[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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[UPDATED] Marketing, advertising and public relations (MAP) agencies have comprised the largest share of the “social” advisory and execution firms for many years. Most of the other advisory firms are relative late entrants, with the exception of some Analyst and Enterprise I.T. firms. Communication forms the core of social technologies, and MAP agencies have been pivotal in leading the growth of social media activity in their clients, many of the largest brands in the world.
[UPDATED] Strategy firms are the most trusted names sought by CEOs and boards of directors who are reevaluating their companies’ identities, strategies and operations. Strategy firms have been making measured investments in social business over the last few years. Their knowledge of enterprise transformation is deep and broad, and they all have proprietary methodologies for most aspects of the strategy and transformation life cycle. They have deep and broad expertise in market analysis, competitive analysis corporate core competency analysis and virtually all aspects of operations. Many firms have large business transformation practices that explicitly guide clients through profound redefinition and change.
[UPDATED] Analyst firms are go-to sources for emerging business and technology trends since they conduct constant due diligence on markets and technologies, which they sell via a subscription model. In addition, they are prodigious producers of content, conferences and other thought leadership activities relevant to social technologies, and a large portion of their employees produce and deliver content publicly (research, write, present), which strengthens their competency with social technologies.
Advisory 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!
Advisory and Services Firm Social Business Adoption 2012 audits the maturity of management consultancies’ and agencies’ social business practices. It aims to serve CEOs and CMOs who want to maximize the potential value of social business by evolving their organizations. Similarly, it will be useful to firm and agency executives that want to position themselves as strong players in the growing market for social business strategy.![Social Media Upgrade [Social Business Team Building] case1](http://rollyson.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/sbtb1.png)
[Updated] The Social Media Upgrade applies to most consumer-oriented brands that have been outsourcing much of their social media work to agencies. In 2013, digital marketing and brand executives are thinking about building their internal teams to provide more continuity and scale.
I covered the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Economic Forecast last week, where all speakers issued this refrain: “More of the same.” Key economic indicators have been stuck in neutral—the proverbial “sideways” movement—so the consensus in the room was one of faint frustration tempered by gratitude. Everyone had lived through worse.
[UPDATED] Several profound market forces are preparing the ascendancy of Knowledge Economy products, which result from collaboration among designers, artists, engineers, customers and firms. This represents one of the Knowledge Economy’s most exciting-yet-disruptive elements: “products” will cease to be dominated by monolithic factories that mass produce virtually all items that people use and consume. Moreover, people have an inherent joy when they can make things for themselves, their friends and their families—and a dramatic new wave of creativity and innovation is imminent. To help you wrap your mind around Knowledge Economy products, this post will recall what happened to mass media and entertainment industries.
Branch disruption enables unusual opportunity for bank executives who consider transforming their relationships with clients. More generally, retail banking provides an excellent example of an Industrial Economy industry whose services are facing commoditization and weakening profits due to the waning of the Productized Channel of Value. In 2013, bank branch networks are under intense scrutiny because they are expensive, and client visits have been falling steadily for several years as e-banking and m-banking adoption have accelerated. Astute banks will use branches to transform their client relationships by leveraging the Social Channel. Here’s how they will do it.