The “newly” learned information will require newly designed processes to produce ROI on all these efforts. I am aware of Radian6 and quite a few other companies, including mine (http//:www.amplifiedanalytics.com), that are working to convert unstructured data into meaningful information, and then into actionable knowledge. We all making some significant strides, however the business processes and methodologies for it’s use, are still in infancy. And that is my concern.

You are absolutely “on the money” with a “single version of truth” challenge. It is not technically all that challenging, I’ve been involved into a couple of projects focused on this, but an organizational nightmare. Yet, this is a source of the best and fastest ROI I have seen.

Naumi Haque October 9th, 2009

Greg, point well taken. I’ve had some conversations with Radian6 and it seems like they are making headway in the area of automation. Specifically, they gather fairly sophisticated analytics on unstructured social media and also have the capability to automatically push social media conversations into CRM queues. Cool stuff for sure.

I think another major challenge is achieving a “single version of the truth” across the enterprise. You mention translating knowledge into measurable action which is the tough part. In order to achieve this you need to gather data inputs from throughout the enterprise and share the results with different departments. I think a lot of organizations are still very silod where the contact center does one thing, corporate communications does another, product development is disconnected from both, and the analytics division operates as a black box that gathers and shares information selectively. The lack of comprehensive visibility into the customer experience is definitely a problem.

I think we are in a violent agreement, however the tools to me are secondary to strategy and execution plans. I do realize that some (many?) strategies are not executable without right tools, however the field has been dominated by search for the “silver bullet” mentality for so long, that the reason for this search was forgotten. The tools development outpaced ability of corporate management to design, optimize and adopt business processes and practices to take advantage of these tools and new knowledge they could help to produce.

However, where I disagree is with the idea that we should be satisfied with today’s current social business tool providers when they offer up Social + CRM tools, tools that merely bolt-on to your existing infrastructure. It is time that we see tools like SSCs that fit into the way businesses operate (focusing on people, enhancing their processes, all towards an overall set of strategic goals).

John