Innovators in Social Media

BusinessWeek published one of the first articles we have seen about a trend we commented on last year - social media inside the enterprise.  Social Media will provide a powerful new way to enable organizational development and change management inside companies, particularly those with borders created by siloes.  No World Borders has been following these trends for years and it is gratifying to see main stream media cover them and legitimize them now.

"At Ford, Scott Monty is using social media to remake the automaker's image—and reinvigorate its culture 

It started out with a simple question, on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter: Who should we profile as a Voice of Innovation for social media? Names poured in. Some commenters treated it as a vote, some as an essay contest. Others, including marketing maven Seth Godin, objected to the whole exercise. "Sorry to be a curmudgeon," he wrote. "But I really like BW best when they lead the discussion, not referee it."

Still, this process was bringing in names—lots we'd never heard of—and telling us about people doing all sorts of things with social media. What was wrong with that? Only one thing. As some commenters pointed out, we cast too wide a net. Social media, after all, extends from freewheeling entrepreneurs who build new software applications to consultants laboring inside giant corporations. It includes people who use it to push a product and those who use it to further an idea or just themselves. How could all of these innovators fit into a single category? They couldn't.

So we divided social media into four categories and picked a representative of each. They are:

1) Toolmasters: Imaginative techies whose schemes and applications open new doors and lead to insights. Our toolmaster is Noah Brier, who works days in New York at Barbarian Group, an interactive marketing shop. By night, Brier, 26,pieces together new social-media apps, including Brand Tags, a Web page that shows brand names and invites visitors to describe each with a single word or phrase. The more a word is repeated, the bigger its type, making it simple to see what folks think.

2) Eyes to the World: People innovating with social media to help others. Beth Kanter is our pick. She uses every avenue on the World Wide Web to raise funds for Cambodian childrenthrough her own charity, the Sharing Foundation. And she shares what she learns with nonprofits everywhere. Kanter, 52, is also a Net pioneer. A longtime employee of the Boston Symphony, she plunged into the Internet in the early 1990s. She started tapping friends—and friends of friends—through her blog while adopting two Cambodian children in 2000.

3) Crowdstrappers: Entrepreneurs or consultants who harness new approaches in social media to reposition or invigorate businesses—either their clients' or their own. Here we selectEric Brown, who has turned his apartment business in Royal Oak, Mich., into a social media laboratory. Brown, 49, has no training in social media. But he believes in openness and hopes that the ease of communicating through blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, can turn him into a better landlord.

4) Hidden heroes: These are people working inside old-style enterprises and use social media to change the culture and operations. Our choice is Scott Monty, who heads up social media at Ford Motor (F).

You'll see more on the first three nearby. Meantime, here's a fuller story on Monty.

When Ford came looking last year for a social media maven, Scott Monty had an answer for the auto giant: No. Monty, a consultant in Joseph Jaffe's Crayon consulting company, had been living in Boston for 20 years. He got to work with lots of blue-chip clients, from Coca-Cola (KO) to American Airlines (AMR). Why move to work inside an auto company—in Detroit?

Then he started thinking. "Here was one of the most storied brands in American culture asking me to do what I liked doing specifically for them, and I said no. I'm still shaking my head about that." When he reconnected with Ford, he said yes—and since July, Monty has been busy on blogs, on Twitter, and in the hallways of Ford trying to revive the culture of a suffering industrial giant. His boss, Chief Executive Alan Mullaly, compares the transformation of Ford to "changing the tires on a car going 60 miles per hour."

Monty's challenge, as he sees it, is to communicate to the rest of the world the same lesson that he learned himself: that Ford is not a stodgy company tied to the past. "I realized that I'd fallen victim to the very thing that Ford was trying to combat," he says. "There were assumptions I'd made that just weren't true anymore. These are the things I struggle with every day. We've got a big perception problem to overcome."

His first goal is to "humanize the brand, giving Ford as many faces as possible." The most prominent face, of course, is Mulally himself, who appears to be a willing experimenter. Last month at the Detroit auto show, Monty says, he collared the CEO coming out of a meeting and asked if he would answer some questions on Twitter.

"What's Twitter?" Mulally asked.

After Monty explained, he asked his followers on Twitter for questions for the Ford CEO. Mulally stayed with him and gamely answered a few. (True, there's no sign of him yet on Twitter, but that could be a good thing: The guy is dealing with 2008 annual losses of $14.6 billion, and sales that fell 40% in January.)

Monty says he wants to "democratize social media" within Ford, deputizing tens of thousands of employees to represent the company. They have blogs, of course, and have reached out to all tech and green bloggers. But the challenge is less about technology, Monty says, than changing the culture of an organization, making it so that people aren't afraid to speak up. "It's like being at a dinner party," Monty says. "If someone says something derogatory about Ford, do you just sit there? No, you respond."

Tata Buys Auto Makers Jaguar & Range Rover: What Does it Mean?

Detroit - After years of struggling to make money with these two companies, Ford has sold them to Tata for $2.3 Billion. The sale to Tata changes the company's visibility on a global scale. The key strategy for them has been to grow as a global manufacturer via acquisition. The transaction helps them compete globally and increases their ability to sell into the U.S. market, and it increases their ability to learn and capitalize on lean manufacturing which is already strong in Jaguar plants. Chinese manufacturers have been unable to make such a large purchase, so this also increases India's market share vs. other major emerging economies.

Just over sixty years have passed since India became an independent nation (see related BBC news post), leaving behind its status as a British Colony. Ironically, today one of India's leading companies is purchasing two of the best-known British brand names. The sale of Jaguar this week to Indian car maker Tata has prompted some to question what this means for the motoring brand's rich associations with all things British. The concern, however, ignores the fact that for almost 20 years the pouncing big cat motif has been under the stewardship of American owners, Ford. The new parent is a huge Indian conglomerate aptly named Tata, the word for daddy or father in a string of languages including Latin, Serbo-Croat, Polish and Zulu. The Nano, acknowledged as the cheapest car in the world at about $2,500, is very different from the high-end brands they purchased. The acquisition of luxury brands helps growth because these brands tend to be more insulated from market fluctuations.

A very British Brand

BBC news noted that some in the UK are concerned over the potential loss of British identity with the acquisitions, but Tata stated that they are committed to retain and enhance their British identity. "Think of James Bond and you think of Jaguar. Think of 60s London gangsters and you think of Jaguar. Recollect Inspector Morse - Jaguar..." - branding expert Jonathan Gabay sums up why one of Britain's best known brands is so inseparable from the country of its origin.

Ford

What about the impact on Ford and it's strategy? First, Tata is not expected to become a full-line manufacturer, but this helps Ford strategically. Partnerships may come more from OEMs than private equity firms in the future.

Second, is Tata getting value or cast offs from Ford? Ford has already done much of the heavy lifting for Tata and has broken down some of the organizational barriers in these companies to optimize them. Cultural differences between Tata, Jaguar, and Range Rover may be an issue, however Tata's global roots may make it easier for them to own and maximize these companies than for Ford. For Ford, the luxury brands have been a bit of a distraction. Now Ford can focus, but this also means, "no excuses." Ford is not abandoning the luxury market as they still own Volvo and Lincoln. There has also been some talk of taking the Lincoln brand global.

Future Success, Innovation

The $20 Billion plus company is truly an industrial company with momentum and capital. It has a good record in terms of acquisitions - Tetley Tea was a successful acquisition, and Tata has helped the company achieve profitable growth. Under the company's leadership, Ratan Tata successfully managed through some difficult times. “But it hasn't been a smooth ride for Ratan Tata. When he became the chairman in 1991, he was seen as a pushover by the group companies' CEOs, who lorded over their entities.

He had to battle it out with these men, who treated their companies as their fiefdoms. So, the new chairman eased out CEOs like Rusi Mody (of Tata Steel) and Ajit Kerkar (Indian Hotels). Ratan revamped the operations of Tata Steel and made it one of the lowest-cost producers in the world. He made the critics eat their own words, when he launched India's first indigenous car, Indica, which turned around Tata Motors' fortunes.

Transformation, Business Strategies

As the group entered the 21st Century, Ratan Tata was obsessed with four critical issues. The first was to globalize his group's operations, where he has succeeded to a certain extent.

The second was to safeguard his companies against possible hostile takeovers after the London-based Indian, Lakshmi Mittal, purchased the Luxembourg-based Arcelor early in 2006 to become the world's largest steelmaker, and announced his ambitious plans in India.

So, to thwart any threats, Tata decided to up his stakes in most of the group companies. Ratan Tata's most important concern, however, was to protect his top lines and bottom lines in the face of ever-increasing competition from domestic and global players.

To achieve this objective, he had no option but to become aggressive, a quality that helped him in other areas. Today, the group, which was seen as risk-averse and cautious, has no qualms about taking on competitors publicly - be it in areas of policy-making, products launched or marketing tactics.” – BBC News

Significance to our readers:

1. First, increasing globalization requires increased efficiency in coordinating global teams. See our related post here.
2. No World Borders automotive consulting team is experienced in maximizing the performance in both automotive and other organizations. Our team's experience in firms such as Toyota, Honda, Kawasaki and others enables us to provide immediate value. Our certified Lean Manufacturing management consulting professionals and IT practice leadership has helped many firms achieve their IT, solution, and business goals. Best practices experience in ITIL, CMMI, ISO, and Lean have helped our team provide value to firms in over 200 engagements in this market.