“They” say that the only thing that is certain is change. Let’s discuss.
I literally wrote the book on web competitive intelligence.
In 2001, I wrote “Dangerous Competition: Critical Issues in eCompetitive Intelligence Analysis.” This book was the first of its kind to look at the “New Economy,” as it was called then, from the perspective of competitive analysis.
Perusing some pages of the book the other day I came across the idea of allowing employees to get closer to customers. Very relevant given the orientation of today’s social media intiatives. “Giving employees full access to company information means that much present management must change.” (p 48) Now, of course, full information might not be such a great idea. But the concept I was putting forth there was that of allowing employees to solve problems for customers and giving those employees the necessary info to do so. This I was discussing from within the context of ecommerce, seven years ago. And I was discussing it as an element of competitive analysis, for the analyst to observe to what degree did his competitors do this?
Seems that things really haven’t changed much in that time. In social media strategy, we’re still discussing how the corporation should allow its employees access to info so that they can solve customers’ problems. (Jeremy Wright talks about this concept heavity in Blog Marketing.) So, in web business initiatives, managerial flux is still needed. After seven years.
So how is change the only thing that is certain?
