Social Technology: Making Big Business Small

I was recently at Barcamp Hamburg hosted by 90:10’s very own Franz Patzig (Head of Germany). Before he was a successful blogger, digital analyst and social media strategist I recently found out he started out his working life doing ‘time’ in his family’s chain of butchers. I know the cliché of a German and sausages has not been wasted on me nor him for at least a for a couple of days worth of jokes.

His father had built this small start-up enterprise into somewhat of an empire by being what in recent times would be referred to as an obsessive workaholic. He meticulously knew every area of the business, every member of staff’s name and deliberately spent more time out of the office and on the shop floor. He tried to spend as much time with the customer as possible to understand their needs, wants, frustrations and concerns and tirelessly sought to remedy them. It seems to be common behaviour in leaders that go on to make small businesses big. The success all comes down to the time invested in relationships both internally and externally. These relationships allow the leader to understand inefficiencies and ineffectiveness throughout their business. Good ones innovate to fix them. So if that’s what makes businesses big why do their leaders stop when they get big?

If we look at how the corporation is structured the typical leader simply has too much in the way of this golden opportunity to connect and can sometimes almost appear isolated, on the outside, and overly reliant on management teams to interpret the business for them. They can only broadcast into it through these managers and out of it via marketing teams. They are reliant upon information slowly making its way to the top if at all. Few department heads report actual failings and are naturally more optimistic in outlook. The only folk that have direct contact with the customers are limited in their opportunity to fix the cause of problems and often spend time fire-fighting. We all know the frustrations of being passed from department to department trying to find answers let alone solutions.

So if the only people I have a relationship with from within a business are those trying to either sell me something or when I have the negative experience it leads to discontent. I am locked out of the process a far cry from Mr Patzig’s face time relationship driven model. This limits advocation and WOM and restricts my market to only those that I must pay to reach.

Social technologies from blogging, to Twitter, Yammer and Wikis mean business leaders can break down the silos that distanced them from their employees and more importantly customers. They free the information flow and give visibility to real issues faced in the field. They lead to greater efficiency and innovation and invite the consumer into the process. Because they are involved and getting a better service, and hopefully product, they advocate. This advocation powered by the same social technologies means markets have potentially no boundaries as each makes it relevant to their community of peers. Put simply it allows big business to act like small ones on steriods.