Jacob Morgan | Best-Selling Author, Speaker, & Futurist | Leadership | Future of Work | Employee Experience

What's Coming Up Next for Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0?

Picture taken from a desert safari in Dubai

We’ve talked about a lot of topics around the Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0 space and I think it’s about time we get a bit deeper into both of these areas and explore how they fit together.  I get a bit frustrated when I hear people talking about SCRM and E2.0 from the same high level point of view all the time (I’m also guilty of this).  So, what I want to do moving forward is really push the envelope.  I’m not saying I’m going to be right or wrong but I am hoping that what I write and talk about will make you think differently about both E2.0 and SCRM.  Let’s take a look at some of the important and interesting things we’ve covered so far and then build some sort of a future roadmap for what we should cover in the future.

Here’s what we covered so far:

Enterprise 2.0
Social CRM

Based on the above I would say that we have a pretty good foundation or at least a starting point of how to approach and look at both Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM, right?  Here are some complex and challenging topics that I want to start looking at in the future and if you have something to add to the list please do so in the comments below (on a side note I welcome guest posts if you can speak to a particular area of SCRM or E2.0).

Some things we need to work on (I know there is a lot but I only included some here)
  • Breaking down CRM which is necessary in order to understand SCRM.  Understanding CRM will help us understand that SCRM is about far more than social media.
  • Taking a look at actual use cases and examples of what SCRM looks like and how it integrates with E2.0.  For example.  I as a customer have feedback to give to a large brand (or need an issue to get solved).  How does SCRM fit in here?  How does the feedback get received from the customer, acted upon, and then disseminated back to the customer and the community?  I’m talking about granular stuff so we can really see how this works.
  • Exploring some actual SCRM case studies, similar to the E2.0 case studies that I have been putting together but I want to do these around SCRM (also doing more on E2.0).
  • Understanding how SCRM is impacting and changing the various departments and roles within an organization, such as PR, community management, sales, and marketing.
  • Developing more models and frameworks around both SCRM and E2.0 to show visually what the process and/or workflow can look like.
  • For SCRM I am currently working on a process/mode for B2B vs B2C vs Reactive vs Proactive (as many of you requested with the SCRM Process diagram).
  • Perhaps taking a look at some products/vendors in both the SCRM and E2.0 space and evaluating them (if you are interested in that)
  • Highlighting and conducting research around both E2.0 and SCRM to give us a better idea about what’s going on.
  • Dealing with real world enterprise challenges around both E2.0 and SCRM such as budget, data, security, fear, and corporate culture.
  • Looking at the operational sides of both E2.0 and SCRM.

Yes, there will still be some high-level posts because I’m not machine and I don’t know the answers to everything, that’s Esteban’s job!  It obviously takes time to think through these things. However, I’m always up for a challenge and at this point in the game I’m not worried about being wrong as long as I can help people think differently.  So what do you think?  I know it’s a pretty daunting tasks but I think with your help and feedback we can make it happen.  I’m also inviting anyone who wants to guest post about any of the above topics (or other more in depth topics on SCRM or E2.0) to do so.

Did we do a good job of covering the bases for E2.0 and SCRM?  Are we ready to try to move things to the next level and talk about more in depth issues?

6 thoughts on “What's Coming Up Next for Social CRM and Enterprise 2.0?”

  1. Catherine_Ford

    Hi Jacob! I'm working on my dissertation project which is a case study of how a corporation is using Social Media both internally and externally. I didn't see anything mentioned in your topics above about E2.0 using social media internally (between employees). Would that be a topic of interest to you? Please let me know…

  2. The “in depth” I think is systems and people (listed) – a rolling matrix, I think. And integrations and collaborations between them.

    Simple concept, sorta yet many service orgs are scared for the risks of bringing these together with solid back beyond deploying out of the box or concepts only vs integration implementations – uncharted waters, lots of details, lots of customizations, lots of trickiness – some risk.

    Further this evolution means mixing IT and business people constantly – and they don't like to mix sometimes. But should – business == IT in this day and age. So the skills need to meet up, more, often, always, with patience.

    The ones that grab the challenges will be the additional evolutionary case studies, even if each case study gets trumped by the next during the continuum of innovation. Every integration is a stepping stone for the next.

    So, again, I think we need to draw up a tangible list of systems. With cred. Create some logical data integration lines that would be useful – or that exist already and are useful, and keep growing the list.

    Then a list of services vendors willing to grab the challenges/opportunities to make it happen, technically as well as organizational / open leadership guidance, logically and with adoption.

    Hope my comments do not sound trite – very tricky to keep genuine; needs genuine assessments for furthering the mutual market agenda vs political motivations that can obviously occur. Always tricky navigation.

    Love to help you on this some Jacob. ellen at appfusions dot com

    (Your blog is just incredble – yet yes, I think you are a machine… but in best ways. 😉 )

  3. Hi Jacob, I think you are on to something. But I see the questions in your post it feels like CRM consultants worked 10 – 15 years ago.

    * Breaking down CRM which is necessary in order to understand SCRM. Understanding CRM will help us understand that SCRM is about far more than social media.
    >>> Why do you want to break down CRM. If you launch Internet you didn't go back and analyze IBM's SNA architecture. Take a fresh view and start without any baggage. When we developed Xeesm/Edge! we didn't look back and try to deal with the old world – we built what we (and over 1,000 customers) wanted to build a better customer experience. Using the term Social CRM was actually an after thought.

    * Taking a look at actual use cases and examples of what SCRM looks like and how it integrates with E2.0. For example. I as a customer have feedback to give to a large brand (or need an issue to get solved). How does SCRM fit in here? How does the feedback get received from the customer, acted upon, and then disseminated back to the customer and the community? I’m talking about granular stuff so we can really see how this works.
    >>> Why do you even ask “How does scrm fit in here” – Again mistake no.1 from the past was to make something fit ito something else. If you create a customer engagement model – you will as a result need some tools – look for those tools not the other way around, taking some “theoretic strategy” and make it “fit”.

    * Exploring some actual SCRM case studies, similar to the E2.0 case studies that I have been putting together but I want to do these around SCRM (also doing more on E2.0).
    >>> Agree that is a great way of learning

    * Understanding how SCRM is impacting and changing the various departments and roles within an organization, such as PR, community management, sales, and marketing.
    >>> Outsch – you fell in the same trap again. It's not how SCRM is impacting anything. Screw this. Mitch Lieberman made an awesome statement the other day: “Social CRM is based on the simple principle that you will interact with your customers based on their needs, not your rules” – So not SCRM is impacting anything or anybody – only the customer should be able to do that.

    * Developing more models and frameworks around both SCRM and E2.0 to show visually what the process and/or workflow can look like.
    >>> See “Lieberman”

    * For SCRM I am currently working on a process/mode for B2B vs B2C vs Reactive vs Proactive (as many of you requested with the SCRM Process diagram).
    >>> What will the base of the diagram be a “category” or actual customers?

    * Perhaps taking a look at some products/vendors in both the SCRM and E2.0 space and evaluating them (if you are interested in that)
    >>> 🙂

    * Highlighting and conducting research around both E2.0 and SCRM to give us a better idea about what’s going on.
    >>> Lior Arussy mentioned today that the research industry peaked at $40 Billion. And what did people do with it? Enjoyed the charts? I guess the most important “research” we need to do is to look what “others” do but look what our customers want. Lemmings follow others until the all go over the cliff. As a consultant you should teach people how to learn from their customers for their very specific and unique situation. – AND ACT ON IT.

    * Dealing with real world enterprise challenges around both E2.0 and SCRM such as budget, data, security, fear, and corporate culture.
    >>> Yeph that is indeed one of the core issues, in particular culture.

    * Looking at the operational sides of both E2.0 and SCRM.
    >>> OK

    I know I'm overly critical and I definitely want to support your passion for getting those topics right – but I see a huge risk of doing the old mistakes again. Why can't you just ignore the past and look at it with a fresh pair of eyes? Innovation is when you do the unexpected. Everything else is evolution.

    Axel
    http://xeesm.com/AxelS

  4. 1) SCRM is an evolution of CRM, without understanding CRM, you have no business talking about SCRM. This isn't new and old world, this is business. This is exactly why we are seeing so many SM folks talks about SCRM and unjustly so.

    2) This isn't about making anything fit into anything else, this is about understanding how SCRM actually works, something nobody is addressing and quite frankly not thinking about this is a cop out. Enough with ideas, time to focus on making it work.

    3) I think you are beyond way off on this one. CRM = marketing, sales, and support. SCRM = marketing and pr, sales, support, and the customer. How do all of these relate and impact each other. Not understanding this is just plain silly.

    4) Need actual uses cases and examples to justify. Everyone I have spoken to thus far supports this and the above issues.

    Coming up with excuses for why these things shouldn't get done is easy, coming up with solutions is hard, and that is why few people are doing it.

  5. Ok I guess we are just having very different opinion – which is good for everybody following the conversation.
    1) SCRM is an evolution of CRM
    a) If seen people try to migrate IBM /36 apps to PCS and it didn't work
    b) If seen people believe that CRM is a fad and ERP can do it all as they already have all data and are the system of record – fail
    c) If seen people try to convert CRM to PRM and make it work for partners – fail
    d) If seen people take traditional programming techniques and try to apply it to the web – fail
    Only time will tell.

    2) Well you are invited to see how Social CRM works by either testing it for yourself or join one of our webinars – the system is there it is live and you see people talk about it. I know, the old guard is not talking about it but that doesn't mean “nobody” is talking about it. Follow #xeesm 😉

    3) You are still thinking “internally” and start at the wrong end in my opinion. Yes, if we are only concerned about business process automation, internal work flow and how we organize all that – you are right. But if you think about what customers want and need you will model business processes around those needs. At this stage you don't care what the technology or internal strategy may look like – all you care is how you best serve the customer. As a result you model the processes to fulfill those needs – only at the very last step you start modeling internal flow and technology to support it.
    But maybe that is an experience thing.

    4) As I said use cases is a good thing. And you see and will see more about our clients and how they use sCRM

    Agree – and therefor I stopped supporting the esoteric blah blah blah of the philosophy and strategy and hypothetical scenarios actually focus on implementing solutions – one customer at a time 🙂

    Axel
    http://xeesm.com/AxelS

  6. There is no “how social CRM works” there are plenty of vendors in the space that offer tools. SCRM doesn't “work” because of a tool it works because of a strategy that is supported by tech/tools. Focusing on integrating social data with CRM data for sales is great but it's a tiny piece of SCRM and I don't think that what you or any other vendor in the space offers is a full SCRM suite or can show anyone “how scrm works.”

    Read some of the previous posts, SCRM works with E2.0 to get internal/external. You can't best serve your customer unless you have the proper internal set up to do so.

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