Wake up call – is your company the next target
We are living in interesting times indeed. Geo-political revolutions throughout the Arab world, social justice protests in Israel, the tsunami in Japan that disrupted many global supply chains, financial crises and economic uncertainty,
And we live in a business world accelerating at a dizzying speed and teeming with ruthless competition.
But that is not the only challenge the business world is facing. Customers are voicing their opinions about companies they do business with, as constituents voice their displeasure about the poor job their leaders are doing on their behalf.
The following incidents caught executives by surprise as specific cries against corporate actions rallied the hearts, minds, and activity of thousands in revolt against insensitive corporate interests.
- BP – the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
- Facebook – unfriend coal
- Nestlé – using palm oil from companies that where trashing Indonesian rainforests
- Bank of America – repeatedly raising interest rate
- BNP – radioactive investments
- Taco Bell – seasoned beef
- United Airlines – united breaks guitars
- Intel – minerals mining in the Congo
- Shell – environmental transgressions in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria
What’s perhaps most interesting is that these recent revolutions and crises are being fueled and enabled by the reach and connectedness of internet based social media.
So the question is, will your organization lead the next revolution in your marketplace, empowering and giving voice to the latent motivations of your customers, or will it become a victim of a more agile, more united group of customers who will self organize around their collective needs and jobs, leaving your outdated organization in their wake?
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Wake up call – is your company the next target — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/iur
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I don’t think that it is the main question if a company will lead the next social media driven revolution or the “more agile” clients.
As written and described in exactly this sentence the challenge is the ability to deliver services and products in a way (this means including the complete value change) that matches the client’s needs.
It will be more and more fact that companies and/or consultants have to change the mode of calculating profits.
The loss generated by being the victim of a social media campaign because of gaining profits in not-respecting clients (and social) wishes and demands will be faster and much higher than to respect these requirements. Sal media is a chance to renew, refresh and, maybe, turn the image into a better one and in consequence to increase profits again.
The question is wether a company can accept and recognize the challenge of social media as a positively usable client’s mouthpiece in establishing client oriented services, products and approach or if it defines social media as a kind of enemy that has to be antagonized or “lead”…
Like governments, nations or even religions nobody should underestimate the power of the masses. The try just to lead public opinion without introducing and implementing massive changes internally can lead into a blind alley or, worse, over an abyss.
As a responsible consultant and interim manager I understand it as a matter of course to clear up my clients about this not innocuous situation. It’s time for a change – to survive public pressure in anyway. Cost is not only what can be seen obviously…, not?