My friend, Beth Kanter* pointed recently to a Forbes.com piece by Laurie Burkitt about Threadless.com, the Chicago-based tee-shirt company. The author says that the dotcom, consumer retailer sprang to life from the idea that "employees and customers don't have to be two distinct groups."
It's a good thought, one that I think captures one of the fundamental changes being brought on by social media's emerging role in business.
What surprises me is that the thought seems to have a lot to do with The Living Enterprise, the book I'm writing with Mark Yolton and Zia Yusuf about SAP's ecosystem.
SAP is no consumer marketing company. It is big, technical and it's customers are big and the people they talk with are most often technical.
Yet the thought that customers and companies and the third-party consultants that are involved are all part of the same community. If one party benefits, so do the others. If one becomes unhealthy so do the others.
Now the Threadless concept is about the customer doing the design work and being rewarded accordingly. That's not how it works exactly at SAP. But SAP does let its customers mess around with SAP product source code to customize software to their respective needs.
It also has inserted a several online communities into its company infrastructure, where customers, partners and SAP share ideas and information. There are two million unique visits to these social networks each month; 6,000 posts-per-day. In the course of 2008, 70,000 individuals in over 200 countries contributed to more than a million topics.
Because these conversations are in blogs, forums and wikis, the answers to questions are easy and fast to find. A developer can usually get the answer to a question in less than 20 minutes. All sorts of SAP people, from its myriad locations, workgroups and perspectives participate
At the end of the day, it can be hard to determine whether an idea or suggestions, or useful tidbit was generated by a customer, a partner or SAP itself.
It is far more complex than Threadless. But the concept is the same. There is a shared interest and a common need.
In the Conversation Age, employees and customers are no longer two distinct groups. They have a common need. They swim in the same waters. They flourish or flounder together.
This has probably always been true for marketplaces. But it has become a lot more clear to a lot more businesses since social media opened up businesses, than it ever was before.
*Today is Beth's 53rd birthday. You should go wish her the happiness she deserves.
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I wrote a response & I realised I rambled… quite a lot actually so I thought I’d summarise, and if you want you can read my ramblings further lol!
So to summarise:
1) I love your post thanks Shel, it sparked of a huge train of thought! (see below!) :)
2) I agree about ecosystems of business and I talk about how integral the customer is to the success of business, and that it is great that businesses are starting to see this more & more.
3) Then I go off on a different tangent about how important employees are to the business & how businesses still do not understand the true value employees could add, even in great companies like SAP & Google.
1) Great read- that's why it's SO important to create a WIN WIN outcome, it's never the case that the "other" side is completely separate from us, much less so when it comes to business. Ecosystem is the perfect word to describe it.
2)More & more I'm seeing that businesses are catching onto the fact that their customers are their best asset- not just because they buy stuff- but also becoming an integral part of the whole design process, and finally companies are beginning to truly understand what customer service is about. Customers want to belong- that's why BRANDS, especially on clothing are so huge- if they don't get that "belongy" feeling from their interaction with a company they quickly get disillusioned.
Um, yes, sorry about that, I seemed to have rambled onto a few different topics!! :) Going back to the topic in hand…
3) I worked for SAP in Dublin for a short period- recruiting in house for their technical staff. It's a great company to work for- lovely working environment, flexible working arrangements, positive culture but the one thing that could be improved on was the work satisfaction. Truth is SAP could afford to hire only the best, most highly qualified, because of its reputation. The sad thing is that a lot of these people were bored with their roles & even called themselves "Message Monkeys". They did not find intrinsic satisfaction in their jobs- they weren't challenged.
I see this happening in Google also, I know a few people who work in Google, 2 friends of mine worked in Google – both were dissatisfied with the level of job satisfaction that they got & one had taken a substantial pay cut to work for Google which created dissatisfaction- he felt his skills were not valued, nor were they utilised to the full extent (This definitely affected his performance, although he would have denied this strongly). The other friend left because he wasn’t using his skills as much as he could have been.
Customers are not necessarily distinct from employees, for sure, and Employees are also a lot more closely linked to success of the company than businesses truly understands (Remember the word ECOSYSTEM here) (regardless of the level they are employed at). I can't understand why Google & SAP both overlook the massive people talent they already have in house.
When I was in SAP I could see what was happening, and if I’d been able to have a chat with the HR manager (She was based in the Galway office & was very busy) I could have suggested several strategies for talent retention- that would have save SAP a LOT of money by reducing staff turnover & increasing productivity greatly, but then I was just hired for recruitment so how could I possibly have helped?
Businesses might be catching on to the value their customers can bring to the business, but are they STILL overlooking the REAL value employees can bring too?
Josh,
A few more observations: (1) Sometimes it's the customers who make the products. A couple of guys from Colgate Palmolive created SAPlink, which actually usurped a product SAP had under development. The CP 2 guys shared it with entire community for free. SAP seemed fine with it, and (2) helping SW companies build better products that your company can use has financial benefits far greater than the points and tee Shirts that SAP et al offer community contributors, and (3) for lesser-known 3rd-party consultants, these communities provide a HUGE opportunity to demonstrate expertise, which can get you new business, quickly and at almost no cost-other than your time.
Very true – recognition does go a long way but things change once you bring money into the equation, right?
Just wondering if you are better off in the long run thinking about the incentives you are going to offer to your community and if they scale. Reward points for participation don’t seem as valuable if the company takes your idea and turns it into a profitable product.
Thanks again for your thoughts,
Josh
Josh,
Good point & one I have not thought through. My first instinct is that recognition is often enough of an incentive. How else could we explain the popularity of socnet platforms like twitter and Facebook? Second is just a desire t talk with people who share your interests–either professional or personal. Why else, would you comment here?
Shel,
Looking at SAP, its customers have an incentive to participate in the community. SAP installations are expensive, time consuming, and require significant training across the enterprise. One you have made this type of commitment (and as a technology leader, staked your reputation on it) you need to he engaged in order to maintain a healthy relationship.
Looking at Threadless, they also offer an incentive for participation. Not only do you get recognition if your design is chosen, there is also a financial inventive.
From these two examples, do you think incentives are a required ingredient in building a successful business community between employees and customers?
Thanks for the post,
Josh
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