Old School...New School

I can't resist commenting on corporate moves. They sometimes puzzle me and sometimes intrigue me and even sometimes disgust me (actually more often than not) but our favorite company, SIebel, managed to make a few new ones that both intrigue me and I think might even be good. So even though this is NOT the main reason for my post, I'm going to write to it and then get on with the REAL reason for today's post in the New School...section.

Old School...

Computerworld reports that due to Siebel's June 30 $312-$314 million revenues which were the low end of their guidance, that they are undergoing what most corporations undergo rather than botox or facelifts - a restructuring. But in this case, part of it is more of that management shuffling that normally seems to be nothing more than the old Titanic deck chairs. But in this case, they are doing two things I find intriguing and one I really like.

Intriguing
David Schmaier, formerly the EVP in charge of Siebel's Product Development is now EVP of Corporate Strategy - I'm not sure what this portends exactly, but frankly it's interesting. He has been at Siebel for 11 years and to my knowledge it's been product, product, product most of the way. Moving him to this longer term, big picture position means something if you read corporate tea leaves but I don't but i might just to figure out what Siebel is doing. This could be really good - or not.

Bruce Cleveland to take Schmaier's place - Bruce was the chief of the On Demand operation and was one of the really successful stories that Siebel could hang on to. At one point in my earlier CRM life I had a very bad experience with Bruce that ended very amiably and I find him to be a person that I can chat with intelligently and truth be told, someone at Siebel that I can actually see success with. This one might really work with a mellow Bruce Cleveland in charge. Mellow being the key here.

Great Move

Les Rechan moves from manufacturing and distribution industries general manager, to Senior VP of Americas Sales - Les was underused anyway. He has a great history as the COO of Onyx, a senior player at IBM and at Cadence Systems. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with Les at Siebel User Week in 2004 and was VERY impressed with his people skills, industry knowledge, history and that he had a wife who read my book to learn about CRM!!! Les is a great choice by nature and history to head up this mission critical positon at Siebel.

Okay enough Old School.

New School...

Chris Selland wrote in his blog today, "I see a tremendous amount of innovation going on in certain market segments - which aren't (by intent) defined as 'CRM' or 'Enterprise Software'. As I discussed at length with Paul Greenberg last week, technology like blogs, RSS, wikis, podcasts, mobile and other innovations are absolutely reinventing how corporations and customers interact - and the traditional CRM/enterprise software analyst/media machine simply doesn't get it."

Bravo, Chris.

There is one immutable fact that is transforming business, always transforms business, and, as Ra-like as some CRM business and thought leaders may be, it is a still immutable "thing."

We all age.

That is simply the case, and that fact is changing the face of business as we know it now. What does THAT mean? Well, Gen Xers have a vastly different set of expectations than baby boomers. They apply a different set of criteria for how important the interactions with the companies they consume from or the customers they do business with are. They decide whether or not the interactions met those different expectations. Gen Y has an even greater difference between its expectations and the Xers and us'n. Take a look at the very cool blog run by Anastasia Goodstein, YPulse, a note on a new dating service called "Friendsation" that "will be geared to the always-on-the-move digital world of the 18 to 30-year-old market, offering its users access to live online and mobile chat with over a dozen interactive features." If you're not in that 18 to 30 year old world, can you picture yourself finding a date that way? Plus, baby boomers out there, are you part of the always on the move digital world? No, you're not, unless you're a perennial juvenile something like me.

In other words, your generation's expectations, whatever they may be are simply different than another one. That's also a time-honored "thang." A study on the differences between baby boomers and Gen Xers found the following for example. When it came to computer use, baby boomers became aware of computer technology later in their education or in their careers. The computer is seen as a "nice to have" tool to do things. The translation of "how would I do this with the computer" is usually made. As if to prove the point, I asked for the email address of a friend of mine from my high school and college eras and he didn't have a computer at home, nor did his wife because he and she "used them enough at work." I'm used to living with high tech since that is the industry I'm more or less in, but baby boomers not in that industry are more like my friend than me (or you who are reading this). On the other hand, the study found that Gen Xers "are technologically literate because they grew up with computers as part of their working world. They consider computer technology as a "need to have," not a "nice to have." Technology is an expected way of accessing information." (Brown, Bettina Lankard, 1997). Another key concept of this fascinating study found that when it came to what it called "relevance," baby boomers learn "what" or "how" first, and the "why" may come later as part of experience. while Gen Xers operate from "what's in it for me?" That's a question to which Gen Xers require the answer before they take the time to learn what or how.

There is much more but fundamentally, we are dealing with a very different set of expectations from generation to generation and frankly that means that the expected customer experience is very difference. Its why you can't presume the experience. With the generations ascending to power, collaboration and tools for providing them with an experience that they can manage and create themselves is critical. You have to give them what they need to control their own experience and control it - now.