Build for Change: Revolutionizing Customer Engagement through Continuous Digital Innovation

by Alan Trefler

Customers have radically changed the ways they interact with businesses, and today's organizations need to adapt Is your company prepared for the Gen D future, or is it heading toward life support? A lot of companies across the globe are going to die over the next few years, not because of macroeconomic stress, but because there is an emerging generation that is radically changing the rules of customer engagement. In Build For Change, Pegasystems CEO Alan Trefler shows exactly what companies can do to turn the coming customerpocalypse into one of the biggest business opportunities of the decade. The newest generation of consumers is turning customer relationship management on its head. Build For Change highlights the revolutionary changes to business, marketing, and technology practices that are needed to survive and thrive in these unforgiving times. Readers will learn how businesses are increasingly relying on new forms of customer engagement, and how one customer's experience--whether good or bad--can alter a company's reputation with the click of a mouse. With practical insight from a leader in customer engagement, this book serves as a timely wakeup call to companies that have not yet embraced the digital future.

Traditional marketing is becoming increasingly irrelevant, and businesses must become more customer-centric while taking a completely different approach to adopting and using technology. Build For Change outlines exactly what can--and must--be done to ensure sustainable success in the new digital era:

Relate to the new generation of consumers, and understand their preferences and demands Stop obsessing about mountains of data, and instead apply business-driven continuous improvement to customer processes Learn how to overcome the fatal flaws of current technology fads Rethink organizational roles to drive adaptive and transformative innovation Consumers have more options than ever before, and ensuring customer loyalty in the modern market means knowing exactly what the customer wants and how to deliver it brilliantly. Build For Change provides actionable guidance for engaging this new connected consumer.

Genres: Business, Technology

175 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Tim Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

While "Build for Change" is starting to show its age in the current fast moving world of digital. It does give useful background and a view on your mindset to approach digital change projects.

[الزبّال الرومانسي · Rating 2 out of 5]

Blinkist

[Aaron Aoyume · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very good insights

The first impression is that of an almost amateurish, poorly-written "CEO who wants to pitch about his company" kind of book, but if you manage to get to Chapter Five, it becomes a rewarding experience. There are some good insights about how messy IT can be in big companies, and Trefler's depiction of "zombie system", "fingernetting" and "rogue system" are very precise, pictures drawn by some one who has certainly has seen a lot. There is a lot of selling of Pega, of course, a lot of Generation D and "customerpocalypse", but if you get to the really important stuff, this is still a book worth reading.

[Javier Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is one thing that often gets in the way of simple processes. The programmes that many companies use are simply too complicated. This is because of the way we make software today. Entrepreneurs and managers determine what the programme must be able to do, and the IT department then assembles it. The problem is, the managers are not experts in designing and creating suitable software systems. The developers, on the other hand, usually have no idea about the customers. They don't know what the customers want and what makes them tick. Therefore, they try to meet the requirements of the managers. After all, they get the order from the management. If you present the resulting systems to the employees, that is still one thing, but if you present them to the customers, then a "customer apocalypse" threatens.

To improve systems, the author suggests merging the IT and technical departments. He uses an analogy from plant breeding. If you want a flower that both smells good and looks great, you have to cross two species; one fragrant and one beautiful. This requires innovation centres, the alignment of the organisation with customer processes, a new positioning of the management and new rules in budgeting for innovation.

[Alex Devero · Rating 3 out of 5]

The rise of Generation D threatens to destroy any businesses unable to keep up with their high expectations. Businesses that fulfill ever-changing customer needs through constant innovation and flexible, dynamic internal processes will succeed. The rest will bite the dust!