Working in a marketing agency has given me rare and valuable perspective on decision making. Particularly for brands. The insight into our clients decision processes, priority assignment, and level of self-awareness would be valuable for any organization. Outsider perspective always has a way of revealing strengths and weaknesses that aren’t seen up close. What interests me the most is the correlation between how busy an organization seems and the time it takes for decisions to be made.
You would think busy organizations make decisions educated but quickly, and this does happen, but when a busy organization takes a long time to make decisions, it hints that there is needless busyness going on. Best Buy has been chastised lately in the media about its slipping dominance and relevance to the changing customer. I had the opportunity to visit Best Buy’s corporate offices in Canada once. They are a beast. Thousands of employees…rows and rows of cubicles…it’s awe inspiring in sheer size alone. Best Buy has a problem though. They are stuck selling commodity products and their selling experience has little differentiation for their competitors. They compete on price alone and are racing to the bottom.
The project I was working on with them took months and eventually was called off. No fault of any one person but their busyness was apparent, as was their lack of self-awareness. Sure there are never enough hours in a day and we all have things vying for our attention, but the whole ‘work smarter not harder’ concept is rare perspective in middle and upper management. I realized this recently when I stumbled upon a survey by global hotelier Starwood. The survey asked what hiring tactics Starwood should take towards attracting Generation Y to their organization.
Over the next ten years, Gen Y’s purchasing power will overtake the Boomers as the largest consuming demographic, yet this has been masked by Boomers retiring and spending their retirement. Starwood has obviously noticed a shift in their employment attraction and retention strategies as Gen Y becomes their target workforce. And being that the nuances of Gen Y require organizational change, it stood out to me that Starwood is showing encouraging traits of self-awareness for such a large company. Best Buy could turn their fortunes around, but they will have to do it from within. Which leads us to social media.
Social Media is waking brands to how their customers view them, which is why it is difficult for some to actively embrace the platform. Social media makes it difficult to hide your brands insecurities. For some this means there’s a lot of work to do. But the opportunities are extraordinary.
Real opportunity exists for visionaries who can create and grow brands using the social space. Not only are they building the business, they’re building customer loyalty into its foundation. Whether you’re start-up or a weathered brand, social media will transition your organization into one where accountability is leveraged in the best sense of the word. And busyness will actually be a sign that true value is being created.
