business (Click here). Largely behavioral, the outcomes will depend on the ability of individuals to imbibe them and practice with consistency. Reality is that vendors have to treat their customers with TLC to keep them happy; I am not recommending that they out of the way and pamper them, but sticking to the basics of supplying a product or service with fidelity to the promise made during the pre-sales period.

Is there a positive side ? But off-course, it’s a windfall for vendors who get leads out of the blue with customers calling them for discussions about their products and services referred to by existing satisfied customers. They should take the upside as an endorsement of living up to commitments, thank their customers and continue to use their mojo with the new wins too. The digital world continues to create new disruptions to entrenched forces, be prepared for the next unknown threat and opportunity !

The Digirati are coming

With the advent of the Internet two decades back euphoria around internet based business models exploded upon all of us. Predictions like “if you are not on the web, you will be dead or if you don’t have an internet strategy, you don’t have a business strategy” shook up everyone and pushed them towards limits of paranoia. Untenable valuations on shaky business models led to the dot bust that wiped out millions from budgets and zillions in market capitalization. Now digital is rivaling the din of the past and it has everyone scrambling again.

Some CIOs saw it coming earlier than others; creating awareness within their enterprises, they attempted to raise the bar. Initial reactions of cynicism and indifference led many CIOs to return to their comfort zones while the world around them flirted with the digital wave. As success stories started trickling in, it gave jitters to the disbelievers and created a flurry of disconnected activity. Every CXO wanted a digital project; everyone added the word “digital” in the headline; many ignored the CIO to avoid embarrassing discussions.

SMAC came the response from consultants, vendors and the IT folks alike; to get started on your digital journey, you need the skills, talent and a link back to the physical world that IT provides. Many CIOs reveled in the limelight of having been ahead of the game while the rest joined the confused ranks adding to the chaos with technology play. As individual pieces of Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud made way into various initiatives, the picture started to become clear that digital is not an option anymore; it is going to be a way of life.

Board room and management discussions on digital attempted to create correlations with revenue growth, customer service, enablement of suppliers and business partners, automation for improved process efficiency. Now the connections to enterprise goals are shifting the discussion from the likes of Big Data Analytics or Mobility to creating new business models or tapping new profit pools and outpacing competition. Everyone wants to be anointed with title of the CDO to be hailed as the hero when success arrives.

Competition from new age companies in some sectors like hospitality, retail, virtual collaboration, and travel and entertainment has disrupted conventional age old business models leading to a scramble to catch up. Industrial giants slowed by corporate inertia are waking up to new threat and opportunities. Willing to use their scale, muscle power and enormous resources, they potentially have the ability to devour the small fish while they establish new business models and reinvent their business, systems and leverage the digital wave.

Silos of digital initiatives will at best test a hypothesis, for enterprise wide impact, cohesive and integrated approach with CEO alignment is essential. Reality is, IT and business strategies are no longer separate, and they have become inseparable. With everything going online and “Internet of Things” creating an avalanche of hitherto unexplored data, enterprises are pushing the boundaries of analytical possibilities. Corporate and information boundaries are disappearing demanding democratization of analytics and decision making.

The oft repeated question to CIOs raises its head again on their position in this evolutionary revolution ? IT teams need to focus on not just scale but also the new application ecosystem that requires IT teams to discard legacy and pursuit of monolithic systems and shift focus on agile built for purpose apps. This paradigm shift requires preparation for non-stop business in the interconnected world. Customers are challenging the business of incremental innovation and forcing companies to listen and co-create new products and services.

Digital is here and how ! For most CIOs BYOD/T was a beginning, BYOW (Wearable) will stretch the already delicate ecosystem. Finicky customers expecting instant gratification threaten fragile brand reputations with 140 characters and less. Consumption patterns are shifting thereby forcing CIOs to rework corporate peer relationships. I believe that CIOs can reclaim lost ground by challenging existing digital alignments and build the foundation that will help the enterprise win in raging battle for revenue, profitability and the customer.

Your enterprise digital stance may be a challenge at the moment; culturally maybe the company does not enable open ideas or visible risk; it is up to you to decide whether you want to be a bystander while the world moves ahead or you want your destiny to be linked to the new world of digital enablement ? Are you ready ?

Technology shaping human behavior

As a kid I used to watch Star Trek and marvel about Mr. Spock and the technology some of which is reality now. I also devoured (Isaac) Asimov, Arthur C Clarke and other science fiction fantasizing about the future possibilities that will change the way we live. When the internet made its presence felt and mobile technology started gaining traction, the realms of reality stretched imagination. Moving from the humble personal computer to the smartphone, the new world is impacting us in many ways directly and indirectly.

The last few years have seen a lot of technology wanting to attach to human body; fortunately it is still outside the body and not getting inside as yet. Fitness bands gave way to smart watches which doubled up to also show you the time while telling you about who is calling or the latest trends on social media of choice. Glasses anyone ? And there was a queue of people wanting to cover their eyes ! Directions from your favorite map service on your windscreen ? Why not also notify you about what your “friends” are excited about or what is trending ?

Is that a distraction to driving ? Let’s make cars that can drive themselves while you immerse yourself in the pervasive world of noise from all over. Traveling somewhere ? Write reviews and tell your friends, too bad some burglars also took notice that you are away from home. Stay connected wherever you are on WIFI, 3G, 4G, LTE, on your tablet, phablet, phone or at least the watch ? Your health parameters are being monitored and stored by some app. You can use it later to determine your health; so can someone else who you don’t know !

Will you scan before you eat ? Supermarkets would like to help you create your personalized basket of products which they can remind you to buy. All the packaged food companies would also like to know the products you consume so they know more about your eating habits. Next time you renew your health insurance, don’t be surprised by a markup or discount; the health insurance company also has vested interest in this data ! The situation is becoming Orwellian with Big Brother watching every move you make using Big Data.

The question that bothers me is why are we willingly obliging everyone ? What makes us want to obsessively stay connected and share the important to obscure to inane details of our lives ? Why are we allowing personal data to be used in a way that influences our actions and our behaviors ? This was not anyone’s favorite part in any futuristic idea or science fiction ? Digital addiction especially for the new Digital Native generation is rewiring responses; the thinking process is changing, our dependence on technology complete.

People have reported withdrawal symptoms when they are unconnected; the thumb is getting used beyond its evolved state leading to new diseases. Accidents are increasing with distracted mind unable to focus on walking or driving. Eyesight is adversely impacted while our hearing ability is impaired due to constant high volume sound from earphones. Over and above all of this, the expectation to respond to any stimulus (email, message, alert) instantly is putting psychological pressure on the connected generation.

Enterprises want productivity with the connectivity; corporate apps hijacking the personal phone, information driven process velocity is the new normal stretching the already challenged balance between work and life. The lines are blurring and both have intertwined into our awake hours in a way that does not leave any personal space or time. The resultant pressure and stress is increasing rate of heart ailments and lifestyle diseases in 20 something youth that were associated with 60+ in the past.

Some companies and governments have begun to take cognizance of this and are enforcing work hours in an attempt to wean off the addiction. How can parents do the same with the upcoming generation which is born to technology ? I believe that they will have to lead by example for the young ones and also at work for their teams. Wearable technology is here and urging you to participate; I know what you did last summer is now more like I know what you just did and what you are likely to do !

Digital free day anyone ?

The Corporate Social Media Network

The trigger has been the wilder than earlier predicted adoption of social media websites, applications and mobile apps by all age groups across geographies and social strata. Every new innovation, fad or me-too has caught the fancy of not just consumers, but also investors. After denial and prohibition came the acceptance within the enterprise and experiments on how to use it to the benefit of the company. Thus we see a new trend emerging that now has many players vying for attention; the corporatization of social media.

I am not referring to the numerous models that have been attempted to measure return on investment or to convert “Likes” into hard cash (fortunately not by selling personal details of customers). Many will point out a few popular success stories where a brand or product found exponential growth driven by social media campaigns; this number has not grown much in subsequent years. I am alluding to the attempt by companies to setup internal portals and sites that mimic behavior of the popular social media sites.

CXOs blessed this and agreed that while we prevent our employees from the internet on corporate devices let us give them a way to spend their energy on similar sites internally with each other. Let them channelize their time towards being more productive. CIOs with help from vendors cloned most of the functionality and put it on the intranet and waited for employees to start using it. Some did, they posted stuff here and there and then went away very quickly. How can I put up my private life on display inside the company ?

Managers attempted to create collaboration use cases; success was measured by number of people active or the number of posts. Structures around groups helped them find behavioral and psychological insights. Soon these became case studies and best practices to be touted by vendors and consultants. Within boundaries these worked adding to the momentum which forced almost every respectable CXO to leniency. All along employees continued to put on display their private lives on non-corporate social media via their BYOD smartphones.

Is corporate social media really a tool that can transform the way enterprises and employees collaborate ? Can it imitate the viral effect seen in private lives ? If we discount the generation X/Y who are just entering the workforce, are the 30 and 40 something employees going to embrace getting on internal social media to post their feelings and share brainwaves ? In a hypercompetitive and paranoid professional world, will the existence of a platform with adequate catalysts be the trigger that breaks the barriers ?

Social media fatigue is already setting in; the multitude of options from 140 characters to pin boards and friendly sites only confuses rather than compartmentalize the use. People realize the time demands in an ever connected world which expects instant responses to emails, tweets, SMS, chat messages, posts and whatever mode of socializing they engage in. Souring relationships due to or because of the face down thumb happy posture is changing the way we engage with each other. Peer pressure keeps some going, the rest follow the herd.

Coming back to corporate social media, there are opportunities if used well; any foray requires capturing the ethos of the company, department or group which will determine the character of the site and engagement. It requires a team of enthusiastic believers who infect everyone they come in contact with their exuberance and create an urge to try. The team needs no boundaries or censorship for engagement; let there be self-imposed discipline on what the group is willing to accept. Monitor you may, don’t be the police.

In a recent interview a journalist asked me the question “What is the future of corporate social media ?” I believe that there will be pockets of excellence from which people will learn only to fail until they are able to create the cultural ecosystem in which sharing can thrive without fear of retribution or rebuke. We need freedom to communicate, disagree, and be ourselves the way we are outside the workplace. Leaders and Managers have to walk this talk for it to work. Until then there will be case studies that we read and wonder why it does not work for us !

Effectiveness of Online Communities

In the year 1996 when India just started opening up internet access to its citizens, I happened to join one of the first online CIO communities. It was a small group of about 100 of us with global representation and stayed that way for a long time. The community was promoted by an IT services company who mostly stayed off from influencing any discussion or attempt to sell. The moderators were professional and provoked thought from the community who responded with mirrored passion. With the dotcom boom the community transferred ownership to an online giant with commercial interests; en mass the CIOs moved on and created own community that continued to focus on learning.

Recent times have seen an explosion of online communities that are generic, specific, niche, community, profession or domain based, and a lot of me too with hopefully intent to provide many things to their members. A few like have become hot properties with stratospheric valuations and member base larger than many countries. Corporates joined in to understand what the communities are saying about them or their competitors, some started targeted messaging with little success. Industries have mushroomed selling strategy, analytics and a lot more from the mass of posts and unstructured data.

Shakeout has begun in this space leaving the individual confused on the choices made; corporate entities are beginning to wonder how to generate revenue from all the investments made in the height of euphoria. Every intervention requires effort and resource commitment to bind the members. Whether you are an individual or an enterprise, how does one decide which community to join ?

For individuals the choice is largely made by following Connectors (Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell) within their groups or when friends invite them to join new communities with an expectation to stay in touch, share knowledge or emotions, happenings within their friends and family circle, and a lot more. As the numbers start stacking up over a period of time the activity level falls off from most. The winning communities are ones offering a bit of something to everyone, freshness, content, features, etc.

Enterprises have followed the crowd and the hype around the communities with hope of understanding their customers, stakeholders, influencers who potentially impact business outcomes even if indirectly. Crowdsourcing and networked innovation became the buzz with significant investments pouring in. The few success case studies added fuel to the fire. But the large numbers of efforts have not yielded the desired outcomes. Even though the start point for most was Marketing or other functions with no ROI or business case, the online nature of such interactions put the CIO and IT in the middle of the discussion.

CIOs have struggled to moderate expectations and make sense of the noise. Combining these with the relatively clean structured data remains a challenge though multiple service providers and consultants tout the next level of competitive differentiation. These are early days where a lot of investment is a leap of faith or hit in the dark, until the haze lifts and clarity emerges, the worry for the enterprise is not to be left behind in the race to the unknown.

As for me accepting every new invite that comes my way, I think I will pass for now at stick to the couple that offer me personal and professional connectivity. The direction for enterprise and peers remains “keep a watch on the horizon, stay invested but focused on what matters”.

Online Customer Service in a connected world

In the last few weeks, I attempted to reach out to various service providers—organizations whose services I had availed in the past via their websites. The objective was to seek help with unsubscribing from their mailing lists, as well as for assistance in resolving problems I faced with a few purchased goods, respectively. While I thoroughly enjoyed the services and products, when it came to problem resolution, the process fell through the gaps (with no resolution).

We know that every business selling services or merchandise has had online aspirations since the Internet and World Wide Web came into existence. These aspirations skyrocketed with the mobile market growing at a fast pace and phones becoming smarter. Today, every business irrespective of size, geography and market potential, has a Website providing information. In many cases, these Websites even provide transactional capability, as they experiment with mobile based engagement models.

Customers have lapped up these offerings, as they have offered convenience (apart from discounts) over conventional modes of buying in many cases, or facilitated anytime anywhere commerce. Information enabled customers are also making smart choices by comparing offerings from various retailers. The industry has grown faster than conventional retailing in developed markets, and in the developing world, growth via non-brick-and-mortar model is higher by multiples.

Now, here are a few examples of my experiences with these organizations:

Case 1: Tried to reach a portal offering match making services to unsubscribe after my nephew found his match. However, the email ID for unsubscribing from the newsletters was incorrect. With trial and error, found the right id, and guess what? The mailbox was full, so the message bounced back. Not giving up, I wrote to the Webmaster and feedback email ids. Three weeks later, I still continue to receive offers to get married!

Case 2: Bought a leading brand’s stereo Bluetooth speaker from a store. All was well for 2 years, until I wanted to install the device on another computer. Unable to find the driver, I found that the website was not helpful. Emails to customer service, the CEO, and Web-forms have gone unanswered for a month now.

Case 3: Used the services of a large domain registrar. The payment gateway failed four times, prompting me to reach out to customer services, which helped me with the process. On the payment gateway screen after providing my credit card details, I get an error! Customer service says in an online chat session that the transaction is successful, and disconnects. I am left wondering if that last the unsuccessful attempts were also charged. Email sent to them evinces no response.

What do you deduce from these incidents? Technology can enable processes, but people have to execute them. If staff does not recognize that a customer is to be served through the Website, email or chats as well as they are served in the offline world, the customer can choose to take the business elsewhere. I am reasonably certain that I would do business with these sites or their associate sites only if I had absolutely no other options. Do they care about the outcome? I don’t know. Can CIOs and IT do anything to improve such a situation?

For starters, CIOs could be the process’ co-owners in the virtual world. The CIO can use his network of friends to periodically test efficacy, provide feedback, or fine-tune the process to achieve desired outcomes. Technology enabled blackholes (such as the outlined cases) are a negative reflection on the organization’s brand value and customer perception. Every customer counts—more so in a connected world when social computing influences consumer behavior; the ripple effect needs to be addressed before it becomes a big wave rushing down.

So, do you know what are consumers tweeting or blogging about your company?

Web 2.0 (Social Media) and the CIO

There are two camps out there, which hype the perils and advantages of social media for an enterprise—both are gaining ground and visibility. The CXO suite is confused, and this leads to pendulum like actions (moving from one end to the other) on how they react to these prophesies and theories. In many cases, it also results in total inaction, as they understand, and are comfortable with status quo. This leaves the employees in disarray—they act in an uncontrolled manner, thereby adding to the uncertainty.

Confusing? Well, that’s the moot point, so let me elaborate.

There are enough consultants, research papers, anecdotal references and general hype—that every business (irrespective of industry, geographical presence, market share and multi-channel presence) should leverage social media by connecting to consumers. This connection is deemed so important that businesses are creating presence across almost every social networking site—trying to gather the consumer around this space. A few have been able to get there with some degree of success, while others are struggling to find the meaning of being there. As organizations understand this social media revolution bit by bit, the general feeling is that it might translate to real money in the bank.

The same enterprises are paranoid, when it comes to opening access to social networking sites for their employees. One extreme is to mandate the CIO to block access to social networking sites (as the management believes that it results in precious time being frittered away). On the other hand, the balancers are defining policy for staff on the dos and don’ts of how to engage on social networking sites. These policies are expected to act as deterrents towards moderating use. However, IT organizations tend to bypass these policies for their own kin, thereby rendering the effectiveness suspect. I have not come across any organization having an open access policy with no restrictions on content, or the way it is used.

The two stances detailed above are divergent from each other. In the first case, the organization seeks to leverage social networking towards creating a business benefit, while on the other hand it restricts its own staff from participating. Every staff member is also a consumer of merchandise and services; companies would like to leverage the insights that can be created by understanding behavior. So if a similar stance is adopted by every business unit, the end result will be akin to companies creating retail stores, but preventing their employees from shopping.

Is the CXO’s disconnect due to the inability to understand the impact or control the behavior of the consumers? Or is it a generation gap between the digital natives (the new workforce) and digital immigrants (the policy makers)?

Under the guise of corporate security, the restrictions constrain natural desire to reach out in the digital world. CIOs should recognize these trends within the enterprise based on demographic undercurrents, and leverage the internal consumer’s voice before reaching out to external consumers using the digital media. These same employees will help you find ways to tap this latent source if aligned to the initiative. Else they are likely to be disruptive, since they want the freedom—because they can!