Amen,

Thanks
Esteban

thanks for a great comment. I am going to take deeper on the pivot point at another point in time, did not think it was going to be a problem. I like the railroad switch analogy, probably a better description that what I did.

As for the other modification – all internal triangles rely on communities as the bottom layer same as the SCRM layer. there is not outside or in in this chart, it is just customer-facing and internal-operations – but they all operate similarly.

I am focusing my research for next year on communities and analytics, will explain more why later… but i see those two areas as uber-critical for success in the next 2-3 years. by far.

thanks for the read and the comment
esteban

The fact that you confess to having opinions is comparable to confessing to witchcraft in the 16th century… just kidding. i would not expect otherwise.

I did not mean for the pivot point to become a “choke” point (although i see your point, will think about changing it again). I am surprised that the little orange dot caused so much controversy. It is simple a checkpoint to ensure that everything happens. Should I call it CheckPoint Charlie?

I am working on a different model, expanding this one to make it easier to evolve through… when that is ready we an talk about the choke point — the new one is a porous membrane

Thanks for the read.

Pivot Point is just an analogy – may even be the wrong words chosen – but the idea is to have a central place that ensures that the hand-off happens. Also, on the E2.0 stuff, you are getting caught up on the pivot point as being a division between inside and outside of the enterprise – which is not the case. let me explain the whole concept in more detail.

SCRM works within the organization, not outside, and is focused on customer-facing activities. E2.0 are, very briefly, collaboration tools, methods, and implementations between workers in the organization – but we are still inside the organization. if there is any “division” between the inside and outside worlds is between the bottom layer and the one above it in SCRM – but that is not even the case. The pivot point is a essential “thing” that makes sure that the feedback collected and analyzed into actionable insights gets to the right place or person, and that the processes implemented get transformed into an experience (you say that right in your last before paragraph). this thing could be a group, person, automated set of rules, or something else totally – as long as ti works as expected (experiences are delivered to customers, actionable insights are delivered to the intended business stakeholder). It could be a magic-guessing monkey dressed in black tie for all I care… or a pig with lipstick and a dress named sally — the pivot point is a joint that ensures balance, flow, and data distribution. it is not a wormhole or portal, is a theoretical construct put in place to make sure that things execute as expected when expected.

there are different people that think differently of it -and that is just fine i don’t claim to hold the ultimate truth to the world, just a vision of my own. everyone is welcome to point to me where i am wrong, with substance, and i’d be glad to change it. (this does not mean you said that, but got other messages along the way on this as well).

bottom line: the pivot point is where the social business happens, and where is monitored – the model for it is still being developed until someone implements it and workd since otherwise we are just talking theories.

Thanks for a good comment.

Great SCRM solution definition. Nice and meaty.

I like the way you diagram out an SCRM solution but tend to agree with Prem labeling. Calling the PP a gateway is more apropo for me.

That said, I saw the the PP as being like a railroad switch. In the railways, trains pass over it and then are guided to the right track to continue their journey.
All the social data comes in through the PP and then gets directed to the right applications used to manage internal business processes.

You make an excellent point that the true value of SCRM is to gather actionable intelligence from an unstructured environment. That’s a key point to help stimulate companies to adopt technologies as they develop their social business strategies.

One other modification I’d make is to have a similar “internal social SCRM triangle.” Employees are a valuable resource and social media tools are just as effective when used solely for private, internal discussions.
.-= Kathy Herrmann´s last blog ..Talking around the town – Friday, 10/23/09 =-.

A couple of thoughts for your perusal:

The pivot point seems to be more of a metaphor than a reality, despite how compelling it looks on the diagrams. The unfortunate reality is that there really is no single chokepoint for organizations to use in controlling feedback or social interaction. As a matter of fact, Social can make it that much harder because when done well it worms the customer even more deeply into your organization so that they’re already past any choke points. Social is diffuse, unfocused, spur of the moment, and often very disorganized.

It’s extremely unclear, therefore, what the pivot point actually is or can be. The nearest thing I can see is that it is some sort of decision-making junction where the organization decides to act on feedback, which causes communication in both directions. Don’t these decisions have to be exceptions, though, to rise to the level of pivot point? Isn’t a well crafted Social (or conventional CRM) strategy to sufficiently empower customer engagers that they don’t need these kinds of decisions most of the time? If pivot points are triggered too often, this may even be a signal that there is not sufficient empowerment, and that we’re still living the Command and Control origins of CRM.

Because of these thoughts, I have to emphasize the very uneven nature of the pivot point. There are many many pivot points in a constantly changing fabric as customers push and pull for what they need and the organization struggles to reconcile those needs against their own agendas.

Point 2:

This model is excellent for Feedback, but there are many other processes associated with SCRM. For example, we hope the requirement for feedback induced course corrections is not continuous. We would like to get some things right for the customer or if nothing else to be able to execute the lessons of prior feedback!

A healthy level of Social Business Process within an organization will accomplish a lot aside from feedback just in terms of engaging with customers for other purposes. For those all-too-brief spans when we’re actually doing something right for our customers, this will be the majority of what goes on socially.

Hence we should be discussing all sorts of other Social Business Processes besides Feedback, though Feedback hovers in the background waiting to swoop in and grab any valuable insights that may be available.

Cheers,

BW
.-= Bob Warfield´s last blog ..Social CRM Strategies for Sales =-.