Who are you not reaching today?

Here is a most relevant question.

Who are you not reaching today? The people and the number is huge relative to your potential business partners or customers. You know it is true. The times are changing. It is no time for business as usual.

Who will keep you in business tomorrow? Now think about it. Is it the people you are not reaching today?

Is hierarchy overrated?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are a number of trends that are converging that make it easier to have less hierarchy. Is it time for leaders to reconsider our approaches? 

However, as digital technologies make it easier to work in a distributed manner, and we enter the social era, flat structures will become increasingly common.  There are sound business reasons for treating people with dignity, for providing autonomy, and for organizing among small teams rather than large hierarchies.

Read more:Hierarchy Is Overrated - Tim Kastelle - Harvard Business Review

How do you combine technologies to innovate?

This makes so much sense. It is the combination of technology that becomes so powerful in this model.

Well worth reading and thinking through as an enabler of innovation. Adam really nails this one.

These technologies can be combined in numerous ways, and we are just starting to see companies really taking advantage of the possibilities. These four technologies will have a disruptive impact on your business, almost regardless of which industry you're in. The question is whether you will choose to adopt them before a competitor does.

What are they?
1.  Microprocessors
2.  Sensors
3.  Wireless connectivity
4.  Databases

The Four Technologies You Need to Be Working With - Adam Richardson - Harvard Business Review

How the remote workforce is changing

We all know it is true. We see it happening every day. The remote workforce is growing, it is mainstream, it is maturing and it is learning new skills. And, it won't go back to the way it was. We have an anytime, anywhere revolution going on.

For the Digital Executive, this is a huge opportunity with a lot of upside. You can now live in a world with the best talent regardless of where your business is located. Is the best talent for the job in Topeka? You can hire them. Think of the "Anywhere Employee". 

As advances in technology have made it a practical possibility for millions, remote working has increased dramatically over the last decade.

While once working from home was considered a bit of a novelty, we argue that it is now so mainstream it’s more interesting to consider how the remote workforce is changing.

Mashable spoke to human resources professionals and other experts to get some interesting insight on this subject.

How the Remote Workforce Is Changing

What is business technology? A slow but relentless revolution that is important to the digital executive.

We live in a world where simply trying to align technology with business units is becoming difficult or even impossible to achieve. Savvy business staff (via the Cloud and other means) can select, fund and enable technology without the traditional IT function.

Developing effective business strategy today requires us all to blend technology strategy and business strategy in the development stage of planning, not after the fact. Technology should be fundamental to all we do as we develop business strategy.

A slow but relentless revolution in which traditional technology management, historically delivered only by an IT organization, is changing to be pervasive technology use managed increasingly outside of IT's direct control and measured by boosting business results. --Forrester Research

I think characterizing this as a "revolution" is right!! The digital executive drives a partnership with all parties, technology, marketing, sales, communication, customer service, etc. The digital executive isn't independent but is open and interdependent.

Can you BLUF?

We all spend a lot time in meetings, sending and responding to emails and talking with others on the phone. More and more we need to cut through the clutter and get to the point quickly in meetings - and in messages.

Let's take a lesson from the Navy. We could all take advantage of BLUF. That’s the acronym they use in the military for Bottom Line Up Front. In a military setting, BLUF communications allow people to grasp the essence of a situation immediately and seek details only as necessary. It’s like a Cliff Notes for every situation.

Here is another nifty list, also from the military. Always describe:

• What’s what.


• So what.


• What next.

If you’re in a meeting that is focused on getting to the bottom of an important situation, these are great guides. Encourage people to cite their headlines from the start. It not only saves time, it ensures the communicator has a point in the first place.

What should you do to start the journey of constituent experience?

The effect of everyone jumping on the constituent experience bandwagon is a slowdown in the maturation of this new business discipline. Confusion abounds as does disbelief. No one wants to risk exposing their constituents (and their job security) to new engagement practices that might increase instead of decrease frustration and churn.

However, the growing confusion opens unique opportunities. Here are a couple of strategies to start action plans around.

• Creating a disruptive mindset by reimagining your business and constituent relationships in a digital world.


• Making trusted content the center of your business strategy and constituent experience.


• Infusing social constituent experience across all business functional and digital touch points.


• Repeatedly measuring and proving the financial results.

If you haven't begun the journey, now would be the time to start.

“Lithium’s blueprint is in direct response to customer requests for advisory and insight services to help them make their social customer experience strategy a reality.” He defines social customer experience as “unlocking the passions of your customers in the digital world in a way you can capture those insights, measure them and empower your organization to bring your customers along.” ~~Rob Tarkoff, Lithium Technologies President and CEO

What is your mobile strategy?

According to Latha Maripuri, Director of IBM Mobile and Security Services, mobile technology has unquestionably changed how we interact in both our business and personal lives. In fact, mobile devices have quickly moved from a nice-to-have technology to a necessity for most of us.

But the integration of mobile within our lives doesn’t stop there. We’re using mobile technology in innovative ways and countless places across every industry. For example, doctors can track therapeutic effectiveness through remote monitoring apps, keeping them updated on patients even when neither is in the hospital. The examples are endless.

More here: Mapping Out the Top 4 Strategies for the Mobile Enterprise « A Smarter Planet Blog.

Growing Constituents And Revenues Are Top Priorities For 2013

As more signs point to strengthening economic activity in the US and selected regions of other parts of the world, corporate austerity is fading and growth is back in the spotlight. Acquiring customers, improving the customer experience, and growing revenues have returned to center stage. Forrester Research recently asked more than 2,000 global business decision-makers at large organizations what their “critical” and “high” priorities are for the next 12 months. We found that:

• Their top priority is acquiring and retaining customers (73%).
• Tied for the top spot is growing overall company revenue (73%).
• The third most important priority is addressing the rising expectations of customers and improving customer satisfaction (68%).
• Lowering operating costs now only takes sixth place on the priority list (63%).

It is evident from these data that effectively managing customer relationships has become the top priority for business success.

Better customer experiences drive improvement for three types of loyalty: willingness to consider another purchase, likelihood to switch business to a competitor, and likelihood to recommend to a friend or colleague. Forrester's models estimate that the revenue impact from a 10-percentage-point improvement in a company’s performance, as measured by Forrester's Customer Experience Index (CXi) score, could exceed $1 billion.

More here: Carpe Diem With The CRM Playbook: Growing Customers And Revenues Are Top Priorities For 2013 | Forrester Blogs.

Are there risks to mobile CRM?

There's no stopping the mobile CRM revolution, but those who rush into it headlong with an eye only to the many benefits may be in for an unpleasant shock. As if we didn't have enough to worry about, mobile CRM is laden with risks, too -- from getting on the wrong side of the customer to getting on the wrong side of the federal government. Then there are the myriad security concerns that go along with making sensitive company data accessible on a device that may be woefully insecure.

More here: The Hidden Risks of Mobile CRM, Part 1 | Mobile CRM | CRM Buyer.

Will you shape the vision?

IT is like business engine, CIOs are accountable for critical part of business that is constantly changing and evolving. Contemporary CIOs should be capable of evolving leadership skills to not only match pace with the changes in technology and the pace at which organization can effectively manage these changes, but also proactively drive changes in business transformation.

Shape the Vision: CIO and his/her team can play a large role in shaping a vision of the firm as a place where passionate individuals want to connect with and learn from one another. CIO offices also have a significant responsibility to choose and deploy the IT that will help their firms realize the vision. Simply put, IT can no longer just be about numbers and algorithms; it has an opportunity to be a significant catalyst for passion and a tool for encouraging questing and connecting the innovation dots.

Ignite Passion: The range of technologies have emerged that can help foster a deeper sense of connection and purpose in employees, ignite latent worker passion and bring together disparate parts of the organization. But these new tools also necessitate a new way of thinking, a creative way to do things and a flexible way to work smartly.

Set Evolution: The emergence of the CIO coincided with the birth of the PC and end user computing. That role certainly matured as the Internet age unfolded. Now, it’s social, mobile, consumerization of IT, Big Data and a major shift in how IT services are delivered (cloud). These changes are inspiring spiritual conversations around the role of the CIO, these are all evolutionary and in some ways even predictable.

What is your new ecosystem?

The need for change is obvious. The CIO as change agent not only touches his/her own function, but also need make influence on entire organization and business ecosystem as well, it takes strategic planning, methodology and practice in orchestrating such transformation. This is a big deal. If the business isn't strategic it will be impossible for technology to be strategic as well.

Define Roadmap: In fact, the required changes, at the most fundamental level, need be well documented. A clearly defined roadmap is available, and industry best practices are in place to serve as a framework upon which the solution can be implemented over time. The transformation to a more proactive service/solution delivery organization with repeatable management processes in place of the 'crisis of the day' leadership model, can be a reality, but only if the CIO is the proactive, visible and charismatic sponsor.

Optimize Process: Meanwhile, to compete, business unit leaders need IT to ensure the availability and reliability of their business process automation tools/technology, so their staff can function as efficiently as promised, back when they justified the tool purchase. In fact, many organizations have little insight into their cost structures and who is consuming the assets. They have no idea where they are spending their money on and often assume it is mainly being spent on items which are actually much lower on the list. Every IT finance group can capture costs but the challenge is to have visibility and traceability between costs and the assets consuming those costs. The leadership team needs IT to be the business process optimization expert for the company, to find creative sources for competitive advantages, to better compete.

Ask for Help: One of the first things a CIO must do in a transformation initiative of this magnitude is to ask the business for help. The effort will fail if the business units are unwilling to invest resources and accept a "period of pain" where service levels may be adversely impacted. CIO can envision themselves talking with business unit leaders, selling them on the challenges and the vision for the future. Will CIO be open to new perspective, willing to adapt the new skill set to the demands of evolving technology or adapt their role to the evolving business requirements for technology? Will CIO be learning agile to understand business ecosystem and connect innovation dot cross-functional, cross-industrial and cross-cultural border? It takes both attitude and aptitude.

The only thing worse for a marketer than giving fundraisers no leads, is giving them bad ones

According to 1to1 Media, the only thing worse for a marketer than giving sales people no leads, is giving them bad ones. Lack of information on prospects such as their organization size, industry sector, job title, or just simple contact information can stop a record dead in its tracks, even though it may be a quality lead. Marketing processes like lead scoring, which prioritize the most important leads, are dependent upon correct information at the contact, demographic, and company level.

As a result, data quality is especially critical when every aspect of demand generation is under a microscope to prove its contribution to revenue. In the process-oriented world of marketing automation, every percentage point counts, and every factor that contributes to conversion must be scrutinized. Successful lead generation within both CRM systems and marketing automation relies on an abundance of good, clean data.

via Why the Data will Dictate CRM and Automation Success in 2013.

Will you transform the culture?

Many IT departments are still reeling from the "slam it in and fix it on the fly" approach that was required by the rush to automate all core business processes (late 1990s & early 2000s). A reactive, crisis-driven and internally focused 'systems management' culture evolved as a result, such culture becomes barrier for IT to reach higher level maturity.

From “Heroic effort” to “Collaboration Effect”: IT department-wide culture is maintained by a 'Heroic effort' reward system, a value system that is proving to be nearly intractable. Along with the Hero mentality, expertise silo evolved a non-collaborative, finger-pointing culture that renders truly effective SLAs impossible to measure & enforce. A fundamental change in the heroic effort rewards culture is required to put an end to the reactive, crisis-driven and technology systems focused role for the IT department, and shift to business-driven, collaborative IT mentality because the business requirements for technology management have changed. The rapid push for offering ‘cloud-based’ services and the need to retool IT to centrally manage these, is certainly a perfect opportunity to rethink the role of IT and make a cogent case for a service-level driven rewards and recognition culture

The transformation journey must start with the CIO. However, very few CIOs are willing to step away from the existing IT management paradigm and hero-based rewards culture to adopt a new role as a culture change transformation sponsor. This has not been a required leadership skill-set for the CIO role to date. It is a dramatic change in skills, priorities and rewards tactics. Can veteran CIOs who came up the ranks accept this need for a dramatic change in IT culture? Will they have the required skill set to sponsor such a change? Do they have the charisma to achieve buy-in from the current IT staff. Or will it take a crisis? CIOs must drive the elimination of the heroic effort reward culture. This is the principal challenge for current “up through the ranks” CIOs. Recognizing the need for this fundamental change has not been easy for most veteran CIOs.

Be Change Agent to retool Organizational Culture: Culture is perhaps the most invisible, but powerful fabric surrounding organization, the toxic culture like water, which can sink the enterprise ship, IT is also at unique position to well align people, process and the latest technology to empower talent, enforce communication, enhance governance, and enable cross-functional collaboration, to retool organizational culture for achieving high business performance potential.

 

Will you be the Change Agent?

Change is the second most popular word in 21st century. Why change is so tough and what really keeps (C-suite) executives from embracing organizational transformation is FEAR: fear of letting go of heroic leadership, fear of losing control, fear of navigating through uncharted territory, fear of chaos.

But change is inevitable, due to the CHANGE nature of technology, CIOs shouldn’t get pushed for change, they are actually at better position to play such a role as change agent in leading organizations’ transformation.

Will you be the change agent?

What is the real cost of email?

Tom Cochran  believes that email is the most abused method of communication in every office environment. And the widespread perception that it has no incremental cost is chronically damaging workplace efficiency. According to Tom, the challenge we are facing isn't an aversion to technology, but change. I think that sums it up very well.

Tom suggests there is an entrenched level of comfort with email, making it habitual and a communications crutch. We have to take a holistic view and see email as one of many channels for collaboration. Adopt a breadth of tools to connect people, teach them the appropriate use of each and encourage smarter use of the right technology.

I also find that an open office environment creates less of a dependency on email as "literally" walls come down and teams naturally collaborate.

More here: Email Is Not Free - Tom Cochran - Harvard Business Review.

Is your contact center loyalty focused?

Is your contact center loyalty focused? One of the trends I am seeing is that as companies more fully understand the link between customer experience and loyalty, especially with customer service, they are increasingly viewing contact centers as value-creators and not just cost centers.

Some of the effects we are seeing is less focus on average-handle-time and other productivity metrics, more focus on customer feedback and quality metrics, more on-shoring of previously off-shored interactions, and more investment in agent training and coaching.

Tidbit: Consumers that are satisfied with customer service interactions are more than 4 times as likely to repurchase than those who are dissatisfied.

Interested in a Voice of the Customer Program? First build executive support

Interested in a Voice of the Customer Program? First build executive support. Those who have gone through the process all say it is critical.  It is also consistent with research showing that executive support builds a foundation for VoC success.

Executive support helps Customer Experience pros put key building blocks in place, such as adequate tools to collect and analyze data and processes to systematically act on it.

How do you build support? Prove the value of the program by demonstrating tangible business value. Track the results of service recovery efforts to save unhappy customers and aggregate the results of improvement projects initiated by VoC-collected data.

So, get started fast but make sure the C-suite is on board.

Customers hold more power than ever before

If we don’t think customers are more powerful than ever before, just ask Bank of America or Netflix. Both are great examples of fast consumers empowered with social tools can flat out reverse corporate decisions that seem irrational to consumers.

And why shouldn't they. That it has taken this long to have the ability to get the attention of corporate decision makers is stunning. It is a new day. Swift economic impact to corporate decisions is good for the economy in the long run.

“Today's consumers are empowered and are not afraid to use their social muscles.” ~~Mila D'Antonio, Peppers and Rogers

Customers Hold More Power Than Ever Before - Think customers: The 1to1 Blog

Are you leading a digital transformation?

Breakthroughs often begin by thinking differently about the company's mission. Pages Jaune, the French Yellow Pages, was losing business as paper books became less and less relevant. The CEO led the effort to re-conceptualize the business as one that connects small businesses with local customers, which led to new products and services, such as mobile apps and Web pages for its member companies.

We have all used the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies as a metaphor for this form of breakthrough thinking. Are you focused on speeding up the caterpillar's process? Or are you envisioning that totally new butterfly?