Chief Digital Officers and Transformation

Chief digital officers and transformationChief digital officers and transformation will go hand in hand as the position and its competencies take shape over the next few years. Historically, commercial, government and nonprofit enterprises, when faced with profound business change or technology disruption, respond by elevating new types of leader to the “C” level. Chief Knowledge Officer, Chief Process Officer, Chief Ecommerce Officer and the like become de rigeur for a few years and fade, either because the new disruption proved less sustainable than anticipated or because the competency became subsumed by a more core function.

I predict that the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) will play a vital role at most organizations through 2020, but the organizational role will be fleeting as a standalone. “Digital” will integrate all functions and be the standard eventually, but organizations require intense transformation to get there, so the CDO will play a crucial role. My ongoing analysis of social business adoption indicates that the market for social business transformation will hit an inflection point by 2017, as more advisors and executives see the power and results of digital […]

Social Business Strategy Use Cases

Social Business Strategy Use Cases[UPDATED] Social business strategy use cases represent scenarios in which most organizations find themselves, and they reflect some of the choices of which CDOs, CMOs and CEOs may use as they plan to evolve their enterprises in order to either improve returns or simply remain relevant in volatile markets.

Social business strategy is inherently transformational to large organizations whether they are in commercial, nonprofit or government sectors. All organizations are hives of people communicating and collaborating to execute business processes (“work”). Digital social technologies have reduced the cost of communication (and therefore much collaboration and work) by an order of magnitude (roughly ten times). Collaboration and innovation, before digital social technologies, were slow and expensive. Now they are very fast and inexpensive—when organizations learn how to use them. Organizations that learn how are more responsive to their constituents and customers, so the market rewards them—and will increasingly punish those that lag too far.

These use cases focus on building enterprise social business internal capability, and they are also helpful to consider when selecting social business advisors. Please […]

Transform the Enterprise [Social Business Team Building]

Transform the Enterprise [Social Business Team Building] case5Transform the Enterprise is almost always initiated by the CEO’s office, the CDO, the board of directors or other strategic body. Its defining characteristic is enterprise transformation, using social business as a key enabler. Some of its common business contexts are: the hiring of a (new) CDO (Chief Digital Officer), which is itself a commitment to use social business for transformation; a merger, major acquisition or sale whose focus is to redefine the enterprise; “pervasive social business” that results when several of the enterprise’s brands have had some social business success that the executive team wants to scale; scaling enterprise 2.0 social collaboration technologies; self-disruption to create a new level of competitiveness.

In 2013, digital marketing and firm executives are thinking about building their internal teams to provide more continuity and scale. Transform the Enterprise also focuses on the right side of the Social Business Life Cycle, specifically on Scale and Integrate. At this point, the enterprise usually has a panoply of social business or social media resources that it wants to knit together into a […]

Herd the Cats [Social Business Team Building]

Herd the Cats [Social Business Team Building] Case4[UPDATED] Herd the Cats is usually initiated by the CMO/CDO (Chief Digital Officer) or other enterprise practice or brand executive who discovers that various business units or brands in the organization have diverse social media presences without much apparent direction or business results. S/He wants to use strategy to provide a keel that resonates with corporate strategy, addressing issues as diverse as corporate citizenship, community, health or policy.

In 2013, digital marketing and firm executives are thinking about building their internal teams to provide more continuity and scale, so the champion often wants to create a social business “center of excellence” to serve several businesses or brands, leveraging enterprise resources to improve social business performance and contributions.

Herd the cats is the fourth of the five-part social business team building series The series describes team building in the context of various scenarios in which firms build social business capability, step by step, while investing wisely. Social Business Strategy Use Cases outlines and compares all five use cases while Social Business Team Building gives general guidance for […]

Catch Social Media Leaders [Social Business Team Building]

Catch Social Media Leaders [Social Business Team Building] case3[UPDATED] Catch Social Media Leaders applies to organizations with very conservative cultures—banks, insurers, healthcare, governments, B2B firms, and professional services to name a few—that have sat on the sidelines and now feel nervous because they are so far behind. In 2013, digital marketing and firm executives are thinking about building their internal teams to provide more continuity and scale, so here I’ll show how firms can use strategy and best practices to outperform rivals across the social business life cycle.

Catch Social Media Leaders is the third of the five-part social business team building series The series describes team building in the context of various scenarios in which firms build social business capability, step by step, while investing wisely. Social Business Strategy Use Cases outlines and compares all five use cases while Social Business Team Building gives general guidance for how to create social business teams as well as recommendations for what characteristics leaders have, so I recommend reading them, too.

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Fix Fire Drill [Social Business Team Building]

Fire Drill [Social Business Team Building] Case2[Updated] The (social business) fire drill is sparked by an external or internal event that suddenly creates a sense of urgency and elevates management’s interest in social business/social media. They often respond in crisis mode and end up wasting considerable resources because they spend more than they need, they stay away from using social technologies to relate to stakeholders (they’ve been burned), and they hire a team that cannot produce maximum social business results because it is reactive and fearful rather than proactive and confident.

Fix Fire Drill is the second of the five-part social business team building series The series describes team building in the context of various scenarios in which firms build social business capability, step by step, while investing wisely. Social Business Strategy Use Cases outlines and compares all five use cases while Social Business Team Building gives general guidance for how to create social business teams as well as recommendations for what characteristics leaders have, so I recommend reading them, too.

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Executive Summary: Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012

Executive Summary: Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012 is a research survey that looks at social business advisory/consulting firms in a new way. Using quantitative methods, I compared consultancies according to the needs of clients who want to transform their organizations with social business. The twelve metrics measure firms’ performance in business impact, sociality, and transformation areas, and they rank firms within firm categories and overall.

Now prospective clients can compare Strategy firms, Big Four firms, Agencies, Analysts, Enterprise IT firms, and Pureplays quantitatively. Moreover, consulting firms can use these metrics for guidance in building out their social business practices.

I launched CSRA in 2006, and we have always practiced social business as transformation. Client work in social business transformation enables me to see where the market is going, so this survey considers social business firms from that future state.

[UPDATE 8 Mar] Now available: “Executive Briefing” is even more summarized (14-slides) in two versions: Guidance for Clients and Guidance for Firms. Research survey results will be most useful if you […]

Big Four Report: Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption

Big Four Firm Report: Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012[UPDATED] The Big Four accountancies have been rebuilding their advisory practices for the past several years, and social business transformation fits with their core competencies in important ways. Like Strategy firms, they have been watching adoption and producing thought leadership on various aspects of social technologies’ relevance to business. Their approach also resembles that of strategy firms in that they have relatively low evidence of social business practice.

Big Four firms are well positioned to evolve into social business consultancies because they have core competencies in business strategy and business process transformation. However, they will be challenged by their relative lack of core communications skills and awareness of “soft” social, people and behavioral knowledge.

Deloitte has been an early adopter of social business as a concept, perhaps because it did not shed its consulting practice in the early 2000s as all others did. PwC acquired boutique social business consultancy Ant’s Eye View in 2012, which shows its intention to integrate social business more deeply into its Customer Impact practice.

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Contest Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012

Contest Advisory & Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012Advisory and Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012 is publishing as individual Executive Summaries of firm category reports. These discuss relative scores of firms in each category, but they don’t disclose scores themselves. This enables us to have some fun. You can guess the highest scores in several categories and win valuable prizes!

Contest Rules

To be eligible for 1st, 2nd or 3rd prizes, all you need do is respond to four questions via the embedded survey below. You could win an Extended Analysis report of any firm in this Research Survey, or even commission your own Extended Analysis report! For five minutes of your time.

I will award prizes two days after the last Executive Summary publishes (see the Research Survey microsite for dates). However, the first person who responds with the correct answer wins that prize. This introduces some risk for people who just wait until the end! You should also know that I reserve the right to change any of the rules or prizes without notice except on this […]

Social Business Team Building [Recruiting]

[UPDATED] Several times over the past few years, I have been contacted by major brands to advise them on finding a “social media executive” to help them “figure out social media” and “create a strategy.” In 2012, many firms began building social media teams in earnest, and this trend will continue to grow in the years ahead. Firms are also bringing “social media work” inside after having outsourced it to agencies. All of my client work has involved helping clients to build social business competency and teams, so here I’ll offer some pointers for how to build teams and avoid the pitfalls most companies experience.

Although each organization’s culture is different, the CEO, CDO, CMO or CAO will be happier with the social business investment if s/he doesn’t invest far ahead of return on investment, which remains low at firms that insist on “business-meaningful” metrics, not the PR- or “brand-building” variety. It’s a chicken-and-egg challenge: how do you know what kind of team to build until you’re achieving real business-meaningful returns on your social business initiatives?

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