The End of Business as Usual – Review
Brian Solis is principal analyst at the Altimeter Group, one of Silicon Valley’s most respected advisory firms. So when he speaks about social media he talks with the surety of hard-won knowledge clawed from the coalface of dealing with customers and their accounts.
In The End of Business as Usual, subtitled Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution Solis takes a very detailed, granular view to the changing dynamics governing the modern customer-vendor relationship, and explains why “Business as Usual” is never going to cut it any more.
Solis is passionate about social media, and is a strong advocate for the changing face of business and customer interactions. As a result he doesn’t pull any punches. In chapter after chapter he uses data, quotes and graphs to make the point, showing what the problem is and suggesting a possible solution.
When it comes to understanding what has changed in business today The End of Business as Usual provides a compelling list:
- The network evolution is leading to real paradigm shifts
- Connecting with customers has evolved beyond the point of just selling to them
- Communication in the marketplace is being disrupted by the rise of the social customer
He provides a handy four step guide for those who really want to succeed:
- Adaptation
- Innovation
- Co-creation
- Culture
The lists are easy to understand, the steps taking us towards an inevitable change in management culture, as Solis suggests, in a manner that is straightforward to grasp. The solutions, however, require the kind of determination and focus which a lot of companies, right now, are failing to produce.
Solis mentions Zappos and the ability of the company to grasp what’s required to put in place the right mix of culture and service. As Zappos founder, Tony Hsieh, said in a recent interview in the New York Times: “We built the entire company around our employees and customers. If employees weren’t happy, they would not make customers happy. If customers weren’t happy, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We believe that if we get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like delivering great service, or building a long-term enduring brand will just happen naturally on its own.”
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