How to Win Customers in the Digital World: Total Action or Fatal Inaction

ISBN-13: 9783540665755 / Angielski / Twarda / 1999 / 250 str.

Peter Vervest; P. Vervestm; A. Dunn

Opis

Every organisation must strive for Total Action. Winning the customer in today's highly competitive and demanding world is the key to ensuring success. All managers and employees profess to understand this yet they find it incredibly difficult to perform together to achieve this. The 'digital world' is changing the traditional logic of business - we must now act fast and effectively to capture and retain increasingly demanding and sophisticated customers, be they individuals or organi sations. Most customers demand much more than many organisations are able to deliver. It is said that the inventor of the telephone believed its main use would be to let someone know that a telegram was arriving. Today we know there is a lot more you can do with a telephone ... and all the surrounding digital business technologies. But you must be prepared to re-think why you are doing things the way you are. And why you are doing them at all. This is the starting point for 'How to win customers in the digital world - Total Action or Fatal Inaction'. The authors confront traditional ways of organising with the capabilities of the new, digital business technologies. They are critical of the frozen behaviour of today's large organisations. They go back to the fundamental goal that business is about making money by satisfying customers."

Recenzje

Statements for the book:
"The digital world is Bertelsmann's world. It is transforming every aspect of our business as media products are digitized and marketed through the Internet: The key question is "how to win and retain customers" in this new and challenging, digital world. This book provides a very sharp insight into the key issues and the actions to be taken. Al Dunn and Peter Vervest give a vivid description of those who will win: Total Action companies that make every activity directly relevant for their customers constrasting them with the "Fatal Inaction" reality of so many large organisations today. In this radically changing environment, this book is mandatory reading for every manager and professional." (Thomas Middelhoff, Chairman & CEO Bertelsmann AG)
"Total Action is a compelling concept and practice for securing a strong position in the challenging digital world. The key message - how to organise from the individual customer inwards using digital business technologies - is fundamental. The application of "modularity" to organise for and manage instant fulfillment across a network of internal and external parties is an impressive addition to business practice. This is a powerful and straightforward starting point for all managers and organisations seeking to master the new frontiers of business." (A.-W. Scheer, Chairman of the Supervisory Board -IDS Scheer AG- and Director of the Institute for Information Systems, University of the Saarland, Saarbruecken/Germany)
"The phrase "customer oriented" takes on an entirely new, revolutionary, meaning in the digital age. Total Action is a how-to book that shows, using eye-opening real experiences, how to achieve this." (Kenneth Preiss, The Sir Leon Bagrit Professor: Technology and Global Competitiveness, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel)
"Organisations searching for a route into the "digital world" of e-Business need the concepts and practices of Total Action: they are a true eye-opener. Vervest and Dunn have avoided the "simple answers" to what organisations must and can do to succeed in winning customers. "How to win customers in the digital world" helps you understand that the answers are not easy - but the concepts are straightforward. Every manager will recognise the shortcomings of his or her own organisation in this book and, as a result, identify their route to Total Action. This is a compelling insight into the ways in which organisations must act and organise differently and effectively to master the digital world." (Professor Dr. Jo van Nunen, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam School of Management)
"Every organization must strive for Total Action. Winning the customer in today's highly competitive and demanding world is the key to ensuring success. The authors confront traditional ways of organizing with the capabilities of the new, digital business technologies. They are critical of the frozen behaviour of today's large organizations. I believe that this book brings simple, powerful ideas on how to organise for customer success. It puts a manager's perspective into the amazing, but sometimes confusing, developments of today's telecommunications and computer technologies and what they really mean for all organizations." (Ben Verwaayen, Vice Chairman, Lucent Technologies USA)

Spis treści

1. THE BOARDROOM AGENDA: 1.1 Win with your customer; 1.2 The impact of digital business technologies; 1.3 What makes it so difficult?; 1.4 The Total Action scorecard; 1.5 The Total Action model; 1.6 Questions from the board.- 2. DIGITAL BUSINESS TECHNOLOGIES AND TOTAL ACTION: 2.1 The new digital business technologies; 2.2 Why are digital business technologies so important?; 2.2.1 New ways to reach customers; 2.2.2 Breakthrough - and incredible impact; 2.2.3 Management has to master their use; 2.3 Total Action elements; 2.3.1 Focus on the customer; 2.3.2 Co-ordinate customer information; 2.3.3 Develop excellence in fulfilment; 2.4 The Total Action model.- 3. WEEDING OUT FATAL INACTION: 3.1 What is Fatal Inaction?; 3.2 The roots of Fatal Inaction; 3.3 The characteristics of Fatal Inaction; 3.3.1 The comfort of the internal market; 3.3.2 The boss leads, the customer bleeds; 3.3.3 The wrong metrics; 3.3.4 The customer is an interrupt to the business process; 3.3.5 Corporate autism; 3.3.6 Hardening of the IT arteries; 3.4 Moving out of Fatal Inaction; 3.4.1 Customer-centred leadership; 3.4.2 Customer-centred metrics; 3.4.3 Customer-centred management and planning; 3.4.4 Customer-centred IT; 3.4.5 Customer-centred change; 3.4.6 The 4Ps of Total Action performance; 3.5 The Total Action scorecard; 3.6 The sum is greater than the parts; 4. THE TOTAL ACTION CASEBOOK: 4.1 The casebook approach; 4.2 The US Army case; 4.2.1 The soldier as the locus of decision-making; 4.2.2 People and organising capabilities; 4.2.3 Lessons for Total Action; 4.3 The American Airlines case; 4.3.1 Accelerate the process; 4.3.2 Manage the service encounter; 4.3.3 Capture information streams; 4.3.4 Build knowledge of the customer; 4.3.5 Build the value cluster - become the industry infomediary; 4.3.6 Lessons for Total Action; 4.4 Banking on information: the First Direct case; 4.4.1 The 'misery' of banking; 4.4.2 Making it work for the customer;4.4.3 Information empowers customer leadership; 4.4.4 Lessons for Total Action; 4.5 Total Action policing; 4.5.1 Find out who is the 'customer'?; 4.5.2 All activity is not customer activity; 4.5.3 The wrong metrics... it's not what you do!; 4.5.4 Connect information systems; 4.5.5 Make the customer the locus of decision making; 4.5.6 Create the information platforms; 4.5.7 Lessons for Total Action; 4.6 Trying to connect to you; 4.6.1 Recognise the individual customer; 4.6.2 Organise customer information; 4.6.3 Customise services; 4.6.4 Connect sales to the factory; 4.6.5 Overcome autistic behaviour; 4.6.6 Lessons for Total Action; 4.7 The postman never rings twice; 4.7.1 Who is my customer?; 4.7.2 Build a customer dashboard; 4.7.3 Manage the customer-specific value chain; 4.7.4 Design the service encounter; 4.7.5 Lessons for Total Action.- 5. ENGAGING OUTSIDE-IN: THE ROUTE TO TOTAL ACTION: 5.1 The challenges of Total Action; 5.2 Why should we do this... and what's different?; 5.3 Where - and how - do we begin?; 5.4 Mindset over matter; 5.5 What next?.- NOTES.- BIBLIOGRAPHY.- INDEX.- ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Blurb

What is so different about today's digital business technologies? Why is "digitisation" so important? Why is the Internet making such tremendous impact? What should my organisation do? What should I do?
How to win customers in the digital world presents a template for seizing the opportunities of the new digital business technolgies. It speaks about what the technology can do for you, as a user, senior manager, strategist, marketeer or sales director?
Six cases are presented - the army, the airline, the bank, the police, the telecommunications operator and the post. These real-life cases demonstrate both the power and the risks of the digital business technologies.
The winners use the technology to make front-line people the point of decision-making; to unlock information about customers; and to manage the fulfilment of their commitments. These are Total Action organisations, making every activity inside their organisation directly relevant for their customers.
The losers fail to change the "logic" of their organisation and suffer increasing degrees of "corporate autism": highly intelligent but inward facing corporate behaviour with little, if any, relevance for the outside world. They put the technology in place, but this only amplifies the shortcomings of their present organisation.
The authors - both experienced professionals in the field of telecommunications and management education - take you on a discovery tour of the new management concepts to create the winning organisation in the digital world of tomorrow.