Total Salesforce commercial here but it sure is an inspiring story; and the background music certainly tugged at my heartstrings (exactly the reaction they wanted!). Hat tip to Anthony Cain for sharing this on Twitter last week.
In the following video, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts explains that she wants every customer to experience the brand and the Burberry culture consistently across every touch point – mobile (every device), online, offline. She even goes on the record to explicitly call out other CEOS that may be skeptical:
You have to create a social enterprise today; you have to be totally connected with everyone who touches your brand. If you don’t do that, I don’t know what your business model is in five years.
Bold move indeed. I admire Angela’s call to action to other CEOs but I wonder what she means exactly when she refers to creating a social enterprise. I spent a little time looking at Burberry’s Twitter channel and Facebook page and most of the communication is one way and very promotional focused – zero engagement. Nothing wrong with that of course since it seems to be working for them.
Perhaps it’s just a misuse of the term itself but when I think of creating social enterprise, the first thing that comes to mind is solving real business problems using social technology and all the internal stuff that we talk about day in and day out i.e. collaboration, innovation, governance, improving processed, etc.
