How Do Managers Work with Digital Communication Media in International Business Relationships? Focus Group Results of Managers’ Experiences of Digital Media Use for Relationship Building

As organizations around the world confront new economic realities, many find organizing an effective response in this highly complex, highly uncertain environment to be uniquely challenging. Their sense of heightened uncertainty and risk reflects a business landscape. The rapid advance of communication technology and electronic commerce has eroded customer loyalty by creating more convenient access to product information, purchase options and services. In mature economies, market saturation has slowed growth in many categories. In emerging markets, greater consumer spending power has drawn the attention of providers searching for fresh growth, spurring further cross-border competition. Judging by the size of these investments there is a risk of Customer centricity being just another passing fad (think reengineering, six sigma, and the myriad of other buzzword programs that were sent to an early grave) looms large. What we are hinting about here is a lack of basic controls and check mechanism. The ratio of the types of measures and tracking systems necessary to efficiently manage and deliver on their Customer centric commitments is far less than the number of new Customer centric investments and initiatives that are announced everyday globally. The brighter side is that effective Customer centric governance is fairly easy and inexpensive to put in place, but it does require that you make it a focus and priority, and assign to it an importance commensurate with all its other critical activities. Organizations that truly deliver for customers know how they must evolve to meet customers’ priorities. It starts with understanding the role of culture and its impact; secondly articulating Your Line of Sight; thirdly describing (holistically) what success looks like; Fourthly Integrating your goals with your program’s initiatives; Fifth how do you review and manage your “pipeline” of improvements. Lastly, how do we measure progress periodically both at the program and activity level?