Build for Change

Customers have radically changed the ways they interact with businesses, and today's organizations need to adapt

Is your company prepared for the Gen D future, or is it heading toward life support? A lot of companies across the globe are going to die over the next few years, not because of macroeconomic stress, but because there is an emerging generation that is radically changing the rules of customer engagement. In Build For Change, Pegasystems CEO Alan Trefler shows exactly what companies can do to turn the coming "customerpocalypse" into one of the biggest business opportunities of the decade. The newest generation of consumers is turning customer relationship management on its head. Build For Change highlights the revolutionary changes to business, marketing, and technology practices that are needed to survive and thrive in these unforgiving times. Readers will learn how businesses are increasingly relying on new forms of customer engagement, and how one customer's experience—whether good or bad—can alter a company's reputation with the click of a mouse. With practical insight from a leader in customer engagement, this book serves as a timely wakeup call to companies that have not yet embraced the digital future.

Traditional marketing is becoming increasingly irrelevant, and businesses must become more customer-centric while taking a completely different approach to adopting and using technology. Build For Change outlines exactly what can—and must—be done to ensure sustainable success in the new digital era:

• Relate to the new generation of consumers, and understand their preferences and demands
• Stop obsessing about mountains of data, and instead apply business-driven continuous improvement to customer processes
• Learn how to overcome the fatal flaws of current technology fads
• Rethink organizational roles to drive adaptive and transformative innovation

Consumers have more options than ever before, and ensuring customer loyalty in the modern market means knowing exactly what the customer wants and how to deliver it brilliantly. Build For Change provides actionable guidance for engaging this new connected consumer.

Foreword James Champy ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Chapter 1 Customerpocalypse 1

Great Expectations 4

It Is So Easy to Lose Customers 5

An Ominous Future 8

Are You Provoking Your Customers? 10

Welcome to the Nightmare 11

“Don’t Sell to Me!” 14

Anthropomorphism 19

“I Want to Be the Discoverer!” 22

Chapter 2 Death by Data 27

Big Data, Bigger Problem 30

Autopsy of the “Customer Service Movement” 31

Data Is Only Memory 33

Data Suicide 35

Creepy Data Gathering 38

Getting beyond Data 41

Chapter 3 Adding Judgment and Desire 43

Data in Context 44

From Black-and-White to Color 46

Adding Judgment to the Mix 47

Bringing Smart to Big 51

The Power of Hypothesis 52

Next-Best-Action 54

Adaptive Learning 57

Organizing Your Insights 59

Feedback Loops 62

Intent Goes Both Ways 62

Chapter 4 Getting It Done with Customer Processes 71

The Best Execution for Every

Customer Interaction 75

First Impressions 76

Seamless Customer Processes 79

Getting beyond Business Process Modeling 81

Crossing Lines 83

Building for Change 88

A High-Definition Panorama 90

Chapter 5 Change How You Think about Technology 93

The Business–IT Collision 96

How Computer Programming Became a Mess 97

Traditional Development 100

Zombie Systems 104

Manual Systems 105

Rogue Systems 107

Shadow IT 108

Mind the Gap? 109

The Desperation Bandwagon 110

Agile Programming to the Rescue? 112

Ready to Change? 113

Chapter 6 Liberating Your Organization 117

Hybrid Vigor for Business and IT 118

Break the Grips of Channels and Silos 121

Realign Executive Leadership 122

Redesign the Role of Customer Service 124

Rewire the CFO Function 127

Chapter 7 You Are Your Software—The Digital Imperative 131

Core Principles for Survival 134

Democratize How You Do Technology 134

Think in Layers 136

Use Analytics to Optimize Continually 141

From Dream to Reality 143

Growing Pressure 146

Your Next Steps 151

Beyond the Twilight of the Brands 154

Notes 161

Index 167

“This is not just for B2B marketers but a book that everyone in business should read” (B2B Marketing, June 2015)

Alan Trefler is Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Pegasystems. His awards include being named The American Business Award’s “Software CEO of the Year” for 2009 and “Public Company CEO of the Year” in 2011 by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. Alan’s interest in computers originates from collegiate involvement in tournament chess, where he achieved a Master rating and was co-champion of the 1975 World Open Chess Championship. Alan holds a degree in economics and computer science from Dartmouth College.

In Build for Change: Revolutionizing Customer Engagement through Continuous Digital Innovation, Alan Trefler reveals a nascent generation of emboldened customers that are turning the tables on brands and companies that market to them. These customers don’t want to be “sold” to. They engage only when they sense transparency, authenticity, and trust. Today’s loudest fans can become tomorrow’s noisiest detractors. They are active users of online social channels and can influence thousands and even millions of consumers.

Build for Change offers a warning to companies that are failing to see the coming customerpocalypse, and practical advice and examples to those that are grappling with how to survive in a radically new customer engagement paradigm. It concludes that given the viral speed with which customer behaviors are changing, organizations need ways to predict customer desires, adapt in the moment to new changes, and be so reciprocal and contextually aware that both customers and staff will trust them, respect them, and want to engage with them.

This kind of customer engagement will be omnipresent and transformational. It is embodied in a new software layer that represents a company’s DNA. It will be more important than physical offices and retail stores. It will actually empower customers to engage, while directing how they are served, informed, and rewarded. And because it is DNA, it cannot be outsourced or found on some shelf.

Adopting the Build for Change approach to surviving the future means revolutionizing the customer experience and re-thinking technology, all with businesspeople at the forefront. It is the true promise of digital innovation and a call to action.