Social CRM: Balanced Scorecard

I had previously written a post on SOCIAL CRM explaining what SOCIAL CRM is all about. Today, I will be sharing on what actually SOCIAL CRM means to companies and how should they percieve about it. While recently reading “The world is flat” blog, I bumped into “Balanced Scorecard for SOCIAL CRM” which I thought to share with you all.

From a financial perspective, how about measuring the profit through Improved Lead Management by listening to customer conversations, reminds me of “Tweets, Retweets” concept. Capturing the conversation happening between the organization and the customer in a system helps in better understanding and catering to their needs. A proper history/track of conversation is definitely a better way from turning lead-prospect, converting to an opportunity and then grabbing it.

The simple example of DELL India catering their customers in Twitters, listening to their problems, giving them solution…how about all those information flowing into SOCIAL CRM, the point being here the customer are not individuals but organizations.

There is always a fear among the sales force of losing their clients to other sales people in the same organization because of the targets and other factors but then there is a loss of information which happens in the process because of the fear. If I as a salesperson approach some customer and some conversation happen between me and him which I think can help other sales people who are targeting similar clients, why not share it with them and what better than a SOCIAL CRM which can help in the process ensuring free flow of ideas/discussions to others sales force. SOCIAL CRM can act as an incredible tool in forming an association among sales force and a platform for them to innovate and discuss ways which can help to improve and peform better.

And, when customer behaviour/conversation/insight is tracked, then definitely it guarantees a higher satisfaction among customers and that in turns ensures customer loyalty and retention.

Balanced Scorecard

Financial: Improved Lead Management, Improved Brand Image,Higher Cross/Upsell, Higher Profitability


Internal Business Processes: Innovation via Employee Ideas,Internal Social CRM enablement,Technology enablement

Customer:Higher satisfaction and retention,High service quality, high loyalty

Learning and Growth:Targeted Products, High Innovation (both made possible due to customer behaviour and insight)

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SOCIAL CRM: The "IN" Thing...

CRM has always been a fascination for me. So, after all the buzz CRM has created focussing on the “constructive” interaction between a customer and a company, something else has taken a centerstage now. A new thing that has added a zing factor to CRM is “SOCIAL“. So, how different is SOCIAL CRM is from a regular CRM system??

The difference between these two is just one word, social. Social brings a new element into CRM because now instead of just dealing with data and information we are dealing with conversations and relationships. These conversations and relationships take place not just from company to consumer but also from consumer to consumer. The social CRM can be used by marketing and sales teams to listen to conversations, craft appropriate messages, join in immediately with customer conversation and offer them value in terms of information and solutions.

Social CRM has the ability to:

* Convert content to conversations therefore humanising a company so that customers regard the organisation as a trusted peer.
* Extend conversations into collaborative experiences, putting the customer at the core of a company’s strategy.
* Transform these experiences into meaningful relationships based upon real customer engagement.

Social CRM will help generate marketing intelligence, providing the marketing department with insight that will assist your company to source better leads and reduce customer support costs through self-helping communities.

FORMULATION Models

There are various models that can be used to assist in the formulation of strategy.I would discuss three broad categories of formulation models:

1. Matrix based Formulation Models
2. Nmemonic Letter based Formulation Models
3. Issues/Themes Models

Matrix-Based Formulation Models

These models take two variables, one variable being placed on a vertical axis and the other being placed on a horizontal axis. This makes possible to plot various options, products, companies and so on. Variables can be dependent or independent. They need to be important issues that are of relevance to the strategic situation being considered. Scale can be any of any parameters either a matrix can have three scales like "high", "medium", "low" etc or even 2 scales like "high" and "low". Plotting of variety of things like products/services, companies or even strategic choices can be done on a matrix which can be represented as bubbles, dots or enhancements. The size and shading of these can be used to show vital information.

Keep reading STRATEGYAAN for more FORMULATION MODELS..

OPERATIONAL Alignment- Continued

3. Degree of business strategy and IT alignment:HIGH and Use of Technology:HIGH(B):It means the business has a clear view of where it is going and how to innovate, identify and deploy technology to contribute to business success. The challenge for a business is to maintain this initiative to avoid falling into the place where the degree of business strategy and IT Alignment is low. Both the Balanced Scorecard and the 5 Views Model will be used continuously and reviewed to ensure that a business can maintain its competitive lead.

4. Degree of business strategy and IT alignment:LOW and Use of Technology:HIGH(D): There is a chance that the business is spending too much on technology and also that it is not getting any measurable benefit or contribution towards its business strategy. Many new start-ups either started or ended up here because of combination of poor business models and bleeding-edge technology solutions.

There are additional drivers pertaining to Planning, Funding and Communications from Operational and Strategic point of view.

Planning

Operational Fit: Responsive to business unit requirements, prioritize by business unit, IT plans reviewed by the business, IT infrastructure approval linked to funding

Strategic Fit: Involves all key business stakeholders, Single, well-integrated business plan

CONTINUED....

OPERATIONAL Alignment

Businesses aim to enable strategy through the proper use of IT to support business processes. The Operational Alignment Matrix allows a consultant to test and position a business within this framework. The axes of the matrix are first, degree of business strategy and IT alignment, and second use of Technology. The first axis defines the degree to which a business has established a strategy and the level of alignment expected to deliver it. The second axis determines how businesses will make use of technology to enable business processes so that they can deliver their products and services.

To give a bigger picture, a business may see a particular technology as being a fundamental differentiator of its products and services in a marketplace. There are 4 situations:

1. Degree of business strategy and IT alignement:HIGH and Use of Technology:LOW (A):It means the business is forward looking and has a clear view of where it is going and why. The technology is enabling the strategy, but probably not driving business change and process improvement

2. Degree of business strategy and IT alignement:LOW and Use of Technology:LOW(C):As long as the business recognizes that it is here and why, then there is no problem, although clearly there will be many opportunities to improve on both strategy and enabling technologies. The Scorecard model will be of particular help here, to develop and focus a business strategy and provide the drivers as measures to develop an IT strategy in support of the vision.

Keep reading for the next 2 situations.....

ENTERPRISE 2.0, What is IT??

Everyday, we hear about a lot of new terminologies that raise our curiosity level to know more about it. After Web 2.0,the new buzzword in the market is “Enterprise 2.0” which surely connects to Web 2.0.So, what really is “Enterprise 2.0“?

Enterprise 2.0 is the term for the technologies and business practices that liberate the workforce from the constraints of legacy communication and productivity tools like email. It provides business managers with access to the right information at the right time through a web of inter-connected applications, services and devices. Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of many, translating to a huge competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility.

Enterprise 2.0 takes the original concept of the Web, using websites to feed content to visitors, and turns it upside down. Instead of a one-way conversation-your company talking to the site visitor-Enterprise 2.0 lets you implement a multiparty conversation to share information and manage knowledge inside and outside the organization using blogs and wikis, social networking and tagging, rating systems and the like. The link among these tools is the ability of the individuals involved to participate and to control the process while they work together, share information and create networks of people with similar interests.

Remembering LEHMAN after a year

Last September, something unusual happened which brought a turbulence in the world economy. The major stock markets hit an all time low, fear gripped the investors minds, recession everywhere and the list of negativities continues. It’s been a year and time to relook at the major events, impacts and lessons learnt straight from the LEHMANIAN BOOKS.

The economists believe that it was capital inadequacy and not liquidity which was a major factor for the failure of Lehman Brothers. A risk management framework should be in place to identify and implement risk mitigation measures to reduce the likelihood of future credit and liquidity-based losses along with addressing the complexities of a changing regulatory landscape.

The firm should increasingly focus on these areas to mitigate the likelihood of future market and credit based losses.

* Understand and monitor counterparty, market and credit risks.
* Increase the operational effectiveness of collateral effectiveness.
* Measure and monitor liquidity risk.
* Understand the importance of transparency of internal controls surrounding the safeguarding of assets.

A central lesson from Lehman Brothers is that prime brokerage clients should understand not only where their assets are being held, but also the contractual provisions and legal remedies that exist should a prime broker or other counterparty default. Assets may not be held at the legal entity with whom the prime brokerage agreement was executed, and may have been transferred to other legal jurisdictions globally. Investor protections and bankruptcy/insolvency laws differ depending on the legal jurisdiction in which assets are held at the time an entity either files for bankruptcy or otherwise becomes insolvent.

Policies should be implemented to manage capital market risk across the enterprise. This may include re-tooling or developing and implementing robust models to measure market, liquidity, and credit risk. Models and tools should be linked with effectively designed governance practices to establish risk appetite, and to monitor, manage, and report risks.

Valuation models should be appropriately stress tested to provide senior management with confidence that a complete and accuratepicture of the firm’s financial position is visible on a daily basis.

Truly said, a structured Risk Management Framework in place can help firms to weather the financial instability. Do, we want another Lehman to happen?? The answer is certainly NO.

Social WORKING or NETWORKING???

I happened to come across an interesting subject called “Social Working” and I must say it was gripping enough for me to spend some of my time to go through it and also read the comments.And, being Twitter the center of discussion, I couldn’t help but start TWEET on it.

For me, social working is working with “like-minded” people with whom we share common interests and there is a mutual benefit.Simple. So, if I socialise with my team, that’s because probably our objective and work environment is common. If “x” person visits my blog and follow me, that means I and those “X” persons share something in common, might be our interestes, style of writing or a mere liking for me. Social Working is beneficial when information in any form reaches between the members uninterrupted and there is no loss of information.

Taking the discussion to the next level, do Ch1blogs and Twitter fulfills it?? CH1blogs surely does it. But, I have my reservations on Twitter. Though being a tech savvy and having used numerous social networking sites like facebook, orkut, twitter never seemed to attract my attention and there are reasons for it.

My observation on Twitter says that its an application only for certain amount of people with a certain purpose to fulfill. So, if today, Priyanka Chopra is using Twitter and has already gathered 20,000 fans, then it’s not at all a shock for me. For a celebrity like her, her fans would be interested to know her min by min updates.Twitter is a great advertising tool.So, for budding entrepreneurs and people who share knowledge, it’s a great place for advertisements and notifications.

Though I am not quite aware of the statistics of Twitter, but how many of the people would have time to update it frequently except when we are enjoying our holidays and hooked up to a computer or lazying around in office and tweeting with unknown people? Why would I like to allow some unknown people to follow me when I am not sure about their background or not aware whether we share some interests or not. I am sure TWITTER is not a tool to befriend anyone. May be it would work in a corporate environment where people within same platform would like to listen min by min update of their team members but again here too, why would people from other team would like to know about the update of some other person in some other team until and unless they share some common interest.

Twitter is a great concept but definitely not an answer to “Social Working” or “Social Networking”. Social Networking happens when socialization happens with a certain amount of interdependency which Twitter fails to fulfill.

Social Working or Networking is successful when the correct person sends correct information and it flows to the correct person. And, if there is a mismatch and these three are not in sync, then the whole idea of social working or networking fails.It’s just not the information flow but also the visibility of information which is important. And, there is always a chance to block and ignore a person if you do not want to be socially connected to that person.

So, are we socially on the right path??

Principles of CHANGE Management

Two to three decades back, probably, Stability was a major goal for most of the organizations and shareholders expected nothing more than predictable earnings growth. But the scenario has changed drastically, market transparency, labor mobility, global capital flows, and instantaneous communications have blown that comfortable scenario and have forced the management of most of the organization to face a new challenge called “CHANGE“. Successful companies, as Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter in 1999, develop “a culture that just keeps moving all the time.”

This presents most senior executives with an unfamiliar challenge. In major transformations of large enterprises, they and their advisors conventionally focus their attention on devising the best strategic and tactical plans. But to succeed, they also must have an intimate understanding of the human side of change management — the alignment of the company’s culture, values, people, and behaviors — to encourage the desired results. Plans themselves do not capture value; value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of the thousands — perhaps the tens of thousands — of employees who are responsible for designing, executing, and living with the changed environment.

Long-term structural transformation has four characteristics: scale (the change affects all or most of the organization), magnitude (it involves significant alterations of the status quo), duration (it lasts for months, if not years), and strategic importance. Yet companies will reap the rewards only when change occurs at the level of the individual employee.

No single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques that can be adapted to a variety of situations. What follows is a list of guiding principles for change management. Using these as a systematic, comprehensive framework, executives can understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to engage the entire organization in the process. The principles to cater CHANGE MANAGEMENT are listed below:

1. Address the “People Issues” systematically.

2. Embracing CHANGE should start at the Management level.

3.The Transformation programs should involve all different level of organizations.

4. Creation of a Vision Statement Document and articulation of a formal case for change.

5.Ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change.

6. Communicating the right message (Top to bottom) and Feedback.

7.Assessing the cultural landscape.

8.Prepare for the unexpected, assess the risks.

Interesting, I will write on these principles in detail in my next post on Change Management and let me know the feedback whether this post is gripping enough or not.