Strategy | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

Avoiding risk may be a very risky strategy

May 10, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Are we we talking about changing the way people work or about the need to interact differently with partners and clients, despite an unanswerable analysis of the context and the proven existence of many tangible opportunities, many prefer to curl up and adopt a rather conservative and defensive strategy, arguing that it’s less risky to face a know, even difficult, situation, than to explore something new.

An idea came to me when watching a sport talk show a few weeks ago. A well known coach was saying : “let’s stop saying that a team that plays in an offensive way is taking risks : it’s only trying to create opportunities”. It’s the same in soccer, tennis, basket, poker : teams and players are always split in two categories : those who go forward and are said having risky strategies and those who curl up, play hard on defense and wait for the storm to stop, hoping to make the difference on a counterattack.

Experience shows us that both can be winning strategies.

I find the analogy with enterprises relevant. Chosing a defensive strategy means being able to take blows, having to put up with competitor’s strategy, hoping better times will come. And sometimes that works. But the comparison does not fully apply. Sometimes, the walls crack and a the player or team in question is swept away. In the sport context it’s only a lost game, and a new competition will start a few days or weeks later, and everything will restart from scratch. In the word of business, the consequences of being swept away may last a very long time,

We can draw the following conclusion : chosing a defensive strategy, refusing the fight, let competitors take the initiative in a world where the score is not regularly set to zero, when everything does not restart from scratch every new week or year does not pay. Businesses are on an endless run where they can’t say “tomorrow will be another day”, if a competitor takes any advantage and is ahead today, both businesses won’t be on the same starting line tomorrow.

The recent Nestlé Case is meaningful. Now, wait to see if Nestlé, as Dell did in a similar situation years ago, will take advantage from the situation to change its approach, its strategy and adopt a more open one. As a matter of fact I’m sure than they’ve learned that the risk was not where they thought it was.

Playing in an offensive and open way is not a risk but an opportunity after all. Having to resist and put up with what others decide is, in the other hand, a real risk.

Filed Under: Management & HR, strategy, Web & Usages Tagged With: Communication, Customer Relationship & Marketing, nestlé, risk, social media, strategy

A socialnomics Manifesto

October 12, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

I rencently mentioned the word “socialnomics“. Whatt’s the interest ? In an interconnected world (not only by the net…a world were everything can impact everything, it’s essential to understand the context to define the systems (enterprise, project, organization, management) we have to implement. So let’s try to summarize things.

- the world is full of stakeholders. You already knew for your shareholders, your employees. For your partners and clients too. Now even your non-clients are a part of the game, they all have expectations, they all thave things to say about your products, why they trust your or not, they can all be the cause of a mass reaction that may impact your business, either positively or negatively.

- stakeholders matter as much as shareholders : it becomes harder everyday to satisfy the ones while neglecting the others. Worse, sometimes you have to listen to the first to satisfy the second.

- value is a flow. It does not self generate in the till or when a contract is signed but though a flow (many people already got that) that has its source outside the company, go through it and ends outside.

- localization is obsolete. People recently start to understand that interactions between the enterprise and its stakeholders did not depend anymore on where each was physically located but have moved online. But “online” does not mean the corporate website anymore, it could be anywhere, depending on the blogs or social networks people use to read/use. Businesses can’t afford to wait for customers to join them, they have to join them where they are.

- the way business is done is at least as important for performance than operations. It’s a matter of values, of culture (what a company like Danone has identified and turned into a key asset years ago) but also (for how long ?) of ethics.

- The famous “to” in B2C, B2B…. and its “one way” connotationis being replaced by a bijective “with”.

- vertical hierarchy won’t disappear but articulates with an horizontal one. As a matter of fact the above mentioned flow does not advance by itself. It is fed by noise that has to be turned into information, then in decisions, then in actions that have to be monitored. It implies an horizontal decision making model in organizations that are structured for vertical decisions making only. So the organization has to be rethought in order not only to obey to “people from above” but also to “next door colleagues”.

- the value chain becomes social. Processes too.

- la chaine de valeur devient “sociale”, les processus également.

- in an information econmy, the only things that businesses can value is what the public can’t create alone, without them.

- what matters in communication (both internal or external is not how much information is pushed but the level of gained attention.

That won’t go without some challenges such as :

- implementboth the process and the “human factors” that will help to embed stakeholder’s creativity and knowledge into products, services, operations.

- manage employee’s schizophrenia. They are a part of the ecosystem, of the stakeholders, but often have radically opposite behaviors depending on whether they wear their corporate or their customer suit.

- rethink the enterprise, still as a production driven organization, but not as a push engine anymore, rather as the industrial element of the market to market loop.

- offer only products, information, services that mass collaboration between internauts can not produce.

- separate the wheat from the chaff in all the social noise and not go to the opposite extreme what would be like a “social submission” with inconsistent actions and unreadable

chaine de valeur, création de valeur, Innovation, Management, marketing, parties prenantes, social crm, socialisation, socialnomics, valeur, .

Filed Under: Innovation, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: Customer Relationship & Marketing, Innovation, management, marketing, socialization, socialnomics, stakeholders, strategy, value, value chain, value creation

Beyond social CRM : social stakeholders management

August 31, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Last week I wrote what social CRM meant to me. It’s the inevitable step toward the implementation of a customer relationship management of a new nature. Clients are not only marketing objectfs or elements of a sales pipe anymore but people with whom businesses built things on a long term perspective, beyond the sacred purchase order. Moreover, a relationship that should strenghten even if no purchase order is signed : a prospect who does no buy is not someone who make you lose your time but someone you’ve got a lot to learn from.

It’s obvious that social CRM goes far beyond the implementation of new processes and action plans. It’s, according a me, a principle every action from the company or its employees has to be in conformity with. “Is Deciding / doing such things compliant with this corporate principle ?”. It’s easy to understand that paying more attention to customers and leaving employees in a “shut up and work” logic is a nonsense, and is even dangerous. So, internal practices has to be aligned with the new way of managing customers. If not, backfire may happen quicker than expected.

In such an approach, why should partners, suppliers, sub-contractors be excluded ? They also have their part to play in this virtuous circle.

Add that the challenges that are addressed are not only economic or product-related. Marktes now have tremendous ethical expectations toward businesses that seldom had an exemplary nature. Social business is not, as some may think, a word for social media uses within businesses, but a real societal fact.

Social CRM is a small part of a wider trend. It’s the extension of the stakeholders scope, their involvement in a new governance model that has to be factually implementend in day to days operations.

This looks like “social stakeholder management”. A global approach that has to be implemented both internally and externally, and not only micro-projects tinkered here and there, without any consistency regarding to overall operations. I can’t remember who said “progress is worth only if shared by everyone”. Maybe the better way to achieve it is to built with all the stakeholders, not only with words but through day to day operations.

Filed Under: Management & HR, strategy Tagged With: crm, Customer Relationship & Marketing, social business, social stakeholders management, stakeholders, strategy

Enterprise 2.0 between “next big things” and old tricks

August 18, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 3 Comments

You must have noticed how this summer was quiet in the enterprise 2.0 world. Of course, many people were on vacation (above all in France…), but there was a strange feeling. Something like emptiness, a kind of “end of something”. The end of a headlong flight.

The enterprise 2.0 has been knocking on companies’ doors for four years and, the most serious reports confirm it, if some successfully achieved their transformation, many are struggling behind. The traditional answer has always been the search for “the next big thing”, the trick that will make things change dramatically. The said trick used to be a new tool, a new feature. So the “hunt for the next big thing” kept going on for years. But it appears that this quest is running out of steam.

If we compare it with the “Tour de France”, it may be a high mountain stage. But the comparison ends here : in the “tour” you have to leave the others competitors behind. In our case, we have to help businesses to keep up inventors and visionnaries. We are forced to admit that, as thoughtleaders were climbing faster and faster (pursuing the “Next Big Thing”), those who needed their help to climb the mountain (ie businesses) lost heart, and got off their bicyle in the middle of the ascent. Hence a gap that is the contrary of what was pursued.

An enterprise 2.0 strategy is something that can’t exist (because it’s already one)

June 23, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

This is one misunderstanding that comes very often. Someone asks “what strategy is needed to become an enterprise 2.0 ? ” and you feel like answering “but it’s obvious…you just described it !”. Strange, isn’t it ?

Let’s start from the beginning. There is one undisputed principle : any enterprise is here to produce, its employees to participate in and, consequently, enterprises have to continuously try to find and implement the operating models and tools that fit the best their current context. One example : Cisco.

One questioning has been rising for years : according to the evolution of economy, of the demand, of the context : how to to decompartmentalize
enterprises, make it more flexible, make people more autonomous and tool them to be more more efficient with flows that are not physical anymore but informal ?

All these things, taken as a whole, are what is called “enterprise 2.0″. I tried to find a wordy definition years ago, defining it not as a stactic situation, a resultn but as something dynamic, moving, a set of means .
Trying to find a strategy for enterprise 2.0 is like thinking constantly without any chance to get out of the loop since enterprise 2.0 is the name of the strategy.

An enterprise 2.0 strategy, and the Cisco case demonstrates it, consists of using traditionnal toolboxes to implement the component of a project called enterprise 2.0 and , in no way to implement enterprise 2.0 hoping its component will implement themselves miraculously, allowing not to deal with sensitive issues.

As a matter of fact there are many tools that are known by HR people and by mamagers in order to define an implement a leadership model, to improve the management model, to use consistant evaluation and rewarding models that are sensemakers and favor alignment. Same here for IT depts that know how to implement tools and assist users. The list may be long but there is really nothing new for trained professionals in the enterprise 2.0 toolbox.

It seems to me that “how to built the enterprise 2.0″ often means “I don’t want to deal with all these sensitive issues so I’ll focus on enterprise 2.0 and the issues will disappear”. But building the enterprise 2.0 is about tackling “all these sensitive issues”.

Enterprise 2.0 is not a magic wand that avoids tackling important issues. It is exactly le the consequence of tackling these issues. Giving it a strategy is useless because it’s a strategy itself. It’s the name given to what has to be done so there’s no need to search anything else.

This reminds me of some kind of patients…

Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: change, Enterprise 2.0, Human resources, management, strategy

HR 2.0 as an ongoing process

May 28, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

This post is the continuation of the one I wrote on the central role HR have to be given in the change process businesses need to undertake to grow in the current economy.

Most often, identifying a need implies that a project has to be undertaken. A project is made of a number of known and planned actions. Is the need about training, a training program will be undertaken. A need about HR marketing (retaining staff members, improving employer’s brand) ? It will be a communication project. Etc..

HR 2.0 or, not to mix things, adopting social computing tools from the web 2.0 to serve an HR strategy imply a new way of doing things. I don’t say it has to replace all what’s being done now, it has rather to be seen as something complementary.

In the above mentioned post I wrote that HR people will have to learn how to deal with the fact we were mainly talking about things that have an impact n HR and that are not into their hand but in line manager’s. HR having to pilot managers, provide them with a framework but not having to be directly involved in end actions.

Here are a few examples.

Why HR are really central to Enterprise 2.0

May 26, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN 3 Comments

Relationships between human resources and enterprise 2.0, or rather the use of social software”, are very complicated. Whatever the way you consider the issue, you always have to deal with HR.

There are two reasons to that :

The first is that many people came to take an interest in enterprise 2.0 because their primary issue was an HR one. In this case, tools were seen as catalysts for new desirable practices that were hard to put to work because of barriers (time / space / tools) social software helped to get rid of.

The second is that the others, those who were passionate about tools but didn’t care much about how large organizations internal concerns, finally realized that they could not avoid bumping into HR people, who, most of times, were not very social software savvy and had a suspicious attitude. I don’t even mention that, in many cases, HR are most often askek to keep things as the are instead of behing innovative. What shows its limits today as we have to admit how the human dimension matters in today’s crisis.

Experience teach us that when HR were deeply involved things were successful (for example Cisco did a great job on leadership and appraisal) and, when they were not, they were taken for troublemakers.

In fact that’s not that simple.

From the 5 eras of social web to transforming organizations

May 25, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

I had the chance to meet up with Jeremiah Owyang during his last coming in Paris. He presented us his report on the the future of social web. An interesting discussion followed, then we came to have a drink and carried on.

One thing I used to sense and which was confirmed is the specificity of european and especially french people according about privacy issues. Jeremiah launched the discussion on his blog, feel free to participate. Generally speaking, and I had the opportunity to discuss it many times whith German Friends, it’s obvious that social media adoption is a lot about cultural issues. Local culture on the web, both corporate and local culture within companies even if, considering enterprises, the fact people have to achieve things together, things they are assessed on, may help to unlock the cultural barrier. Language matters too. It’s an issue I’ll tackle in a later post, I just need to throw myself into Geert Hofstede‘s work again for what’s about internal issues. Common sense being enough to explain external ones.

During the presentation, Thierry De Baillon was quicker than me and asked : “the” question : how can these “5 eras” apply to organizations. Jeremiah answered that the model was only about the outside. We got deeper into this point later in the evening.

Jeremiah’s words makes a lot of sense : his work is about of internauts, consumers will behave and businesses have to understand that in order to adapt and not to lose their market. Let me add another point : in order to follow their customers and adopt appropriate strategies toward the outside, businesses will also have to change internally, for many reasons :

• efficiency : it’s impossible to have the needed culture, the vision and implement projects that will be successfull externally if they contradict what the company is, the way the work is done. There will be a moment when the elastic will break, when employees won’t be able to meet customers’ expectations anymore.

• credibility : it’s harder and harder to keep things secret, to make enterprises walled gardens. It’s impossible to be engaged in social dynamics with the market and, at the same time, to have internal practices that isolate people, refuse to accept everyone’s specificities. The only fact the market will learn, understand, how the company operates, to what extent organization and management are not aligned with the marketing promise, will ruin all the undertaken efforts. Would you hire a torturer as a babysitter ? QED. I’ll also add that the impact on employees would be very negative. They surely won’t accept to be less considered than clients, or to be accomplices of a masquerade. Bad for engagement and motivation.

• socilogy : future employees are also players of this under construction social web when the walk through the office’s door. No suprise that they will try to bring their usages inside the company.

In short, businesses will have to adapt to the reality of social web. Articulate with it. The challenge : avoiding to lose their clients and demotivate their employees. This makes me feeling like thinking more about this articulation, about what could be the “5 eras of the social enterprise”. What could they be, in your opinion ?

Thanks to Gil Yehuda for providing me with these few tips to help me getting started.

Typical 5 Era Strategy Phases

View more OpenOffice presentations from gyehuda.

Filed Under: Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: brand, clients, culture, customers, jeremiah owyang, motivation, organization, social enterprise, social-web, strategy, values, web-2.0

Boards in the mist

February 11, 2009 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Boards have to be mobilized in order to make the right decisions to survive the crisis. Nothing new. But according to this essay from McKinsey, it’s far from being that simple.

Three reasons are put forward

• Boards follow unchanging procedures and ritualss. Defines shedules on a yearly basis, documents and agendas fixed many weekds ago.

It may seem absurd that people who make strategic decisions are traped into such straitjackets but this is facts. With all the consequences we can imagine on adaptability.

• Interaction modes that are not constents with the purpose. Boards are the place for consensual discussions, members only validate what has been done in preliminary works. It’s in no way a place for brainstorming and reflection from which anything innovative will emerge.

It seems that the only conflictuous point in a board meeting may be power. Not strategic issues.

• Many board members are not in touch with what’s going on in the economy. They are more comfortable with “preservation” strategies, waiting for things to solve themselves rather than with trying to take the initiative.

As a result, they will find themselves struggling to withstand tough conditions and badly positioned in the new environment.

Conclusion : board have to get rid of received ideas, to learn to think differently in order to find the means for strategies heading to the future instead of to become ossified on the present. Unlike halves-strategies.