The social enterprise - A reflection of society

The Social Enterprise A reflection of societyJorge Teixeira da Silva February 2013

The Social Enterprise - A reflection of society Jorge Teixeira da Silva 2/13

Executive Summary

”Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.” The Cluetrain Manifesto

Markets. So much can be said about them, despite the fact that they really don’t exist. There is no such thing as “markets”. It’s about people! What’s happening is that each individual now has a much bigger ability to spread her word, being able to reach out to other people. The reach of one person is multiplied by the number of contacts they have on social networks, or the people who read their reviews, and so on. So nowadays, each individual has the communication capacity of a whole community.

The myriad of information available on social networks, and generally online, has transformed the way that each person considers products and services, from need to selection, purchase and support. Usage of these channels (Internet and social communities) will be intrinsic for young people and next generations.

What this means is that these digital channels will be the most important way for organizations to interact with customers. Question is: are organizations evolving and preparing for this? In many cases, the answer is no!


Digital World

From a controlled, produced by few and consumed by many situation, information has become a more democratized asset.

The expression ‘Digital World’ is recent, and used to reference the virtual lives that people lead online. Increasingly more aspects of the physical world are replicated to the digital world. We seek information, places, people, knowledge, products and services to buy, interactions, collaboration, and general sharing of experiences.

Second life. Online, we have little or no limitations. We can reach out to places and people with few boundaries of time, geography or common ground. The Internet changed the game. We behave, interact, live differently.

From a controlled, produced by few and consumed by many situation, information has become a more democratized asset. With Wikipedia, anyone can read, and anyone can write. Blogs gave voice and means to express an opinion to anyone who so desires.

But nothing has made a as big a dent on the Internet — and our lives — as social networks. Not only can any person express their opinion, but they can have a loud voice, overheard by many. Social networks became the link between several standalone spots and places on the Internet. All the dark corners are accessible. One person can no longer be perceived by organizations as an individual, but rather as a community.

Make no mistakes, social networks are here to stay. We don’t know the shape and color of things to come, but the fact is that current and future generations will rely on the Digital World. How can organizations cope? Change is needed.


Organizational Change

Organizations must adapt their processes, flows and hierarchies in order to tackle all this change.

Collaboration is key, and the traditional way of doing business is incompatible with it. To adjust, the first step is to do a detailed analysis of the customer ecosystem, and perform a roadmap of initiatives encompassing all the changes required for the organization to cope with this new way of thinking, collaborating and interacting. The flow of information has to be visible to achieve the final goal: to create long-term, continuous relationships.

Second, organizations must change their internal structure, dismantling silos. Customers have already done so, by sharing information between themselves and between several organizations they relate with. Organizations are really just keeping up. Some will lead the way and quickly adopt this new way of building customer relationships. They will have a stronger foundations for their business, wherever the future takes them. Organizations must be a reflection of society.

Closed organizations — who don’t listen to customers — will soon be out of business, and customer information silos are only part of the problem. Internally, many organizations are shut and have little happening in terms of sharing and interacting between different departments. How many times are IT departments not aligned with customer service? Are all departments aware of the organization’s game plan? Are they aware of each other’s game plan?

So if customers are becoming communities of common interest and sharing, shouldn’t organizations become social along similar lines?

How can this be accomplished? It’s something that must be incorporated in the culture of the organization, not necessarily related to technology or the new, digital native workforce. Technology can help: new processes can be implemented by adding a couple of functionalities


that allow for sharing of information or knowledge. But it can’t change the behaviour of each individual within the organization. The culture change must be top driven, and incorporated in the company DNA.

Organizations work top-down through social interactions structured around the organization hierarchy. And they work end to end, structured around their business processes. But these two dimensions of the organization shape the way that they interact with the customers and especially how they develop their products and services. This could be the right approach (the traditional one), but in this day and age, it must become more agile and aligned with customers.

A third dimension appears. We see it when people get things done by working across the steps of a business process. By working and connecting with each other, people do more than just what they are told, top-down, and more than what is defined as their job. This is the social dimension.

If organizations do become more agile and more socially driven, they will see customers and partners are not as externals, but internals. And they will succeed in this new era. It’s the same logic: communities, sharing information, knowledge, and more importantly, experience.

The social organization mobilizes its people (stakeholders, customers, suppliers and partners, without regard to hierarchy or position) and their interests, passions, knowledge and experience. Harnessing all this collective intelligence creates a new source of competitive advantage, agility and future innovation.

To accomplish these changes, organizations need information, internal and external. They need to enable flows of data.


Information

The new approach towards a more Social Organization is driven by new thinking, new processes and a new way of dealing with information.

All the changes focused on in previous paragraphs will generate a sea of information. This is one of the most critical processes for the evolution of an organization. How will it deal with the flow of information? How will information be transformed into knowledge? These are heavy challenges.

Every organization generates information and every organization consumes it. So a good flow must be put in place. The new approach towards a more Social Organization is driven by new thinking, new processes and a new way of dealing with information. It’s impossible for the organization to be take a more social stance without new technology that enables the flow of information, which is more complex than the usual corporate data, with several aspects that are more difficult to interpret.

The information flow has three major focus areas:

Inbound – Incorporating all the information from internal and external data generated by collaborators, customers, partners and competitors;

Outbound – Data that is generated from inside the organization and placed outside, through the Web, Contact Center or Media.

Analytical – Treating all the information that has been gathered and putting it in the right context.


All areas have to work together to get the best out of the information flow. The Inbound processes need to cope with all the data that is generated in the Digital World and with the complexity of the unstructured information (all the data generated on the internet, is usually plain text, so there is a need of understanding the context of the data).

So the Inbound process is the funnel of data which deals with all the external information that should be treated internally. Technology is required to deal with this. Big Data. Although the term has become a buzzword, it merely describes a problem of large amounts of data — usually plain text. Big Data is unstructured, and without relationships with internal information and processes. We need to treat it, and the Analytical area comes into play.

The Inbound Process also deals with the information that is generated within the organization, but resides on structured databases (ex. accounts, billing information, contacts, addresses, etc.). The information can come from systems such as CRM, ERP, Billing, IVR’s and others. Usually the information is stored under a Data Warehouse umbrella.

The Outbound process comprises all the information the organization sends out. Information that from website, Facebook pages, Media Channels (ads, communication, etc.), Contact Center conversations, etc. This enables organizations to measure effectiveness of communication by combining internal and external information, contextualizing and enriching it in an analysis process. Organizations can see how they are perceived by people, and gain insights on how to leverage customer experience and business insights.

Collected information will be used to contextualize customer interactions. For example, if a customer has placed a comment on Facebook, and later makes a call to the Contact Center, the CSR should see the information and use it to give a contextualized response. A better customer


experience. In a nutshell analysis empowers people to make the right decision by having relevant information.

The combination of this information will generate a hub of knowledge that will:

• Enablethetransmissionofinformationbetweenstakeholders, from customers to employees and partners;

• Giveaclearvisionofwhatcustomerswant;• Measureimpactoftheorganization’scommunicationandproduct

and services offer;• Measuretheresultsofcompetitors;• Giveinsightsaboutthebusiness;• Allowforananalysisaboutmarketsharesusingsocialdata.

Many aspects of information can be explored, and with the omnipresence of Social Networks, a new era of information flow has come about and enabled the study of the many aspects of the market — people. All the changes presented in this whitepaper are related to this new era of information amount and flow that brings the customer closer into the organization.


The management (r)evolution

The Digital World has enabled this flow of information between communities and people. They are not closed in their circles of friends and families; they share information and experiences.

So what organizations should do is incorporate that into their DNA, and co-create experiences with their customers, in order to allow for a strong relationship model. In a the new era of business management, organizations must also live in a spirit of sharing and co-creating.

Social media changed the world. It brought about new perspective to people and gave them more capabilities and influence. There is no turning back. The future will be in the Digital World. Organizations must change, become more agile and fluid. More open to co-creating products and services with the communities.

These also means that organization must evolve to become more people centric!

Information flow is at the center of the stage of change.


ImprovedExperience

CUSTOMER

Talks with youSocial Media Media Corporate Data

Customer gets a better, more personalized experience

LISTENINGANDCOLLABORATING CRM/BPM

TOUCH POINTS

SOCIAL FILTERED DATA

BI Reporting Collaboration

Knowledge Management

CMS

Document Management

Marketing Automation

Predictive Analytics

Metrics

REAL TIME ANALYTICS


AboutJorge Teixeira da SilvaHead of BI at DRI

With over 20 years of experience working in CRM and BI, Jorge made his way from Deloitte to TMN, Portugal’s largest mobile operator. He launched several mobile brands under the TMN umbrella. Jorge adds a layer of analytics to several projects, directly via BI and also embedded in CRM and BPM based projects.

DRI is a global consultancy company.

With offices in five countries and successfully delivered projects worldwide, DRI helps organizations to foster engagement and enhance customer experience through digital channels. DRI has 4 main areas of application focus: Web, Platforms, Mobile and Emerging Media; all connected to our CRM, Social CRM and Business Intelligence solutions.

DRI builds innovative solutions using agile methods that lead to a perfect match between technology and functional/business needs.