The recent Dreamforce conference in San Francisco focused on the rise of the 'social enterprise.'
We can loosely define the social enterprise as the democratization of business processes through technology channels that remove barriers for engaging communication by flattening organizational levels, enhance the sharing of innovation and ideas and increase opportunities for enriched connections among employees, customers and inter-related groups.
By leveraging the social model, the banking industry has the potential for a dynamic period of innovation, and an even chance of remaining relevant to our customers — and employees — as they gain control of the conversation.
During the conference keynote, Salesforce.com's CEO, Marc Benioff drew a comparison between the social powered revolutions we saw during the Arab Spring and the evolution within the business world. Though Salesforce is recognized for innovation in cloud computing and customer relationship management, the company's deliberate pivot to embrace social technologies as integral to their business model is significant for the banking industry, which has historically been less than accommodating toward new technologies.
Resisting the allure of shiny new things seems to be engrained in our heavily regulated, risk-averse culture. Banks initially shunned everything from computers, credit cards, email, the internet, online banking, bill pay, mobile banking, open source architecture, and cloud computing (as well as ATMs, P2P, A2A, PFM, and NFC — bankers seem to love three letter acronyms). These advances were often blocked based on perceived risks to security, control, or the balance sheet — but our ecosystem eventually embraces most forms of innovation that reduces costs, improves procedures, expands opportunities and concurrently improves the customer experience.
Don't let the same lethargic response happen with the social enterprise.
You may already be involved in attempting to engage your customers and prospects through social media, but how are the same social channels influencing activity throughout your bank? How are social technologies affecting your business model and your processes?
The majority of financial institutions not only restrict employee access to traditional social networks like Facebook and Twitter, they also fail to leverage cloud-based business collaboration tools and networks like Google Docs and LinkedIn.
We need to move beyond paper, phone, and email folks. It's time for banking to completely embrace social technology.
One of the most powerful segments of Benioff's keynote focused on international retailer Burberry, whose CEO Angela Ahrendts stated goal, when taking the helm in 2006, was to take her new company fully digital, end to end. This meant that Burberry's customers would have total access to the company's products and people, through any channel, and get the same feel of the brand regardless of where and how they chose to experience it.
To any skeptical CEO, Ahrendts adds, "if you don't do that, I don't know what your business model is in five years." This coming from a clothing manufacturer established in 1856. A quick visit to Burberry via a mobile device will give you an idea of how far they have come. Bankers take note.
The majority of financial institutions are simply not engaging their customer base through social technologies. Most banks leverage one-way communication or take a shotgun approach toward communicating with their customers. This isn't maximizing benefit to their brand, overall loyalty, or growth opportunities.
To be fair, the marketing model has changed so dramatically in the last decade — banking isn't the only model unprepared for disruption — but we have been late to the game before. The customer is now the driver of the conversation, and the move toward leveraging social technologies will only heighten the importance The social enterprise is a learning enterprise, always focused on listening, engaging, and improving.
