Business Model 2.0: The Customer is King
by Paula Thornton
The term “Customer is King” is not new — but talk is cheap. Committed action comes in the form of business models that are ”subjugated to” customers, employees and suppliers.
Who better than a monarchal government to understand true subjugation? The British government directs the BBC. They effectively committed their business model to 2.0 thinking 18 months ago.
By embracing ‘on demand’ distribution of content, they subjugate the business model to the consumer. That doesn’t mean that the consumer defines the model, but that the model is defined by the consumer. Yes, that sounds contradictory. The model focuses on consumer needs/preferences rather than forcing the consumer to embrace business needs/preferences (not that there aren’t balances somewhere in the middle).
Even 18 months ago, the path forward relied on “a much greater focus on content management and supported metadata to allow for sophisticated search and navigation”. My professional colleagues at the BBC have always pushed the envelope on these topics. They clearly understand that ‘online’ is simply a channel: “Not a traditional broadcaster with a rather good website but a deliverer of high quality content over the web and other digital channels”.
For Enterprise 2.0, the point is the same. Leveraging 2.0 requires a total collaborative enterprise architecture, for which online is just one channel of interaction. To not connect conversations across channels is shortsighted. If 2.0 is implemented as a technical initiative the digital will not be integrated with the analog.
To repeat again, Enterprise 2.0 is about connections — connecting people, their conversations, their artifacts, and all other corporate resources. ROI should now be “Relevance of Initiative” – specifying how relevant the initiative is to unleashing the power of the employee, by freeing their voices/efforts and connecting them to one another. The initiative must show how it subjugates the business and its resources to the human potential: the most expensive capital investment with the greatest untapped return.
