Thursday, November 25, 2010

Facebook CRM

Social media are increasingly being used for contact management. Traditional contact vehicles, like email, don't really provide useful contact manegement capabilities. Social media, like Facebook and LinkedIn do offer not only information about contacts, continually updated by the contacts themselves, but also have been growing their messaging and chat functionality, making them more viable as contact management tools.

Social media have been used for some time now by companies trying to get their message out and trying to collaborate with their stakehoilders. The enhancements in contact management and messaging capabilities will serve to make them more valuable and more widely used for CRM. For an interesting take on this theme, see this link.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The End of Top Down Management?
by Gerald Trites

Management gurus have been predicting the end of top-down management for years. It might have started with some of the early writings of Peter Drucker, but I haven't gone back and checked the references. Certainly, after the beginnings of the information age, the predictions abounded. The workforce is different, the thinking went. It is more educated and (gulp) talented. The power will lie with those who have the skills. The bosses won't even understand what their people are doing and will be relegated to the role of coordinators. The real decisions will be made by the workers.

Somehow, it hasn't worked out quite that way. The bosses still call the shots - the real shots. The masses still have to toe the line, certainly in the big companies. Yes, there are exceptions, Google is often touted as one, but then one could argue that it gets a lot of press on this point because it is an exception.

The move to collaborative or participative management has evolved into something of a charade, where there are periodic meetings and discussion groups when important things are happening, but which often involve explanations of why management has chosen a particular path, under the guise of seeking employee input.

So that's where we are at this time, after some twenty or thirty years (depending on where you start counting) of the information revolution.

Enter social media. A rising tide of commentary has been suggesting that social media will transform the internal workings of organizations, that the people within the organization will all have a voice and that decisions will be made with ongoing and decisive employee input.

A recent book, "Social Nation" by Barry Libert, (reviewed at this site) argues just this point - that social networking is transforming the attitudes of everyone in or connected to an organization, and that management therefore has to change its ways and become much more inclusive and consultative.

The fact is though, in a modern corporation, employees can participate publically in discussion of corporate issues on social media, but they cannot speak their minds. If they speak against the corporate line of thinking, the current culture or, especially, the actions or pronouncements of particular managers, their tenure with the organization is bound to be short. They know that, and many people on Facebook, for example, keep two accounts - one for work related acquaintances and one for family and friends (real friends).

So is social networking transforming management? I'm from Missouri on this point.

The fact is, there are many factors working to transform management that have nothing to do with social networking. One of these is the tremendous increase in the participation of women in the workforce and their growth in numbers in management - a trend that has developed over the past twenty years or so. Women have always been more eager to communicate than men, and more eager to talk things out with others who are affected. Men and women working together, throughout history have always been able to work effectively to the common good. It was only with the advent of large organizations, with their need for men to go away from the home to work that the worklives of men and women became so separated. Before that, they worked together on the farms and in family owned businesses for centuries. Men and women working together avoids the extremities of masculinity and feminity and brings to bear a much more balanced and inclusive approach to management and to worklife generally. It is that which is leading to major changes in the way organizations are managed, not social networking, although hopefully it will improve the way in which social networking is used in corporate cultures.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Distributed Co-Creation et al

The growth of social networks and the concomitant growth in online collaboration has led to the coining of a phrase that captures the business technique that has evolved. It's called distributed co-creation and it represents the approach of gathering a group of users on the web together to collectively solve business issues.

McKinsey defines and places it thus “…[T]he ability to organize communities of Web participants to develop, market, and support products and services has moved from the margins of business practice to the mainstream,

Those who are gathered may be customers, suppliers, technical experts or any group with the capacity to bring some critical expertise or knowledge or experience to bear on solving problems.

Online collaboration is no longer new, but this term is, as is the focus on the legitimacy of including in business processes, particularly those involving creative functions, such collaborative activities.

McKinsey has released a list of 10 IT trends most affecting business, and distributed co-creation is top of the list. Other collaborative activities are also on the list. All of which points to the new world of widespread collaboration on the web for business purposes.

Friday, November 12, 2010

When Credit Card Fraud Strikes a Company

"A credit card data security breach was not a positive event in the history of Hannants, but the way the company handled it mitigated the problem and made customers feel like they were included in the solution -- more like partners than like victims. Hannants trusted its customers and their reaction to the news, and the company was rewarded with a largely positive response from its customers in social media."

Credit card fraud can be disastrous for a company, but the Hannants case illustrates a number of important lessons about good CRM. Communicate with the customers. Be open and honest. Don't be defensive. Don't lay blame. Just work to fix the problem and tell the customers what is being done to safeguard their interests. Have good relationships to begin with. That may be one of the most important points. Good CRM, with established channels of communication and a legacy of trust will pay off in bad times.

For a write-up on the Hannants case, see this article.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Gartner's Top Ten Technologies for 2011

Gartner has released its list of top technologies for this year. Cloud computing tops the list, as might have been expected. Also Mobile apps comes second - again not a big surprise, which means that it is a reasonable list.  The top ten are:


1: Cloud computing
2: Mobile apps and media tablets
3: Next-gen analytics
4: Social analytics
5: Social communication and collaboration
6: Video
7: Context-aware computing
8: Ubiquitous computing
9: Storage class memory
10: Fabric based infrastructure and computers

For more detail on these items, please click here.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Saas, IaaS and PaaS

We hear a lot about Software as a Service (SaaS) and its role in enabling applications to be provided in the cloud. Lately we have been hearing more about Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service. IaaS essentially involves the provision of raw computer power and storage. PaaS, on the other hand, offers up not only the infrastructure but an operating system and an applications platform which customers can use to develop/configure their own applications. PaaS gives the customers more flexibility with the applications they use on the cloud than does SaaS, which is generally a bit restictive because the same apps need to be used by a variety of customers and the provider could not possibly support the apps if there were 100 variations on them being run.

IaaS and PaaS not only involve different customer experiences, they involve different strategies by the providers. So far, Amazon, as one of the major cloud providers, has stressed an IaaS service. Recently, on the other hand, Microsoft has been going into the PaaS route. The two rivals will therefore be attracting customers with different needs and desires, but also will be selling their wares on the basis of the differences they offer to the customers. The outcome will be instructive in gauging the future direction of cloud services. For an excellent article on the Microsoft initiative, check out this article.

 

Thursday, November 04, 2010

What is Social CRM?

CRM has been changing drastically over the past couple of years, and the centerpeice of this change is Social CRM.. Involving the use of Social Networking to strengthen CRM, Social CRM provides a way to involve the customers as never before. Facebook is widely used by companies for this purpose, although some of the other social media, like Myspace, LinkedIn and Youtube (although this is a different kind of social media) are used as well.

Companies that implement social media generally set up a few pages on Facebook, and then install social media software, which is available from most major CRM vendors now, and which gathers the Facebook information and provides an interface for managers to analyze the information. This might include who likes and dislikes a particular entry. Who has become a fan and who hasn't. And what comments are being made on the company's wall. Of course, the Facebook site also provides a vehicle for providing answers and commentary, but companies who successfully implement social CRM recognize that it's more about listening than about talking. For an intro to Social CRM, check out this site.

Monday, November 01, 2010

Using Social Media in a Small Business

Social media are being used more by companies for CRM purposes. For smaller business, social media can also be useful for interacting with customers and others. The key is interacting. many smaller businesses, and some larger ones, see social media as just another tool for getting their message out. Another tool for broadcasting.

But the key to social media is the fact that it is social. That means interacting with people at a personal level. Listening as well as speaking. This is a novel idea for many people. Not that they have never used social media before, but they often have not made the connection between business promotion and social media. It's very different from traditional advertising. But it is quite similar to the idea of socializing with clients and potential clients. Going to cocktail parties with them or playing golf with them. This is the kind of interaction you want when using social media.

For an interesting article on this subject, check out this link.