Vive le Disruptive Consumer!
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How better to illustrate the point of the power of the customer as part of the Culture of Disruption than the news that an activist investor group has approached the board of directors of Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry (and masters of the “see no iPhone, hear no iPhone, speak no iPhone” school of management) to propose innovations to keep the company competitive?
This is fantastic. This means that the consumers are realizing our power. After all, we are the ones who deliver the verdict on every new product with our wallets, so why shouldn’t we demand that our companies pull their heads out of the sand and act to give us more of what we want? Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and more, we have voices that can no longer be ignored.
Thanks to technology, consumers can speak louder than corporations ever expected us to. If a mom doesn’t think a certain cereal is healthy, bam! Out go dozens and then thousands of voices into the online social universe, rendering a potentially crippling judgment. If techies think a game is weak, a few thousand retweets can turn it into a flop. If RIM customers find themselves doing what I did and walking into an AT&T store after ten years as a loyal BlackBerry user, standing in the long iPhone line (while the RIM section of the store is sits vacant) and tweeting about how badly RIM is screwing up, our collective voices are mighty.
The social enterprise (the corporation with a high-profile social media brand identity) has changed everything. The collective voice of millions of consumers can make or sink a phone, game, or movie. The enterprise has no control over this. Ads don’t matter. Focus groups are for suckers. The more you try to control the discussion the worse your image gets. The voice of the social enterprise is genuine, real-time and uncensored. That scares the hell out of companies, which is good for consumers. It’s forced enterprises to listen to the collective voice of the consumer than to proceed with blinders on.
What did the board’s agenda at RIM looked like before the activists stepped in? Probably something like this:
Step One: Ignore competition.
Step Two: Do not discuss innovation beyond mundane changes to the BlackBerry.
Step Three: Look at market share and pat ourselves on the back, saying ‘Wow, we’re awesome’.
Step Four: Agree with the CEO that our customers will never, ever leave us.
Step Five: Charge an arm and a leg if someone wants to upgrade change their device.
No longer. RIM has been called on the carpet. The only regret is that it should have happened a long time ago. Let this be a warning to other terribly mismanaged, denial-ridden companies. The revolution is coming. The people are speaking. You’d best listen.
Blog Response for BBUS 525
I have always been a spoiled iPhone user with access to all the latest applications and easy to use interface. When I’m away from home my iPhone is always with me and it has everything thing I need. I never knew the difference between the iPhone and BlackBerry till I got a company phone. What world of difference. It seemed like I stepped back in time to when RAZR phones were popular. How a company like RIM could ignore something like the iPhone is beyond me. My company is finally realized the difference and is now preparing to change over to all iPhones within the next couple of years. I can’t wait till I can get rid of this worthless product called a BlackBerry.
RIM has failed to innovate their products based upon their competitive advantage; crainking out devices that serve as the buisness person’s mobile command center. They have attempted to copy the smartphone market with the Storm but failed miserably and because they have not made any advancement in redefining how their mobile devices can better the global business person market. It’ not too late for RIM to redefine it’s position and turn out a new solution to meet the challenges of the modern business person however, the clock is ticking.
It’s the culture, stupid. When the company is saying “While we would have preferred the initial launch to have been smoother, I firmly believe that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet remains the most secure and most advanced tablet platform on the market today.” and executives everywhere else are carrying I products the leaders seem to be oblivious to reality of the changing market. To be innovative a company must have a better understanding of customers needs than their competition, or better technology, or be a better customizer. Adding flash doesn’t help if the customer doesn’t care.
Clearly, the growth in always-on connectivity, explosion of mobile computing and rise of social media have all come together to create a perfect trifecta of empowerment for the consumer. This can topple governments and bring mighty corporations to their knees. Companies which grok this will use it to their advantage, live long and prosper; those who do not, like RIM, are destined to be written up in Harvard Business School case studies and endlessly dissected in MBA classrooms for years to come.
How are companies turning this into a competitive advantage? By using it to spot trends, by actively using the new channels to both gather information and inform, by experimenting, by exploiting the reduced feedback cycle. In short, companies must embrace the disruptive consumer – not ignore them.
I hate to keep bashing on RIM but how can you not. They are the epitome of the phrase “blinded by success”. Instead of being paranoid about who is inventing next great thing while they were successful, they decided to be fat, dumb, and happy about it.
I think consumer power is not the next big thing; it’s the big thing NOW. A bad review by a customer, gamer, or blogger is not perception anymore. It is the new reality. Consumer power is the reason why AT&T monitors twitter feeds and responds to customers right away and the reason why restaurants go out of their way to provide exceptional service at the threat of a bad review on yelp.