Okay, I'm bushed. It was a long week and marked by mostly ups and a few downs and a number of spooky mysterious occurrences that were explainable by science. But I figured I'd give you the skinny on what the story was with Gartner and with this Unisys/CitiGroup thing (to some extent) that I spoke at in NY at Le Bernardin last night.
Almost There
First, a bit of an apologetic tone to kick this off. I really like the folks at Gartner. They have never treated me with anything less than sweetness and while you might not think of Gartner that way, they have been really good to me and always taken care of me - for both of the years that I spoke at their conference. Pascal Winkel, the Gartnerian who handles the events like they are easy - AMAZING guy - has been a good bud and a kind man in all his dealings with me. Michael Maoz is brilliant as an analyst and wonderful as a friend, and I think the most utilized Gartner analyst around - for sure in CRM, but I'm thinking for the whole company. He is a devoted family man who is insightful and sharp witted and funny and warm and one of the best out there - both as an analyst and as a person. Ed Thompson, their European CRM jefe is one of the great speakers and CRM analysts too. He is funny and droll and packs enormous "stuff" into a short time and never bores - something not usually said about analysts.
Additionally, there was a marked increase in the number of attendees - I believe somewhere north of 800 and the vendor exhibits increased by about 10 with some notable companies attending including salesforce.com for the first time, SAP, KANA, SAS, RWD, my great friends at Onyx (ugh to M2M), etc. and vendors who were just "there" to be there - just like the old days of trade shows in the IT world - you were there because it was noticed if you weren't
You know what I think of the hotel. If not, look down an entry. But the buzz and excitement was palpable though I have to say that those I polled who were there last year, thought it was better last year - from the standpoint of content. And I agree with that.
Though the title was CRM 2.0 and, one caveat, I went to several but certainly not all the sessions and heard the keynote, the tone and content reflected CRM 1.85 - a newer, sleeker but still corporate ecosystem-y version of customer centered CRM. Fred Reichheld did his thing on the Net Promoter score and that was valuable and a start for the metrics and performance indicators needed for the experience economy. Not a be all and end all but a start. The guys at Satmetrix who worked with Fred are owed a handshake for their work (I met one of them, Bob Jurik, at the conference briefly - REALLY good guy. I'm looking forward to chatting with him).
Look, Gartner's revenues are dependent on both the practitioners but also the vendors. The focus of the conference was on that. If I were to define the difference in a nutshell between where I think we are and what Gartner was saying it would be this:
- GARTNER - Their focus was around the idea that companies needed to transform their cultures, metrics and processes into customer-focused versions. Scott Nelson, in his opening keynote, showed what he didn't call but I did a maturity model to do just that and one that showed where most companies are. (more on that in a minute). That is the epitome of the customer-centered corporate ecosystem - and not where CRM needs to be situated at this point because we live in a customer ecosystem - not a corporate one. What I saw was a uniquely mature version of an operational CRM that while still necessary isn't sufficient because, even at its best, it only improves the broken business logic of most companies, not either repairs or replaces it. Many need replacement. This would have been very valuable if it were a coupla years ago.
- ME - My focus is (and was in my presentation) that companies need to engage the customer in their cultures, metrics and process so that there are collaborative efforts going on between the company and the customer. In other words, as I pointed out in my presentation. (look at the slides below), we live in a customer ecosystem, where the operational aspects of CRM - those that have been historically associated with it - are still important, but no longer primary. That the right brain has a bit more weight than the left one now. You now have to see your business through the customer's eyes, even though you are governing your business with its own imperative and objectives. The voice of the customers shouldn't just be echoing in your brain ethereally, it should be actual soundwaves emanating from the customer's mouth to you. From HIS (the customer's) mouth to your ears, as the bastardized version of the saying goes.
That is not what I heard at Gartner, though the value of the conference is still more than enough to make it worthy of the title "best in show." The conference was just a major contradiction. On the one hand, the tone was set with Scott Nelson's 2006 Gartner Predictions which were the following:
- Large-scale, long-term CRM initiatives will begin to be approved again in 2006.
- There will be a rejuvenation of "build your own" CRM applications in 2006.
- The number of organizations with "single view of the customer" projects will double in 2006.
- Through 2007, vendors will transition to new service-oriented architectures (SOAs), limiting R&D in new functionality and hampering overall CRM application spending growth.
- By 2007, 30 percent of new SFA production applications will be deployed as a service.
- During 2006, spending on open-source CRM will increase threefold.
- Through 2006, organizations will continue to fail to understand the true value of feedback, throwing away most information collected from customers.
While I don't doubt ANY of that, except maybe the tripling of open source CRM spending this year, the tone it sets is wrong. This is CRM as it was - not the CRM 2.0 that the conference was supposed to be focused on. While Fred Reichheld and his Net Promoter score is in the right spirit, it comes within the CRM 1.85 framework that's already been presented as Gartner's lead in.
That isn't to say that all the material was dated or bad or irrelevant. That would be a gross misstatement. There was some excellent stuff presented - for example Ed Thompson, as always did a session entitled "Improving the Customer Expectations, Delivery and Feedback." While the title has a quite, quite operational sort of ring to it, the presentation and the associated material were very valuable in understanding the CRM 2.0 business models that are beginning to lead the charge to the wildly exciting future of business as it is transformed. Ed, in his understated droll way put it this way, "Through 2010, organizations that fail to establish strong relationships with their constituents will erode their competitive position by 15 percent to 20 percent per year (0.6 probability)." Which is to say, if you don't provide the collaborative environment a customer is going to need to manage their experience with you, you're up the creek - and the chances are 60 percent, that the creek will be up in this one if you don't listen. Another one when he discusses expectations as a filter to the experience interactions - "Recognize that "word of mouth" and past experience will often have a greater weighting in the purchase decision than communications from your organization." This is something I've preached since the first edition of CRM at the Speed of Light and in fact, was cited for preaching in multiple books and presentations (that's "cited" as in attribution, not parking ticket). In fact, to "multi channelize" it, its word of mouth, but even as "word of mouse." See the "Blair Witch Project of a few years ago for the forerunners of Internet buzz and just about everything going on in the world of Live Web, now. Ed even goes as far as to quote what Dick Lee and David Mangen say in their research report "Customers Say What Companies Don't Want to Hear" about how the customers "reordered priorities" will affect their purchase decisions. He also uses the report and mentions that not only do customers want customer-relevant products but 71% of them want empowered employees and that empowered employees positively impact purchase decisions. etc.
The point isn't just to highlight Dick and David's fabulous research, but to also make it quite clear that Ed Thompson is an outside the box thinker who had to operate inside the box at the Gartner CRM Summit.
So what do I conclude from this? Gartner Group is up against it when it comes to customer experience and the new breed of customer that we now deal with. They are working to change but are working against time and that means acceleration of their work is key, especially when companies like Forrester and Yankee are nipping at their heels.
I'm a fan of Gartner, but, outside of my presentation and Ed's and a couple of others, the level of "traditional" CRM focus and operational insights was far too great to label this 2.0, which is why I'm saying 1.85. They did a great job but are slower than the train that the customer is riding at the moment.
My Presentation - An Analysis
Well, those that attended - around maybe 200, in a room that was really big so hard to gauge, who spoke with me after said they thought it was really great, better than even last year. I presented on CRM Redux - NOT! New Business Models for the 21st Century. Had some cool slides. Did some interesting things. I was told that I was great but I didn't really think that. I didn't engage the audience as I did last year. I had 450 last year - twice this years crowd. I did the power breakfast last year, did it this year too, though this year it was on the last day of the conference. Those that saw it last year, thought this year's presentation was better but last year the audience was eating out of my hand at the power breakfast. This year, I think they were just eating breakfast. I could throw up all kinds of reasons a.k.a. excuses, but I won't. I have to engage a crowd whatever the circumstances with material that means something. I think the material was meaningful, but people didn't want their eggs to get cold. I don't expect they'll invite me back. Last year, I ranked second in the conference; this year remains to be seen. I'll let you know. But it was probably the most "out there" forward thinking presentation at the 1.85 conference, which is small consolation.
Criticisms aside, thank you Gartner. I did appreciate the last two years. You were gracious hosts and good people, and I don't care who knows it. But up the volume of the customer's voice next year. There should be a membranous corporate firewall, not brick. The customer owns the ecosystem and they have a right to claim the podium - more than they actually were able to get.
Hi Paul. I was wondering if you actually did post those slides you used? Interesting commentary on Ed Thompson presentation. Does Ed have a blog?
Posted by: PaulSweeney | September 20, 2006 at 07:18 AM