Data, data
everywhere, but no one knows where it is or how to find it, let alone use it to
create a customer centric enterprise. Organizations and companies are so siloed
they can’t get a 360 degree view of their customers. They are so siloed by
politics, organizational structures, culture, poor data management and
resistance to change that they can’t help themselves. The age of the data warehouse
and the single subject data mart has passed but still we can’t see all of our customer’s
data. Why? We have sophisticated data analysis tools that include predictive
analytics and even OLAP, but we still can’t see the customer. And now there is the
promise of In-memory data bases, which may enable and real time data mining of
online transaction processing systems. This is certainly something that
everyone has wanted, but will this enable us to see all of our customer’s data?
I sincerely doubt it.
On Friday my
Internet went down and I had to call COMCAST, unfortunately they had to send a
technician. The technician called me but did not know what he was being sent
out for, he didn’t have my data. My DVD player died during the week and I went
to Best Buy and got a new one. They offered me a three year line of credit on a
new TV without interest, but they wanted me to fill out a credit application.
Are they for real? I have purchased products from them every year in cash, they
should know who I am, don’t you think? Why don’t they don’t who I am, they had
my data did they lose it?
It has been
almost three years now since I began my sixth startup experience, SAP’s Business
Influencer Group, (BIG). BIG is the second startup I have attempted in a large
organization, the first was Gartner’s G2 Group a technology research unit
focused on industries. SAP’s BIG and Gartner’s G2, however, have come with all
the challenges that startup people face in a large organization; achieving high
levels of business velocity and the inability of people to look at things differently
and adapt to change.
My first
visit as Head of the BIG group was to Harvard Business School where I met one
of today’s most important academic influencers Ranjay Gulati. Ranjay researches
everything customer focused and in May of 2007 he published an HBR Spotlight
Article on Customer Focus, Silo
Busting: How to Execute on the Promise of Customer Focus. As you might
imagine, I spend a great deal of my personal time keeping up with important
academic research that aligns with our company’s business initiatives and I
think that Ranjay’s Silo Busting research was well ahead of it time. For anyone
involved in anything customer related this article is a must read and I think it is one
of the most undervalued articles I have come across over the last three years.
Ranjay’s Four
Cs of Customer Focused Solutions
In Silo
Busting Ranjay profiles Jones Lang LaSalle a commercial real estate provider,
Cisco, General Electric’s Medical Care Systems, and interestingly enough Best
Buy. Ranjay invented a seemingly simple approach to creating a systemic
customer centric enterprise, the four Cs.
Coordination-Cooperation-Capability-Connection
The four Cs
might look simple at first but making it happen requires that scary word,
change. And there needs to be top down support for anything like this to even
have a chance of surviving in any organization or company. I won’t go into them
in detail, but his four Cs span, the realms of change management, technology,
organizational culture, metrics, training and knowledge management. I would
think for many organizations this would be a best practice in becoming a
customer centric organization and I think it’s one of the reasons why Ranjay is
now a Harvard professor.
Silos of Data Prevent Customer Focus
Enter me the
social customer. As a social customer I expect business and all organizations
that I interact with to know me. And no I don’t want to join their fan page on
Facebook. I want them to know me, and interact with me in a way that demonstrates
this? Those companies and organizations that demonstrate this will get my
business and interactions. Those that don’t will be out of mind. I am a social
customer and I want you to be prepared to interact with me in the way that I
want to, and most likely in the future that will be through my smart phone or
IPad. Don’t put my data in a silo where no one can see it! Use it to make me
the social customer happy and engaged.
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