Читать книгу Shift - Richard Lees - Страница 15

We live in a world where competition really can come from anywhere, and businesses have to be able to rapidly respond to threats and adapt to change. Organisations must evolve multiple strategies and use these abilities to build and maintain persistent relationships with their customers. So, business transformation tends to be at the top of most large corporate agendas, to modernise businesses that have fallen behind in some way and need to rapidly play catchup.

In many cases, there is also a customer experience transformation (CXT) happening to meet the fast-shifting needs of customers, who today are empowered and in control. CXT is the combination of data transformation and digital transformation, which relates to a business' ability to respond in today's expectation economy. This is a world where customers are increasingly digitally savvy. They have choice. They are informed. They can and do vote with their feet (increasingly with their smartphones!). They expect service. They want quality. They are vocal when they don't get it.

If you are one of the many businesses that is transforming across multiple areas to make up lost ground, then this idea of building a business that can turn motion into meaningful progress will be very topical for you.

In our current work for Merkle and dentsu's Customer Experience Management service line, Rich as Chief Strategy Officer, EMEA, and Az as Chief Marketing Officer, EMEA, this is a topic we've tackled time and again with our clients. Over many years, we have seen and been part of extraordinary transformational efforts as well as attempts to transform businesses that did not gain sufficient traction.

What we are sharing in this book is a set of themes that any organisation can follow on its journey to becoming an adaptive organisation. Turning motion into progress is a key part of that journey. After all, how else are you going to get off the starting grid? However, as we're sure you know, making progress requires far more than simply turning on the engine and putting your foot to the floor.

The principles we share in each chapter are based on our experiences where we pull together examples and analogies to illustrate what we have found to be most important to a business' ability to become an adaptive organisation, and will hopefully provide you the guidance you need to harness that adaptive behaviour and turn it into meaningful progress. It is highly likely you already embrace at least some of them. However, if you are reading this book, there are also likely some obstacles in your path, some of which you may not even be aware of. Our hope is that you will find some ideas that can help you navigate those obstacles and continue your journey toward adaptiveness in the most efficient way possible.

If we help you overcome even one obstacle on your journey, we have achieved our goal. If you're ready, let's join the principal; it's race day.