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May
11
2012

"
Crowdsourcing your strategy may sound crazy. But a few pioneering companies are starting to do just that, boosting organizational alignment in the process. Should you join them?"

strategy socialbusiness crowdsourcing alignment leadership casestudies HCL wikimedia redhat 3M aegon

  • The best way to describe the possibilities of community-based strategy approaches is to show them in action. Two examples demonstrate the lengths to which some companies have already gone in broadening their strategy processes, as well as the degree to which the executives who participated are convinced of the benefits.
  • The solution was to turn the company’s existing business-planning process—a live meeting called Blueprint, which involved a few hundred top executives—into an online platform open to thousands of people. The new process, dubbed My Blueprint, was launched in 2009, with 300 HCL managers posting their business plans, each coupled with an audio presentation. More than 8,000 employees (including several members of the teams that had submitted plans) were then invited to review and provide input on the individual blueprints. A surge of advice followed. The inclusive nature of the process helped identify specific ideas for cross-unit collaboration and gave business leaders a chance to obtain detailed and actionable feedback from interested individuals across the company.
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May
9
2012

"The new year is here and businesses everywhere are in the process of developing, refining or finalizing their strategies for 2012. That said, how many organizations are taking a close, in-depth look at their culture as a basis for driving strategy?"

culture networks strategy hierarchy organizationalcharts

  • honest portrayal of how the fabric of human relationships (and the differences, nuances thereof) = culture.
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  • Networks Eat Strategy for Breakfast...Everyday
Mar
13
2012

"Summary: Designing quality business strategy that realizes the power of modern technologies requires alignment with traditional business values; the siren song of projected futurism can look embarrassingly naive in hindsight"

socialbusiness enterprise2.0 alignment business strategy management systemic managementbyobjecti collaboration

  • At the heart of Drucker’s thinking was the concept of ‘Management by objectives‘ (MBO),  a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees are aware of and agree to them and understand what they need to do.
  • Dion Hinchcliffe  (who is currently a VP at ‘Social Business’ consulting firm Dachis Group, where I was briefly a partner a couple of years ago) calls social media in the workplace “viable and valuable“, while Dennis Howlett (who comes at the topic more from a bean counter and Enterprise Resource Planning perspective) dismisses it as “laughable, even ridiculous“. The live voting is currently 78% positive on the topic as I write this.
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Feb
23
2012

"

Consequently, one of the questions that seems to come up most often is this: What are the necessary moving parts in a social business strategy? What exactly needs to be included and what can be left out? While the short answer tends to be frustrating and uninformative, namely that it depends on what you’re trying to do. The longer answer, fortunately, is more interesting."

socialbusiness strategy communitymanagement riskmanagement businessprocess organizationaldesign communication eduction training

  • Community management
  • 11 more annotation(s)...
  • Social Business Strategy - Social Media Center of Excellent and Local/Global Programs
Feb
21
2012

"A strong culture is important, and for all the reasons Parr mentions: employee engagement, alignment, motivation, focus, and brand burnishing. But is it the most important element of company success, as the more ferocious of the culture warriors assert? Is long-term success, as Parr writes, “dependent on a culture that is nurtured and alive”? If history is any guide, the answer to both questions is no."

culture strategy

  • Certainly, Southwest Airlines has a great culture and funny flight attendants. Employees seem genuinely enthusiastic about their employer. But Southwest also has a great strategy: no-frills service, a young fleet with a limited number of planes flying mostly short-hops from formerly secondary airports, and inexpensive and flexible labor agreements relative to other airlines
  • Parr attributes the success of Zappos to a culture that is “inclusionary, encouraging, and empowering.” Customer service representatives write zany emails and company leaders have often affirmed their belief that if you get culture right, success follows. But Zappos also has fast delivery, deep inventory, a 365-day return policy, and free shipping both ways
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"
Over the past few weeks I have participated in a suite of webinars and talks about online communities and their growing role in functional areas such as customer care. I have listened to, and debated with, countless community management specialists about community management best practices. I’ve heard a lot about keeping business strategy and community management aligned. There’s no question this is a critical success factor for social business — but the issue is whether or not this responsibility is part of the charter for the online community manager role."

communitymanager communitymanagement communties strategy communitystrategist alignment ROI

  • Placing responsibility for business strategy on the community manager will ruin many a promising online community, with lasting negative consequences for the business, the brand and, most of all, community members and customers
  • Let’s look at the role of online community strategy. It starts at the highest level, based on the organization’s mission and vision, and then proceeds to the business goals and business processes for the community itself. It is a line-of-business function led by an executive stakeholder responsible for strategic alignment based on the goals, metrics, measures and ROI.
  • 3 more annotation(s)...
Feb
20
2012

La crise aurait du révéler les DRH comme les sauveurs de la rentabilité, de la productivité et de la créativité ! Bref, cette crise aurait du permettre à toute l’entreprise de voir que les RH agissaient pour le bien de tous et participaient à la création de richesse.

Cela a été presque le cas. Presque

hr chro strategy credibility legitimacy esteem

  • La crise aurait du révéler les DRH comme les sauveurs de la rentabilité, de la productivité et de la créativité ! Bref, cette crise aurait du permettre à toute l’entreprise de voir que les RH agissaient pour le bien de tous et participaient à la création de richesse.

     

    Cela a été presque le cas. Presque

  • dans certaines entreprises, les Ressources Humaines sont devenue un « Capital Humain » trop important pour être laissé aux RH sans la supervision des adultes !  On voit depuis 2008 des services RH rattachés aux directions financières. Donnez–nous des métriques, des ratios et des  résultats ! Et nous voilà à devoir nous adresser au service achat pour acheter de la formation, acquérir de nouvelles compétences et optimiser nos recrutements.
  • 5 more annotation(s)...
Feb
14
2012

"es premiers résultats montrent que les modèles d’affaires peuvent aujourd’hui être l’objet d’un certain nombre de ruptures, mais aussi que le modèle de pilotage des processus de gouvernance, voire des formes de leadership dans l’entreprise, peuvent être largement impactées par l’irruption du numérique. Deux dimensions que l’on se propose de traiter, à la fois la stratégie et gouvernance"

lean enterprise2.0 socialbusiness strategy governance process culture taylor IT collaboration innovation complexity customer customerfeedback customerexperience

  • Pour ceux qui ne se souviennent plus, le management scientifique, c’est « Breakdown and Specialize », « je décompose et je spécialise »
  • La complication peut être attaquée par la réduction. La complexité, ce sont tous les liens qui font que l’on ne peut plus réduire. Dans le monde du 21ème siècle, on va devoir travailler autrement, on va devoir passer du compliqué au complexe.
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Jan
26
2012

"When Sam Palmisano retired as CEO of IBM on Dec. 31, it marked the end of one of the most remarkable tenures in corporate history. Over his decade as IBM's leader, he made a number of moves, each instructive, but their power came from their cumulative effect in the transformation of a good company back into a great one."

management leadership strategy sampalmisano lougerstner organization empowerment casestudies accountability values

  • That council of barons was replaced by teams for strategy, technology, and operations whose members included the next generation of operating leaders.
  • The consulting arm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers was bought to provide thousands of professionals who understood the process needs of key industries. In a near-miraculous feat of management, those consultants were partnered with technologists and successfully integrated into the company.
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Nov
14
2011

"Paying attention to customers seems like such a fundamental thing. So why do so many companies do it so poorly? How do companies lose touch with their customers, and lose their grip on the realities of the marketplace?"

customer growth opportunities strategy competition rigidity culture casestudies IBM Apple Sony Starbuck GE Kodak xerox customercentricity

  • Without question, customers are the single biggest factor in any company’s long-term growth and profitability. And yet, as companies grow, distractions multiply. Success can create such a dazzling array of opportunities that companies try to capitalize on too many of them, over-expanding and diluting their offering
  • Caught up in whirlwind growth, some companies become distracted by a landscape of opportunity and try to do everything just because they can.
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Oct
12
2011

Chess Media Group recently released “The State of Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration” report which collected survey responses from 234 executives and decision makers implementing these collaborative solutions in their workplace. The report covers things such as business drivers, ROI, types of tools that are being used, how budgets are being allocated, and how strategies are being developed. The report is completely free to download"

enterprise2.0 socialbusiness collaboration survey report strategy IT ROI value problemsolving measurement

  • Business managers and IT managers are beginning to work more closely together to co-own and co-sponsor emergent collaboration initiatives.
  • There is not a strong enough focus on developing an enterprise strategy before deploying a technology platform.
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Oct
6
2011

"I looked through this excellent compendium of Jobs quotes and found seven lessons for people and companies looking to succeed as 21st century capitalists."

capitalism finance CEO strategy vision

  • do you really want to spend your days slaving over work that fails to inspire, on stuff that fail to count, for reasons that fail to touch the soul of anyone
  • Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works."
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Sep
30
2011

"An important theme in the articles and blogs I've been reading recently is that it's time for social to grow up and leave childish things behind. Childish things like individual departments within an enterprise improvising ideas for social in an uncoordinated, decentralized fashion, with the nominal center for social (Customer or Public Relations) carrying the can when it all goes wrong."

socialbusiness enterprise2.0 strategy silos ROI measurement socialanalytics influence

  •   

    The development of social analytics may not yet be mature, but it's advanced enough that there's a new buzzword for it: "socialytics." The motivating theme across this emerging range of tools is that social should cease being based on intuition and guesswork. It's possible, instead, to identify vectors of social activity which produce reliable ROI.

  • This is where "socialytics" come in, of course. As a baseline, it's necessary to conceptualize success in social in more meaningful terms than merely reaching large numbers of customers and potential customers
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"A growing number of companies talk about the benefits of adopting web 2.0 tools inside the organization, but the list is short for companies that are using them for increased business results.

Unisys, the 138-year old tech firm, has quickly made "going social" part of its culture. Here's how they did it, and how they're using social media tools to become more agile, to share knowledge, and to increase the speed of innovation."

socialbusiness enteprise2.0 productivity casestudies unisys strategy alignment technology pilot governance metrics implementation collaboration expertslocation

  •   

    One of the biggest barriers to social collaboration is a disconnect between aspirations to become collaborative and the reality of being a closed organization. Unisys CEO Ed Coleman addressed this through leading by example

  • Gloria Burke, Director of Knowledge Strategy & Governance, along with co-directors John Knab and Rajiv Prasad, launched Inside Unisys, a social network internal to the firm. Coleman began blogging and soon his senior executives encouraged their teams to do so as well. Employees are automatically alerted to blog postings and microblog postings on the newsfeeds on Inside Unisys. Over time, Unisys sales people began using Inside Unisys to share information about recent wins as well as share lessons in losses.
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"In the past 25 years, CEOs of many major corporations have relied on a flawed set of beliefs to lead their organizations. This set has influenced them to place way too much emphasis on maximizing shareholder value and not enough on generating value for society. Today we are mired in the Great Recession, which was brought about by the near collapse of the financial system. This environment and the behavior produced by the prevailing set of beliefs to which CEOs subscribe have deepened a widespread public distrust of corporations and capitalism.

In this blog post, I will offer a new set of beliefs, which can renew and restore faith in corporations and capitalism. "

CEO shareholdervalue value society strategy

  • Shareholders benefit most when CEOs and boards maximize value for society and act as agents of society rather than shareholders.
  • The market favorably receives projects with long-term payoffs, particularly those in research and development.
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Sep
22
2011

"My charter was to suggest a practical pathway for how HR can become a critical weapon in the arsenal of ‘compete to win in the 21st century’ planning and how the connected enterprise will play a role. As we got to the ‘great,-now-lets-talk-execution” part of this conversation, one of the issues we tackled together was what tomorrow’s Employee System of Record needs to look like if HR wants to become a meaningful player at the strategy table. "

humanresources strategy systemsofrecord hrperformance performance value findability

    • So I thought I’d abstract that discussion and bring it here.

       

      “I’m much more than what HR thinks of me, today”.

       

      The foundational ingredient to craft highly connected enterprises properly is two fold:

       
         
      1. The collaborative context that warrants a huddle in the first place, and
      2. Who the right players are to get the job done.
  • 8 more annotation(s)...
  • Assessing the Real Value of ‘Me’
  • Assessing the Real Value of ‘Me’
Sep
19
2011

I think trying to define something is a very good exercise to understand what you are dealing with or what you are trying to do it for. It also helps to communicate internally. And regardless of what many say, I don’t think there are enough definitions of (Social) CRM, at least not good ones.. But that is a personal opinion, not relevant to today’s post.

socialcrm process strategy philosophy mindset capability technology practices performance customer relationship

  • I think trying to define something is a very good exercise to understand what you are dealing with or what you are trying to do it for. It also helps to communicate internally. And regardless of what many say, I don’t think there are enough definitions of (Social) CRM, at least not good ones.. But that is a personal opinion, not relevant to today’s post.
    • Regardless of the definition you’ll read or try to tweak, it will be one that fits into the following 6 (valid and viable!) concepts of CRM:

       
         
      1. (Social) CRM as a process (or function)
      2. (Social) CRM as a strategy
      3. (Social) CRM as a philosophy (or mindset or logic)
      4. (Social) CRM as a (cap)ability
      5. (Social) CRM as a technology
      6. (Social) CRM as a practice (or as practices)
      7.  
       

      OR, as a combination of all or some of the above concepts, in a non-alphabetical order.

  • 5 more annotation(s)...
Aug
17
2011

"You know your organization needs to change. You've developed a strategic view about where you need to go and you've matched that up with an understanding of the changes that will require in your culture. You've thought very hard about organizational mindsets and personal behaviors that will need to shift to get there. Now, you actually have to do something to shift them. "

management change changemanagement influence strategy culture evaluation skills

  • what we've seen is that the starkest differentiator between organizations that can change successfully (and sustain higher performance over time) and all the others isn't in what they say, it's in what they do--how they actually implement change. You can't just have a workshop and put up a few posters, you have to intervene in the system.
  • 5 more annotation(s)...
  • Beyond Performance
Aug
10
2011

"Sometimes there are postings on intranet discussion forums where people say “I’ve been asked to write an intranet strategy and was hoping I could have a look at somebody else’s”.

To me that’s a little like saying “I’m planning to have a really enjoyable holiday and was hoping I could come on yours”. Although seeing what somebody else does can be useful to get ideas, it is unlikely to be a good fit to your particular requirements. "

intranet strategy vision foals measurement implementation

  • 1. Vision or Purpose: What is the intranet for? 

     

    This innocuous-looking question can be hard to answer, but if you can get all your stakeholders to agree on this, then it stops an intranet programme being pulled in multiple directions. 

     

    Many strategies seem to state the blandly obvious, such as “To help Grotco communicate, collaborate and work more effectively”. The acid test is: given two otherwise equal options, does the vision guide you on which route to take?

  • 2. Goals : What are the 4-5 main things that the intranet will do in the future?

     

    This is where the intranet strategy should take a lead from an organisations’ strategy. So if your organisation aims to improve customer satisfaction, then a strong goal would show how the intranet could play a part in that: finding experts to solve problems, better tracking of issues to resolution or providing more accurate information to sales teams, for example.

     

    Some goals may be more inward-looking, such as ensuring 99% of employees can access the intranet. These are worth tracking, but won’t excite anyone, and may be better under “Implementation” (see below)

  • 2 more annotation(s)...
Aug
3
2011

"Let's look at some characteristics that could help to discern the difference between non-strategic business software and potentially strategic business software:"

software strategy vendors

    • Non-strategic:

       
      • First vendor question: "What is your problem, how can we help you?"
      • Focus on "how you do things", i.e. on efficiency, bettering the status quo.
      • Product names almost always includes the term "manage": Control, preside over, govern, rule, command, oversee, administer, organize, conduct, handle. Again no new ways, there is no effectiveness in the term manage, it's all about more control of the "how" we did what we did yesterday, and the day before - tweak the status quo but never challenge it.
      • A second strain of non-strategic software uses the moniker "productivity". Pure efficiency again, all well and good to do things faster, but there's not a whiff of flexibility in regards of the strategic "what you do".
      • First vendor question: "What is your strategy?" or "what are you doing and why?" as in “what value are you to deliver, to what customer, and how are you to be different?”.
      • Focus is on "what you do", i.e. on effectiveness and what can be done differently.
      • Product names? Hard to say as there are none out there, but I would venture that it would include process, run, operate - and hopefully no "management".
  • In other words, all current business/enterprise software is non-strategic in the real sense.
  • 3 more annotation(s)...
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