Reflections on Strategic Risk

Surveys say people are paying more attention to so-called “strategic risk”. The latest from Deloitte, called Risk Angles, says:

“Strategic risk is not new; however, in a world where risks are hastened along by business trends and technological innovations, strategic risk management has taken on new urgency. In fact, according to a recently published global survey of more than 300 companies, conducted by Forbes Insights on behalf of Deloitte, 94% say they aren’t just increasing their focus on managing strategic risks; they are changing how they do it – most often by incorporating strategic risk management into their business strategy and planning processes.”

There’s a Strategic Risk Management magazine, my friends at RIMS (the risk management society) have a paper and web page on strategic risk management, and according to a report from IIA, internal auditors in the USA need to pay more attention to strategic risks. In fact, earlier this year the IIA released a Practice Advisory (which is considered “strongly recommended guidance”) on “Internal Audit Coverage of Risks to Achieving Strategic Objectives”.

This sounds right, but it is worth exploring further.

For a start, just what is “strategic risk”?

RIMS says that “Strategic Risk Management (SRM) is a business discipline that drives deliberation and action regarding uncertainties and untapped opportunities that affect an organization’s strategy and strategy execution”.

A 2011 article by (originator of Deloitte’s excellent Risk Intelligence series) Mark Frigo and Richard Anderson, “What is Strategic Risk Management”, defines SRM as “a process for identifying, assessing and managing risks and uncertainties, affected by internal and external events or scenarios, that could inhibit an organization’s ability to achieve its strategy and strategic objectives with the ultimate goal of creating and protecting shareholder value. It is a primary component and necessary foundation of Enterprise Risk Management”.

The IIA doesn’t really define strategic risk, but says “Executive management is responsible for identifying and managing risk in pursuit of the organization’s strategic objectives. It is the board’s responsibility to ensure that all strategic risks are identified, understood, and managed to an acceptable level within risk tolerance ranges. Internal audit should have an understanding of the organization’s strategy, how it is executed, the associated risks, and how these risks are being managed.”

In Risk Angles, Deloitte defines strategic risks as “risks that have a major effect on a company’s business strategy decisions, or are created by those decisions. So they tend to have a larger and more widespread impact than the other types of risk that businesses have traditionally focused on, in areas such as operations, finance and compliance.”

Leaving aside the error in some of these definitions that risk management is only about the downside and not the seizing of opportunities, there is a larger question:

If risk is the effect of uncertainty on objectives (the ISO definition, but if you read COSO ERM carefully, you will see they essentially say the same thing), then how is “strategic” risk different?

In fact, if a risk doesn’t have a significant potential effect on the organizations strategies and goals, why should we worry about it?

Aren’t all risks that matter therefore “strategic risks”?

A compliance risk can significantly affect an organization’s ability to achieve its strategic goals. Just ask JP Morgan Chase as they consider their multi-billion dollar fines.

An operational risk, such as the floods in Thailand that shut down hard drive manufacturers, can cripple an organization.

We could stop there and conclude that the concept of something separate and distinct “strategic risk” is nonsense. But, I have a proposition for you to consider.

In the Introduction to the ISO 31000:2009 global risk management standard, there is this paragraph:

“Risk management can be applied to an entire organization, at its many areas and levels, at any time, as well as to specific functions, projects and activities.

You can (and should, in my opinion) take all your organization’s defined business strategies and goals and take a top-down approach to understanding and assessing the uncertainties surrounding achievement of each of those strategies. That should include assumptions that have been made, the things that need to go right, the things that could go wrong, and the events and circumstances that could lead you to surpassing your objectives. All of those uncertainties should be understood, an assessment made as to whether the risks are at acceptable levels, and actions taken as necessary to optimize outcomes.

I would call this top-down approach strategic risk management. It doesn’t preclude the individual risks being financial, compliance, green, blue, or whatever you want to name them.

At the same time, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with understanding and assessing risks at lower levels of the organization, such as those surrounding the use of technology. The key is to prioritize resources on the risks that matter to the organization as a whole over those that only matter to one department, business unit, or location.

In other words, if you are assessing risks within an area such as IT, Finance, or Human Resources, consider whether they will have an effect of any significance on the success of the organization as a whole in achieving its strategies and strategic goals in the pursuit of value.

If they would, then you can choose to call them strategic, red, blue, or whatever. If not, perhaps they relate to activities that are not relevant to the organization’s objectives and which can be cut back.

Personally, I prefer to focus on the risks that matter to the organization’s success. I just call them risks.

What do you think?

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/strategy/reflections-strategic-risk-0693753?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reflections-strategic-risk

Client Relationship Management: A Healthy Balance

In some professions, it is discouraged to get attached to your patient/client/business relationships. In Marketing and Advertising, however, I would encourage the opposite. A good client relationship management strategy is crucial to maintaining not only a healthy balance for your ROI but also for your professional relationships.

The line can be blurry when it comes to how close and how much is too close.There is such a thing as too much in client relationship management– but hopefully this guide can help you navigate the professional relationship waters to ensure smooth sailing:

1. Communication

Like any other kind of relationship, communication is a fundamental building block to a healthy and long-lasting business partnership. This can come in the form of an e-mail, phone call, newsletter, or better yet, face-to-face. Just keep it flowing and keep the conversation open.

2. Trust

It is important that your clients not only know that you will deliver on your promises, but that you are also the best at what you do. Reinforcing this trust isn’t always easy but can be done by way of blogging, e-newsletters highlighting recent accomplishments, and even maintaining a current, trendy website.

3. Personal

We all get a lot of spam mail in our inbox and the last thing we need (or look forward to) is another impersonal message blasted to a general e-mail list. Alternately, consider personalizing your messages to your clients – addressing them by name and mentioning a specific memory or topics previously discussed to show you care.

4. Time

Like most other things in life, building successful client relationships can sometimes take time. Some people’s shells are harder to penetrate than others. Just be patient, consistent, and in most cases, the client will eventually come around.

5. Integrity

This comes in the form of always delivering on your promises. Things happen that you may not have anticipated – like being unable to make a deadline, but keeping communication open and being honest about expectations will keep you in the clear 9 times out of 10.

How do you keep your client relationship management in healthy balance?

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/client-relationship-management-healthy-balance-0693734?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=client-relationship-management-healthy-balance

Is Good Content Only the Tip of the Iceberg?

We’re often told that the best way to create advocacy and brand loyalty through business websites is by providing a vibrant, engaging customer experience. The benefits of creating compelling, timely content and making it available on multiple devices and across a number of platforms have been well documented. But is content creation and delivery only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to producing dynamic, customer-facing digital experiences?

As the diagram below suggests, it’s easy to look at the idea of creating an engaging customer experience as a simple, easy-to-achieve objective. What this point of view overlooks, however, is that, just as with the iceberg below, the ability to provide an engaging, high quality user experience is, in truth, a far more complex and layered task than it may, at first, appear.

Of course, great content will always lie at the heart of any truly successful customer engagement, but it’s worth remembering that this is a well-worn path, and one that competitors are also highly likely to be familiar with. What this means is that businesses are increasingly finding themselves having to explore newer ways of building digital relationships with their customers.

Perhaps the most underestimated means of achieving this is by selecting the right content management system (CMS). At first glance, this may not sound like an obvious solution, but the fact remains that CMS selection is one of the most strategic technology decisions any business can make. What few realise is that, by selecting a CMS that does not provide a good fit with their objectives, businesses can struggle to attract, engage and retain customers. Indeed, it’s worth remembering that there’s no point in developing personalised, cutting-edge content if either you do not get it to the right customer, in the right channel, and in the right context.

Choosing the right CMS for you and your business ensures that this connection is made, through allowing compelling content to be shared through the right blend of design, usability, strategy and tonality. By connecting customers, and their experience of the website to the most suitable and relevant content creators, developers and systems for them and their message, businesses are not just driving engagement. They are also connecting them a superior digital experience. However, not all CMS are the same, and there are many that promise to deliver this experience, but fail.

So what is this ‘superior’ customer experience, and what does it comprise? For many, the customer experience is all about ‘what’ is delivered to customers in terms of content. They focus on what the content is, whether or not it is relevant and how well this content is received. However, it is also crucial to look further than that, to look ‘how’ the experiences are created.

But this is also key to a successful outcome, and it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the customer experience is only a small part of the overall user experience itself. Indeed, the experience of the editor or content creator is also key when it comes to creating engaging websites. In the same way, developer and integrator experiences are just as important. They are all together ensuring a quick time-to-market, and a fast implementation of new features and functionalities that help marketers to provide state-of-the art online experiences for their customers.

Any CMS worth its salt must also provide these back-end users an excellent usability and user experience. Then they can deliver a great customer experience in the easiest way possible. Indeed, perhaps the principle reason that some companies struggle or fail to deliver the experience their customers are looking for is that the CMS simply doesn’t include all of the tools required to deliver it. There are so many web technologies evolving these days, that no CMS vendor can provide them all in the same quality the specialists can. To avoid this scenario, it is imperative that CMS users, from content creators and editors to developers, must be able to work with external best-of-breed tools and functions and incorporate all of them inside their CMS of choice in order to provide a worthwhile customer experience.

Put simply, great customer experiences are delivered when a CMS goes above and beyond what you might expect and instead acts as a hub or an integration platform. By integrating all of the best systems into one the CMS can allow for ease-of-use, efficiency and speed, at the back-end, and an enhanced experience for customers at the front-end.

Finding the right CMS partner for your business is vitally important, but don’t forget that no two businesses are the same. More than anything, it’s vital that the business has strong chemistry with the CMS vendor, and that both are aligned in their vision of what the customer experience should look like and how it is delivered.

Achieving success in selecting and implementing a CMS requires a strong, trusting relationship with the vendor or integration partner. They have to be approachable, supportive, and solution oriented. Finding the right CMS can be an investment for the future as long as the relationship is built on a continued exchange of value throughout the relationship.

Overall, it’s clear that content is a huge part of creating a positive customer experience, and one that plays a significant role in helping them to engage and appreciate your business and its brand. However, it’s also only one small component of providing a truly superior customer experience, and one that needs to work as part of an integrated CMS if its effects to be maximised.

Today, while it’s still true to say that without the right content, even the best CMS could struggle, it’s also true that it’s only one of a number of considerations. If content really is only the tip of the iceberg for successful engagement, then perhaps more focus is needed on the other aspects that lie beneath the surface? What’s clear is that although they might not be immediately visible, all elements of the CMS play an equally important role in delivering memorable, lasting and impactful experiences for customers and businesses alike.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/good-content-tip-iceberg-0699034?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=good-content-tip-iceberg

App Optimization for iOS 7 [Infographic]

The latest iOS 7 provides a wonderful platform for app developers to build engaging and competitive applications, while gaining a top spot on the App Store. It has widened the scope for application developers, and also provides a compelling user experience. The key features of iOS 7 are discussed herewith:

• Popular Near Me – It helps the users find the popular apps in their geographic area. The feature can improve your app’s visibility while opening up broader scope for cross promotion.


• Automatic App Update – This feature allows the users to automatically update your app in a hassle-free manner.


• Wish List – Let your users have the opportunity to add your app in their Wish List and download it later.


• New Kids Category – The latest iOS 7 feature enables you to target your app to a particular age group.


• Changes in App Store – More apps are now displayed in the “Featured Section” and “Top Charts,” thus, improving your chances of being found easily.

Why You Should Optimize Your Apps for iOS 7?

According to a report, 200 million iOS developers have already upgraded to the latest iOS 7 version. So, why should you lag behind?

• Incorporate updated color schemes and innovative flat design to the app


• Redefine your app interfaces with enhanced depth, clarity and translucency


• Integrate APIs for camera and games, multi-tasking, AirDrop, and other new APIs


• Harness advanced features of the latest devices from Apple


• Build new customers and retain the existing audience base

No wonder, iOS 7 is here to stay and make revolutionary developments in application development industry.

Infographic is created by Dot Com Infoway,

Click image to enlarge

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/infographics/app-optimization-ios-7-infographic-0698758?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=app-optimization-ios-7-infographic

Why You Should Be Using Video In Your PR Campaigns

As a PR pro, you know that finding new ways to engage and excite your target audience is absolutely essential to achieving long-term success. Yes, press releases still work, but that doesn’t mean you should rely solely on them to spread your message. With a smart, multi-channel PR approach, you’ll give yourself a better chance of getting your news noticed and shared, maximizing exposure for your brand.

One of the channels that should be a staple in distributing your content is video. The simple fact is that videos are engaging and interesting in a way that press releases, blog posts, white papers, email newsletters, and other forms of content simply aren’t. That’s not a knock on those other types of content – they all can be incredibly valuable – but by its very nature, video content has the potential to be much more appealing and easier to consume.

Just think about how often you watch videos. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t watch at least one video on YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, or even Vine. Consider this – YouTube attracts more than 1 billion unique visitors each month. Over 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube every month. People love video.

And the great thing about video is that you can use it in so many different ways to support your PR efforts. Videos can be used for:

• Video press releases


• Announcements from a company spokesperson


• Product launches/reveals


• Testimonials


• Crisis response


• Interviews


• Event coverage


• Repurposing existing content in a new format

A Few Keys to Success

Make no mistake – implementing video into your PR campaign isn’t going to be easy, nor will it be an automatic slam dunk. It takes a smart strategy and a good understanding of how to leverage video in the most effective way for your brand.

Here are a few short tips to help you get the most from your video content:

• Keep videos short and to the point


• Make your videos entertaining, engaging, and emotionally compelling


• Make it easy to share your videos

Have you used video in your PR campaigns? Share your experiences by commenting below.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/public-relations/using-video-pr-campaigns-0693723?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=using-video-pr-campaigns

3 Audience Types That Are Essential to Successful Content Marketing

As you may or may not know, I earned my stripes in the publishing business, and had the opportunity to work with over 100 different B2B brands during my time there.

It’s with this experience in mind that I’d like to ask you to name the most important asset to a publisher. Is it the people? The brand image? The facility and its capabilities?

Without an audience, publishers can’t generate any revenue. No one will advertise in their magazines. No one will sponsor their email newsletters. No one will buy any direct company offers. There’s nothing but silence.

As a content publisher yourself, you recognize that the most critical part of a successful content marketing program is building your audience. Without an audience to consume it, there is no reason for businesses to create content in the first place. Without the audience, we cannot drive revenue of any kind.

And for this (and many other reasons), I was thrilled to get my hands on Jeff Rohrs’ new book, aptly titled, Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans & Followers . Jeff has traveled around the world to teach marketers how to build an audience for their content. Audience is a non-technical tutorial on how to position audience development in your organization and develop a strategy for audience creation, as well as a channel guide that helps you determine which audiences will work best for your specific content efforts.

In the book, Jeff reveals hundreds of tactics and strategies (literally!) on how to build your audience online. One of the sections I found to be the most helpful is where Jeff breaks down proprietary audiences into three principal types: seekers, amplifiers, and joiners. Understanding these three groups will help us better execute successful content marketing strategies.

Seekers

Who are the Seekers?: Seekers have a need, and are looking for ways to meet it online. Seekers may be browsers, listeners, readers, shoppers, or visitors to your website. The attributes of seekers include:

• They are looking for something of personal interest.


• You can get their attention by providing relevant content that matches this interest.


• However, you won’t get their attention unless you use paid, earned, or owned media to draw them in.


• They are in control of their consumption process, coming and going as they please.

The key point is this last one: You have no way of controlling their connection to you, or how they will choose to communicate with you. They hold all the cards.

You may be thinking that search engines play a key role in attracting a seeker — and you’d be right. And you can expand your toolbox to attract seekers more efficiently by doing things like answering questions on online communities (like LinkedIn and Quora), getting your business to be listed in relevant directories, or publishing content on external outlets so that they can find it more easily (e.g., guest posting). Native advertising and sponsored content also come into play here.

But ultimately, you cannot officially consider them a part of your seeker audience until they arrive at one of your media properties, such as your blog, your event, your social media outlets, your website, a white paper and so on.

Why are Seekers important?: Once you’ve satisfied the seeker’s need, they’ll be gone, so it’s critical that we convert seekers into:

• Customers (to drive revenues)


• Amplifiers (to help us market)


• Joiners (our most valuable type of audience)

Amplifiers

Who are the Amplifiers?: Think of amplifiers as mini-media companies. Amplifiers have their own audiences and can serve as your army for helping spread your content marketing. You may already be working with them, and refer to them as influencers, reporters, reviewers, or analysts.

The attributes of amplifiers include:

• They share content that is interesting to them, either personally or professionally.


• Amplifiers share content when and how they want to, through both public and private channels.


• Most often, their primary purpose is to grow their own audiences.


• When they’ve stopped sharing your content, they are no longer your amplifier.

To be considered an Amplifier — who could be happy customers, employees, or strategic partners — two steps are required:

• They need to consume your content


• Then, they need to share that content with third parties.

This means that content marketers need to give amplifiers assets to work with, like blog posts, eBooks, videos, reviews, and more.

Why are Amplifiers important?: Amplifiers provide no-cost marketing for your organization. They help you drive more Seekers to find your website or blog. They help you reach your audience’s audience. This is especially critical, as Google continues to change its algorithm focusing on content shared from credible sources. We work with Amplifiers in all these ways in the hopes of creating more Joiners.

Joiners

Who are the Joiners?: Ultimately, we leverage seekers and amplifiers to find and keep joiners. The goal of our content marketing is to find and keep an audience, so Joiners are the ones who “bring the magic.”

Joiners give you permission to communicate with them. They raise their hands, and actively let your content in every month, week, or day that you deliver it.

The three key attributes of Joiners include:

• They allow you to send them direct messages (permission marketing).


• They provide you with a way to contact them (e.g., an email address).


• Their interactions give you personal data about them, which in turn gives you the means to create customized content for them and turn them into better customers for your business.

This is why joiners are the most powerful audience: This group has granted you at least a bit of control over your message delivery. Also, because they have raised their hands as Joiners, you can start collecting information about them — demographics, click behavior and content consumption behavior (this is where marketing automation platforms really earn their stripes).

Why are Joiners important?: Our goal is to develop long-term relationships with Joiners, tailoring our content more and more to deepen that relationship. These are what Robert Rose and I call your brand subscribers — the most important of all audiences. As a publisher yourself, you can only truly drive revenue from your content once you create and grow your Joiner audience.

Jeff ends his discussion of these three audiences by sharing The Four Rights of Joiners:

1. The right message


2. To the right person


3. At the right time


4. Through the right channel

This only works if we distribute relevant content that is useful and entertaining or interesting in some way.

The big “Aha!” moment

Just one piece of substandard content; just one piece of self-serving content; just one too many pieces of sales-related content: Any one of these can push Joiners over the edge and cause them to disassociate with your business. Now that you’ve worked so hard to get your Joiners to raise their hands, you must be more careful than ever not to alienate them.

As Jeff so eloquently says, “We don’t own our audiences. They can leave at any time. We cannot force them to engage in our content. They’ve given us a great gift… we must be sure to thank them every day with epic content marketing.”

I would like to encourage you to pick up Jeff’s book, and send a heartfelt congratulations to him and his team for an outstanding contribution to the content marketing community.

For more great reading material on content marketing, check out Joe Pulizzi’s latest book, “Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less.”

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/3-audience-types-essential-successful-content-marketing-0684588?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3-audience-types-essential-successful-content-marketing

Which Brands Had the Worst Content Marketing in 2013?

2013 is not yet over—we’ve still got almost an entire shopping month before Christmas!—yet end-of-the-year lists and retrospectives have already started to pour in. Some of these are best-of lists, like the best books, movies, and songs of 2013; others take the opposite approach, counting down the biggest failures or blunders made in the past year. The lists in this latter category may sometimes seem mean-spirited, but they can also be instructive, showing the rest of us some potentially fatal errors to avoid.

Case in point: Business Insider has listed ten of the most epic content marketing meltdowns of the last year. We summarize a few of them below—certainly not to make fun of these companies, but simply to demonstrate some crucial lessons that can shape your brand’s content marketing.

Lesson #1: Being timely and relevant is ideal… except when it’s not.

One of the first lessons that any content marketer learns is that, to engage readers, it’s important to tie content to timely, relevant events. While this is certainly true, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. This year, cooking site Epicurious picked the wrong way, using the Boston Marathon bombing as an excuse to promote its recipes.

Takeaway: Connecting your content to current events or industry happenings is one thing; exploiting a tragic or sensitive issue is quite another.

Lesson #2: Know where you stand.

Earlier in the year, banking company J.P. Morgan announced that its CEO would be doing a live Q&A via Twitter, addressing whatever issues users wanted to talk about. He was probably a little surprised when most of the questions were openly hostile—many of them wondering when the big banks of America would be brought to justice for their malfeasance.

The lesson here is that it’s important to be aware of what your brand stands for, and how it is perceived. Before opening the floor for a discussion with your social media followers, make sure you have a good idea of what they think of you. This is where social listening becomes utterly essential.

Lesson #3: Be smart about damage control.

Kmart was enthusiastic when it revealed that it would be open to shoppers on Thanksgiving Day. What it underestimated was the level of public outrage over the trend of retail stores being open on the holiday this year—forcing their employees to work. Kmart responded to more than 100 of its Twitter critics individually, with scripted responses that only stoked the flames of outrage.

The most obvious lesson is not to make careless blunders like this in the first place; this goes back to the earlier point about understanding public perception. Should a Facebook post or a tweet stir up controversy, though, it is important to address damage control smartly. You can’t realistically respond to a hundred or more different people and show them the respect and attention they deserve. It’s better to make a more general statement of apology.

Lesson #4: Don’t be like Amy’s Baking Company.

You’ve probably heard about 2013’s most epic and legendary social media meltdown—in which the Arizona restaurant Amy’s Baking (featured on TV’s Kitchen Nightmares) took to Facebook to air its angry, obscene, all-caps aggression against online review sites like Yelp.com.

This one probably goes without saying: Content marketing is not about venting, blowing off steam, or getting even with your critics. It’s about putting your best foot forward and building a positive online identity.

More than anything else, don’t let these blunders scare you away from content marketing. Instead, view them as cautionary tales—great examples of how not to approach your company’s online brand building!

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/brands-worst-content-marketing-2013-0697738?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=brands-worst-content-marketing-2013