Winter 2013 Newsletter
Engagement is more than a promise
Are you in the business of being social? What mechanisms do you
use to engage with customers and staff? Our feature article this
month discusses the benefits of engaging with customers and staff
in a broader social arena by utilizing any number of social tools
available today. It also warns us about the risk of creating an
engagement gap if you choose the wrong approach.
Without engagement, organisations run the risk of losing customers
and employees. Without engagement, the influence of brands will
continue to decline. Recent studies claim that "engaged customers
are three times more likely to recommend or advocate a product or
service to a friend." There is mounting evidence pointing to
greater business value and strategic differentiation emanating from
improved engagement. So as technology is enabling a shift from
transactions to engagement, it's important to avoid haphazardly
designed approaches to customer engagement.
I read recently that in the past decade, more than 40% of the
companies in the Fortune 500 list, have been replaced by new
companies and upstarts. The pace and change has hastened and there
is visible impact of how disruptive technologies impact business
models.
In the mid-90s Clayton Christensen coined the phrase disruptive
technologies in his book called the Innovator's Dilemma.
Christensen defines disruptive technology as any product or service
that is designed for a new set of customers. The problem is that
disruptive innovation can hurt successful, well managed companies
that have a formidable track-record in responsive customer service
and a strong R&D culture.
Charles Fine warned us that we live in an age of temporary
advantage, and that industries with very rapid evolutionary rates
can be examined for information that will benefit businesses of all
kinds. "The greatest rewards go to the companies that can
anticipate, time after time, which capabilities are worth investing
in and which should be outsourced, which should be cultivated and
which should be discarded, and which will be the levers of
value-chain control and which will be controlled by others."
FBS is knee deep in the innovation process, leveraging thirty
years of industry experience and formidable talent to continually
change the look and performance of our products and services.