The more I travel around the world delivering Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic 
Business Selling programs for our global clients, the more I am amazed at the disconnect between the skills needed by organizations to execute their chosen business strategies especially as we move further into the digital disruption.
For many C-Suite leaders trying to create their version of the digital disruption, they are faced with the stark reality that the strength of their strategy is as strong as their weakest link in the value chain of human capital and skills.
This past weekend, I started my travels for a European delivery of a high potential leader program with a trip that took me through London. In previous trips, I was able to use many of my mobile apps interchangeably as one of the benefits of the digital world is being able to create a “home” experience where ever you are in the world through your digital devices and applications.
When I couldn’t log into one of my favorite apps (who I won’t call out by name in this blog because this is about a bigger issue and not specifically them), I contacted their online customer service to try to resolve the issue. The willingness to help via a text chat seemed intriguing and raised my hopes of being able to use my app just as I would in the US.
The original text is below:
What I learned is that the app that I use all the time in the US is no longer a “global” app which means I can’t access the content outside of the US the way I once did which is a real bummer.
The company selling and supporting this app seemingly has decided to create different country-based entry into their system and although I was led to believe I have paid for full access, I couldn’t access it. In response to my text, they gave me the address to a different version of the application that can be accessed internationally so I thought to myself, “oh good” this will work” and I asked if I should use my existing username and password to gain access to the international version.
And then I received the following response:
Seriously? Seriously?
Let’s start with the typo. This is supposed to be a world-class professional company and the best their digital customer service team can do is this?
The response was basically, “go away.”
I couldn’t believe it and eventually gave up trying to figure it out. But this incident reminded me of so many things related to the work we do in the areas of Business Acumen and Business Leadership. Hopefully your organizations and teams are much better than this joke of a response but in the meantime, a few thoughts:
Your strategy is a good as your weakest link
Brand equity in 2018 and beyond is a volatile thing and can change rapidly with one bad tweet from a customer who had a bad experience. I don’t think most organizations are providing the foundational skills and tools to be competitive when it comes to the weakest links in the organization. And the larger the disruption, the more difficult it will be to protect the weakest links from doing serious damage.
If your value proposition is product leadership, then provide product leadership
A value proposition can’t be just some words on a website. It must be real, and the organization must over-deliver on it. Has the company who makes the app in my story never had a US-based customer try to access the app globally? Come on, this must happen hundreds of times a day. And it’s not fixed which means the company is not delivering on their value proposition because clearly the organization doesn’t have the skills to execute it.
Leadership is the execution of your business strategy
This issue goes beyond the business acumen and hits directly the business leadership of making sure leaders are thinking through and providing their teams with the skills and tools needed to execute flawlessly. Do you think the person who sent me the text did anything after that? Alert a supervisor that there could be issues like this or was the environment set up to not pay attention to customer issues and just move on to the next issue?
In summary, it’s not a big deal. But many little issues can impact the continuity of a strategy and severely impact a brand and the business. Take a moment to think about the little cracks in your business and the vulnerability you have at the weakest links.
