How to Win Customers in the Digital World: Total Action or Fatal Inaction

Every organisation must strive for Total Action. Winning the customer in today's highly competitive and demanding world is the key to ensuring success. All managers and employees profess to understand this yet they find it incredibly difficult to perform together to achieve this. The 'digital world' is changing the traditional logic of business - we must now act fast and effectively to capture and retain increasingly demanding and sophisticated customers, be they individuals or organi­ sations. Most customers demand much more than many organisations are able to deliver. It is said that the inventor of the telephone believed its main use would be to let someone know that a telegram was arriving. Today we know there is a lot more you can do with a telephone ... and all the surrounding digital business technologies. But you must be prepared to re-think why you are doing things the way you are. And why you are doing them at all. This is the starting point for 'How to win customers in the digital world - Total Action or Fatal Inaction'. The authors confront traditional ways of organising with the capabilities of the new, digital business technologies. They are critical of the frozen behaviour of today's large organisations. They go back to the fundamental goal that business is about making money by satisfying customers.

What is so different about today's digital business technologies? Why is "digitisation" so important? Why is the Internet making such tremendous impact? What should my organisation do? What should I do?
How to win customers in the digital world presents a template for seizing the opportunities of the new digital business technolgies. It speaks about what the technology can do for you, as a user, senior manager, strategist, marketeer or sales director?
Six cases are presented - the army, the airline, the bank, the police, the telecommunications operator and the post. These real-life cases demonstrate both the power and the risks of the digital business technologies.
The winners use the technology to make front-line people the point of decision-making; to unlock information about customers; and to manage the fulfilment of their commitments. These are Total Action organisations, making every activity inside their organisation directly relevant for their customers.
The losers fail to change the "logic" of their organisation and suffer increasing degrees of "corporate autism": highly intelligent but inward facing corporate behaviour with little, if any, relevance for the outside world. They put the technology in place, but this only amplifies the shortcomings of their present organisation.
The authors - both experienced professionals in the field of telecommunications and management education - take you on a discovery tour of the new management concepts to create the winning organisation in the digital world of tomorrow.