The Interactive Enterprise:
End-to-End Interactions Define Performance
To prosper today it is critical to manage enterprise knowledge from the “outside-in” not from the “inside-out.” The inductive and introspective corporate strategies, tactics and systems of the past don’t hold water in the economic logic of today.
Seasoned business knowledge managers know this approach. They strive to validate and enhance zones of secure collaboration, sharing, learning, context and community for people across the firms entire value chain. The pervasive use of transorganizational technologies like Internet instantant messaging and Web access to documents, have made these interactions even more critical to the companies strategy and operating margins.
It is crucial to recognize and embrace the new longitudinal value-chain that spans a myriad of organizing foundations. All facets of the emerging enterprise must be secure, open and technically agile. The new people-to-people organizing model is the networked shared space. A far greater percentage of the firm’s assets must focus outside the firm versus inside. Effective business collaboration is rapidly surpassing competition and rivalry as the key tool for sustained business advantage.
Everyone needs to find his or her place - organizationally and individually – globally and locally. Productive, secure and open person-to-person connect time has become even more important in the new realities.
Business knowledge managers need to expand opportunities for relevant, trans-enterprise interactions with partners, suppliers, employees and customers. Widen the firms’ front-end. Publish interface specifications to your core business processes. Rotate your inwardly focused knowledge structures 180 degrees to focus on external electronic business relationships. Build your knowledge platform from an external, Internet perspective. Ease the ability to instantly craft the knowledge nexus through rich, ad hoc people-to-people collaboration environments.
Test yourself: when was the last time you had a meaningful, substantial person-to-person interaction with your partners, suppliers or customers using an Internet-based technology? If it is more than a matter of hours, then you have a lot of work to do to remain competitive.
It is not enough to just be able to connect and access. You need to interact synchronously. Some may think internetworking and automation may eliminate the need for person-to-person interaction. This is wrong and dangerous.
It's less about connectivity, and more about conductivity.
In reality, the whole purpose of the shared spaces of the Interbusiness network is to increase opportunity and context for productive supplier/partner/customer interaction. It’s how to advance competitive knowledge and increase wealth creation.
To become an Interactive Enterprise, make your call center a key intelligence listening post. Continuously learn about customers and non-customers. Direct enterprise resources to the customer interaction. Take unconditional personal ownership and responsibility to please the customer, partner or supplier in every single interaction. Strive to deepen all relationships. Every strata of the enterprise must implement the new Internet ethos of interactive reconnaissance, synthesis and performance.
Furthermore, assure each interaction is easier, faster, more convenient and more secure than the last. Arm you knowledge workers with the tools and environments to accelerate interactive improvement. Heighten awareness about your business through information and knowledge sharing.
Coach your people that satisfaction must be delivered faster than fast. The Internet has compressed, almost eliminated the time available to please customers. Providing optimal and just sufficient information to people is critical to capturing the fleeting moment-of-opportunity. It’s instant gratification or no gratification.
Don’t “browse” – target and prosecute. Make the investments. Eliminate the barriers. Focus, link and lead.
The Internet has expanded your global, 24/7reach. Establish interactive, self-managing processes. Operate them preemptively. Execute like a robust, fail-safe network. Assure that your processes excel instantly, perpetually and globally.
Finally, exploit the knowledge platform to enable every person’s interactive behavior to expand-the-brand. In Internet logic, mind share equals market share and brand equals experience. Refine people interactions to establish and reinforce your invaluable, immediate Internet proximity. Your people and presence must declare and corroborate your Internet brand constantly.
As the frontier of knowledge-based InterBusiness collaboration expands, two types of enterprises will emerge: the Interactive and the dead.
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