When do we change and why?

At the helm of perhaps one of tech industry’s greatest turnaround is an Indian, Satya Nadella of Microsoft. His recipe for reinvigorating the company from a Windows-centric one to that which provides a range of online services to companies and individuals is watched by other industry behemoths like HP, Cisco, and IBM to name a few. Most of these long-standing companies are either undergoing similarly wrenching changes or are attempting to reinvent themselves. Microsoft has untethered itself from the conventional windows only strategy to embracing open-source. They better. The competences and behaviours that revolved around desktops or an array of computers at the basement, which primarily fuelled growth of these companies have suddenly paved way to apps that can be activated with a tap on the mobile. The biggies seem to have been caught in a time warp. 

The thought of these biggies struggling to get a grip on the market they once ruled was a bit unsettling for me. As professionals, what if we have to confront such sudden volatility in our career?  Well, not that Microsoft didn’t know of the imminent market challenges. And, not that as professionals we don’t know about the lurking and potentially career-altering changes. What’s alarming about such a change is that even if we know about it, having firmly entrenched ourselves in a certain comfort zone, we might not be able to embrace it with the agility that it demands. Remember, Microsoft had once considered open source an anathema. Similar to how companies steer investments to initiatives that offer the most tangible and immediate returns, and shortchange investments crucial to their long-term strategies, we also have to channelize our time, talent, and energy. This however needs to be done basis one of the most fundamental requirements – a purpose in life.

While the industry and its long-standing incumbents undergo a tectonic shift, there is one thing that doesn’t change. It is the purpose of these companies. For instance, irrespective of the changes, Microsoft will continue to create technology that is accessible to everyone. And, the company will do it by even cutting deals with rivals. Example – users of online version of Office can save their files on servers of Box, a cloud-storage firm. Who can forget that Office is now available on Android and Apple mobiles? Like the companies, our purpose can be spread or fortified only when we have a humble eagerness to learn something from everybody and when we help others build or promote their purpose.

It is quite a task but as the established companies have found, it is definitely not about building individual prominence but about the manifold individuals that we have helped. 

Personal views

Did the refrigerator message you?

‘Let us go party,’ Allen commented as soon as he received Joe’s message about a promotion. They chatted for a long time about their school, friends and work. Both agreed to call up their respective families and friends and meet at Allen’s place that weekend. Allen called his wife, Tina, and conveyed the news of Joe’s promotion and his invitation for a weekend party. 

As he hurriedly left office that day, Allen’s thought retraced childhood days at a small yet bustling town on the outskirts of a tech city. He had gone to school with Joe, founded a technology company while at college and decided to part ways when Joe decided to work for a tech major in China. Joe had travelled the world and was announced the CEO on his return to the US only a month ago.

As his car emerged out of the parking lot, a message popped up on his phone. It was Google. It had a list of party organizers. Yet another message had a list of his friends – mutual friends with Joe – to be invited for the party. A subsequent message had a calendar invite with names of all family members. Wow, this is going to be real fun, thought, Allen as he drove into his garage.

Welcome to the ‘internet of things’ which will certainly and significantly transform our lives. A blog by Ian Cook on the subject states the following - the ‘internet of things’ is an idea that suggests that not just access devices can be connected to the internet, but a whole host of other ‘objects’ might be able to join in as well.  For example, the Economist describes pill jars that know when an elderly patient needs to take a dose of tablets. A call centre can then ring the patient and remind them to take their pills.

According to Tom Fishburne, ‘as everyday objects in our homes, cars, and general lives start to connect, this has the potential to bring tremendous utility to people. For marketers, it also teases mouth-watering insight into and access to individual consumers.’

Now, Google’s acquisition of smart home device maker – Nest – could potentially change marketing forever.  The once-imagined future is less distant than we may think. A digitally enabled household no longer means simply maintaining a personal Internet connection or even syncing portable devices to a home network. Now, the digital home is becoming a conscious home — one that adapts and responds according to our behavior, states Anjali Lai in her Forrester blog.  

Gone are the days of brand building or relationship building; marketers will have to scamper for data pertaining to individuals so as to be the first to address their wants.  Well, the world’s really shrinking. What say you?

Treating Consumers as Individuals; why Colgate Remains the Preferred Brand

Thousands of entrepreneurs attempt to realize their dreams by giving rise to new products every year. Take for example, the case of Startup Village, a public – private technology incubator in Cochin (Kerala). Nearly 400 start-ups have been incubated so far since its launch in April 2012. Thousands of companies, as many products as well as brands are introduced in the now ‘one’ global market. It was around this conversation, a friend of mine asked if there is indeed potential for everyone to thrive. Only a fraction of them survive, I mentioned reading about it in a business book. ‘What differentiates the successful,’ he posed.  

Not that I am a marketing pundit but having heard this kind of talk from the wise, I thought of responding to his question. In the age of social media, when consumers tend to pry open businesses and its conduct, there is absolutely no significance of products. Not that it did in the era before social media. Back then, there was hope with marketers and technologists hoping consumers would go through the technology adoption lifecycle. Most tech marketers followed Geoffrey Moore’s bible – Crossing the Chasm, when deploying their go-to-market strategy.

  

Social Media changed all that. Products are what a company makes but it can be easily copied. This implies that what consumers buy isn’t a product but a brand, an experience. More than ever, the brand has become a marketer’s tool for creating product differentiation. More than ever, the brand has to see consumers as an individual and deliver unique experience. The best example is Colgate. 'Brush your teeth the Colgate way, every day,' ends the long copy from a 1939 print advertisement for Colgate. And every day since then millions of Indians, young and old, have used this oral-care brand in various forms, everything from powder to paste, for generations. The question is how the brand ensures that it remains the consumers first brand encounter of the day – everyday.

  

A cousin of mine who is a school teacher in Thalasserry, Kerala is a regular user of Colgate toothpaste. She lives with her ailing mother, aged around 85, and doesn’t believe in elaborate shopping. She prefers the neighbourhood kirana store where she dashes for instantaneous shopping. On one such occasion, when she wanted to quickly grab two small tubes of the Colgate, the shopkeeper didn’t have the same on stock. A large tube would be inconvenient to use for her mother and so she went around asking for the smaller tube. To her dismay, it wasn’t available anywhere in the neighbourhood. Disappointed, she decided to hit social media to find out why her favourite brand wasn’t available in the neighbourhood. She had forgotten about it until her sister called up and informed that there was an executive from Colgate waiting for her. His visit not only addressed her immediate needs (in two days) but also ensured a loyal consumer for the company for life.

Beyond the product and a great brand experience at an individual level – no wonder Colgate is the undisputed leader.      

The Science of Social Media

It was late in the evening when Mathew McCoy was going through his Facebook updates. As usual, he only took a fleeting glance at the updates and was about to log out when something struck him. It was the name of his start-up and a stream of comments about its services. The comments were constructive, he thought, as many in the network commented on their wonderful experience as well as areas of improvement. For McCoy, this was a highly credible channel and that too at low cost. An hour later, as he logged out, he was determined to continuously leverage the network and its member’s comments to the hilt. 

Business leaders and marketers, across the world, unequivocally agree about the inevitable focus they have to maintain on social networks as well as its power in generating and leveraging deep customer insights. According to a recent IBM study, ‘the customer activated enterprise,’ nearly seven in ten CxOs recognize the new imperative — a shift to social and digital interaction. Over half expect to meet an even more difficult demand: understanding and engaging the customer as an individual rather than as a category or market segment.

As McCoy hit the bed that night, several questions flashed across his mind. Who are these members? What could be their motivation? How can the company identify and engage them on an ongoing basis? Can their experience influence the others?  If yes, how can the company capitalize on the same?

According to Jonah Berger, author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, there are six drivers for people to talk about a specific brand/product on the networks. The drivers are social currency, triggers, emotions, public, practical value, and stories. He further elucidates on the drivers. Social currency is the idea that people are more likely to talk about something the better and smarter it makes them look, and the more special it makes them feel. Triggers are why peanut butter makes us think of jelly—linking products and ideas to cues in the environment increases word of mouth. The more you can get people fired up, excited, or even feeling negative about something, the more likely they’ll be to pass it on: That’s emotion. Public refers to the idea that by making behavior more observable, so that it can be imitated, you make it more likely that your idea will catch on. When something has practical value—when it is useful—people share it with others to help them. And finally, stories enable you to wrap your product or idea in a narrative that carries your brand along for the ride.

Now, the next question. How can companies identify and engage them? IBM Research announced a product called Vibes that helps in narrowing down the target to 'Like-Minded Communities'. These communities are found by analyzing social interaction amongst digital natives (e.g., being connected on social networks like Facebook, twitter, etc, or calling each other) as well as the purchase history of the digital natives, together. Such communities have a unique characteristic with members being socially well-connected and having similar tastes. And, hence provide marketers with an alternative to the traditional micro-segments, with the added power of strong social interaction amongst the members.

For marketers keen on keeping a continuous tab on their brand, there is the power of Google to leverage. According to an article published in Forbes by Nate Elliot from Forrester, Google tracks what 800 million YouTube visitors watch and what they like; it also sees the most important social connections of its nearly 500 million Gmail users and tracks what they share. And crucially, the Google search index includes almost every review posted on any site online; the contents of billions of blog posts; and nearly everything posted on Twitter.

In its CEO study carried out in 2004, IBM had found that leaders ranked their own customers sixth on the list of all market factors they believed would drive the most change in their organizations. Today, digitally enfranchised and empowered customers lead the agenda for every CxO profession. Forward looking leaders are known to actively encourage customers and citizens to influence the decisions they make. Are you?

End of Programmers

The advances in technology witnessed exodus of unimaginable number of workers, especially amongst renowned automotive manufacturers. That was couple of decades ago. And, when the industrial age workers paved way for the emergence of knowledge workers, the job losses and sufferings of those deprived of work were relegated to the annals of business history with the stamp of unskilled workers. And, of course the subsequent progress in computing and widespread automation ensured continuous focus on companies in the realm of technology.

Sometime during this phase saw the emergence of India as a knowledge factory, essentially a coding hub for the world. Blue-chip companies, Indian as well as foreign, established base in India to leverage cost arbitrage, which was set as a differentiator by early movers. Young engineers and graduates with no inclination to coding could find high-paying jobs as the industry matured. No one was bothered about the growing similarity of the Indian IT industry to the famed auto industry in the west that let go off thousands of workers.

A recent report in Economic Times could perhaps awaken the thousands of software engineers from their comfort zone. It is obvious. Many in India would soon be rendered jobless.  Anyone who has been watching the transformation in the travel industry would note the rapid changes owing to the burgeoning online travel portals. It was just an indication that automation and software can change our lives. It is also an indication that technology can replace people. There are two key factors that would prove to be a death knell for the once in vogue Indian programmers. One is the rapid technological change we are witnessing everyday over the last couple of years, which is forcing businesses to rethink and re-engineer their business and operating models. Secondly, the advancement in technologies is also forcing businesses to realize more value from their workers. In other words, there is now increased focus on improving productivity more than ever. Time for programmers to ask - What can I do, right now that would be the most powerful use of this moment?