Jim SinurElise Olding and I were chatting about how companies are making big mistakes by not paying attention to the social feedback from the collective. This can be directly applied to lessons learned for BPM as well.
http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/03/16/process-improvement-ideas-from-the-collective-edge/ http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/07/07/got-social-processes/ http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/07/04/social-bpm-is-design-by-doing-really/
Let’s analyze some of the recent headlines for visible situations that have had significant immediate revenue consequences and created an environment of miss-trust with companies. I will not mention the names of the companies, but you will be able to figure them out.
![MP900442430[1]](http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/files/2011/10/MP9004424301.jpg)
A Major Media Rental Company:
This organization decided to “double dip” according to the collective reaction by charging for both the DVD and internet streaming. The clients viewed this as just a choice of channels to get the same content. Why charge for two streams? This created a storm that kept new clients from signing up and existing clients started to leave in large numbers. This was a poor move and could have been avoided by tapping the collective. It was finally rolled back.
A Major Handheld Device Company:
This organization ignored complaints about issues with their infrastructure issues and the lack of a consumer friendly device and software structure. This is absolutely the wrong time in the market to have these twin problems and worse yet, it might be too late. If they would have listened to twitter early they would have certainly dealt with the infrastructure early.
A Major Bank:
A major bank felt it’s own oats and pre-announced it’s intention to charge for debit card use. Talk about bad timing in the economy to pull this kind of stuff. The market spoke loudly and got the bank to back down. You would think that this bank would have tried some social outlets before embarrassing itself. Right now almost everyone dislikes banks. What made them think they could push the envelope and have people smile and take it? Yeah it’s a pain to switch banks, but sometimes the incentives are just there.
Net, Net:
We can’t ignore these examples and say there is not a trend here. Ignore the collective at your own risk for business decisions and process designs.
Category: Applications BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Challenges Cloud Green IT Governance Optimization Social Strategic Planning Tags: BPM, business, Business Process Improvement, Business Rules, Decision Management, events, Optimization, Process Improvement, Process Management, Simulation, Social, symposium
3 responses so far ↓
1 Martin Bartonitz October 31, 2011 at 3:26 am
Yes, the social media applications are leading to a new culture. The people want to be part of innovation processes as well. The more complex problems are the more single experts are failing and the help of the many is needed.
This is what we see in the corporates as well as in the politics all over the world.
2 Meral Crifasi October 31, 2011 at 7:02 am
It is quite incredible that all these major companies when making these major decisions they don’t even consider their customers . Look at the biggest flop of Netflix if only they have listened right they would have had a clue
3 Chris Taylor November 1, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Great points on the three companies. These are all excellent stories about companies that acted first and listened later. I don’t think, however, that these are the only companies behaving in this way, just three that are well-known for having lost business or having to backtrack on decisions.
What I’d like to see is an example of a risk avoided by taking a new approach to listening. I’m sure the stories exist, but they aren’t as well-known.