Enterprise engagement is a sub-discipline of marketing and management that focuses on achieving long-term financial results by strategically fostering the proactive involvement and alignment of customers, distribution partners, salespeople, and all human capital outside and inside of an organization. Enterprise engagement is distinct from the traditional sub-disciplines of financial management, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources in that it seeks to achieve long-term success by integrating these various traditional business disciplines to consistently focus the organization on identifying and meeting target audience needs. [1] Enterprise Engagement is related to brand engagement, a term developed in Great Britain in the 2000s to describe an integrated external and internal marketing approach to achieving long-term success for a brand. Enterprise Engagement applies similar principals to the achievement of an organization's overall financial objectives.
Organizations run on the basis of enterprise engagement work collaboratively across departments and divisions to collectively find the best way to achieve long-term financial results by maximizing all human capital, from customers and distributors, agents, or other value-added resellers, to salespeople, employees, and even vendors and shareholders. [2] This approach unifies the organization around a brand and mission that continually seeks to find better ways to help the end-user customer, enhance the relationship with channel partners, suppliers, and employees and ultimately create new opportunities for the business, [3] rather than simply finding ways to improve processes. It looks at human capital in an integrated fashion, rather than separating customer and distribution partner engagement from sales or employee engagement.
Traditional organizations have a siloed approach, in which each business area often works quite independently from the other. Each business unit may or may not be directed to have specific goals related directly or indirectly to improving value or service to their audience – whether that be employees, channel partners, vendors or customers. The silos have a tendency to focus on maintaining and improving processes in order to promote their influence and share of resources. [4] This is demonstrated in the willingness of many companies to sacrifice customer satisfaction to save money on automated telephone answering systems; in this case they have determined that the cost savings of eliminating customer service employees outweighs the benefits of creating a more satisfying customer experience. It is easy to measure the cost savings involved with this decision, but not so easy to measure the impact on customer engagement over time.
While enterprise engagement is related to the field of integrated marketing and has part of its roots there, it is more related to Management in that it requires an integration of all business disciplines across the organization, and therefore cannot be easily organized under one specific sub-discipline of management or another.
Enterprise engagement has its roots in research conducted in the 1990s connecting financial results in Sears stores to the engagement of employees. [5]
In their 1993 book, The One to One Future, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers were among the early proponents of customer-focused rather than product- and process-focused marketing, [6] and identified the necessity to address the human element of relationships between customers and an organization.
Additional research on the connection between customer and employee engagement began to emerge in 1999, when Gallup published its ground-breaking book First, Break All the Rules by Buckingham and Coffman which was based on a meta-analysis of decades of employee and business outcomes data from over 100,000 employees and a wide range of industries. [7] They also began publishing studies on the cost of disengaged workers. [see: Would You Fire Your Boss, Gallup Management Journal, Sept. 2007.]. [8] In 2002, a study was released in Great Britain demonstrating a financial link between customer and employee engagement. [9]
In 1998, A.J. Rucci, S.P. Kim, and R.T. Quinn, authors of "The Employee–Customer Profit Chain at Sears" (Harvard Business Review, 1998), identified a direct connection between employee engagement and profitability in Sears stores.
Separately, in the July–August 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review, the concept of linking customer and employee engagement that is the distinctive element of enterprise engagement was articulated in an article by John H. Fleming, Curt Coffman, and James K. Harter, entitled "Manage Your Human Sigma. [9]" The authors wrote, "It’s possible to arrive at a single measure of effectiveness for the employee-customer encounter, this measure has a high correlation with financial performance." Fleming along with co-author
In 2011, David Cameron, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, created the Employee Engagement Task Force "to launch a national conversation about employee engagement right across the private, public and other sectors, with a view to improving the U.K. economy." [10]
In the meantime, the technical committee responsible for the management of ISO 9000 quality process management issued Quality Management Principles and formal standards 10018 for the quality management of people involvement and competence. The principles and standards include the concept of an enterprise approach to engagement; i.e., a consideration of the need to address customers, employees, vendors, distribution partners, etc., in an integrated way to ensure alignment of priorities and expectations.
In August 2019, the Business Roundtable changed its definition of the corporation to focus on the need to benefit all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. [11]
In fall of 2020, the World Economic Forum issues recommendations for Stakeholder Capitalism metrics. [12]
In November 2020, the Securities & Exchange Commission requires publicly held companies in the US to report on their human capital practices to the extent they are material to their businesses. [13] In June 2021, the SEC announced that it would begin the process to enhance human capital disclosures to require more detailed information. [14]
The emergence of enterprise engagement is based on the growing ability of organizations to measure the long-term benefits of engagement in a way that has drawn increasing attention to the subject from leading investors in public companies.
Engagement involves a broad range of disciplines and tactics. A comprehensive study of what motivates people in business conducted in 2002 by the International Society of Performance Improvement for the Incentive Research Foundation identified the following key factors:
Businesses use a wide array of tactics to address the above issues, including:
The expertise, products, and services related to these various practices comprise the emerging field of Enterprise Engagement. Bottom line: Much more research is needed to better understand how these various elements affect customer and employee engagement, and financial results.
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Enterprise engagement is a sub-discipline of marketing and management that focuses on achieving long-term financial results by strategically fostering the proactive involvement and alignment of customers, distribution partners, salespeople, and all human capital outside and inside of an organization. Enterprise engagement is distinct from the traditional sub-disciplines of financial management, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources in that it seeks to achieve long-term success by integrating these various traditional business disciplines to consistently focus the organization on identifying and meeting target audience needs. [1] Enterprise Engagement is related to brand engagement, a term developed in Great Britain in the 2000s to describe an integrated external and internal marketing approach to achieving long-term success for a brand. Enterprise Engagement applies similar principals to the achievement of an organization's overall financial objectives.
Organizations run on the basis of enterprise engagement work collaboratively across departments and divisions to collectively find the best way to achieve long-term financial results by maximizing all human capital, from customers and distributors, agents, or other value-added resellers, to salespeople, employees, and even vendors and shareholders. [2] This approach unifies the organization around a brand and mission that continually seeks to find better ways to help the end-user customer, enhance the relationship with channel partners, suppliers, and employees and ultimately create new opportunities for the business, [3] rather than simply finding ways to improve processes. It looks at human capital in an integrated fashion, rather than separating customer and distribution partner engagement from sales or employee engagement.
Traditional organizations have a siloed approach, in which each business area often works quite independently from the other. Each business unit may or may not be directed to have specific goals related directly or indirectly to improving value or service to their audience – whether that be employees, channel partners, vendors or customers. The silos have a tendency to focus on maintaining and improving processes in order to promote their influence and share of resources. [4] This is demonstrated in the willingness of many companies to sacrifice customer satisfaction to save money on automated telephone answering systems; in this case they have determined that the cost savings of eliminating customer service employees outweighs the benefits of creating a more satisfying customer experience. It is easy to measure the cost savings involved with this decision, but not so easy to measure the impact on customer engagement over time.
While enterprise engagement is related to the field of integrated marketing and has part of its roots there, it is more related to Management in that it requires an integration of all business disciplines across the organization, and therefore cannot be easily organized under one specific sub-discipline of management or another.
Enterprise engagement has its roots in research conducted in the 1990s connecting financial results in Sears stores to the engagement of employees. [5]
In their 1993 book, The One to One Future, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers were among the early proponents of customer-focused rather than product- and process-focused marketing, [6] and identified the necessity to address the human element of relationships between customers and an organization.
Additional research on the connection between customer and employee engagement began to emerge in 1999, when Gallup published its ground-breaking book First, Break All the Rules by Buckingham and Coffman which was based on a meta-analysis of decades of employee and business outcomes data from over 100,000 employees and a wide range of industries. [7] They also began publishing studies on the cost of disengaged workers. [see: Would You Fire Your Boss, Gallup Management Journal, Sept. 2007.]. [8] In 2002, a study was released in Great Britain demonstrating a financial link between customer and employee engagement. [9]
In 1998, A.J. Rucci, S.P. Kim, and R.T. Quinn, authors of "The Employee–Customer Profit Chain at Sears" (Harvard Business Review, 1998), identified a direct connection between employee engagement and profitability in Sears stores.
Separately, in the July–August 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review, the concept of linking customer and employee engagement that is the distinctive element of enterprise engagement was articulated in an article by John H. Fleming, Curt Coffman, and James K. Harter, entitled "Manage Your Human Sigma. [9]" The authors wrote, "It’s possible to arrive at a single measure of effectiveness for the employee-customer encounter, this measure has a high correlation with financial performance." Fleming along with co-author
In 2011, David Cameron, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, created the Employee Engagement Task Force "to launch a national conversation about employee engagement right across the private, public and other sectors, with a view to improving the U.K. economy." [10]
In the meantime, the technical committee responsible for the management of ISO 9000 quality process management issued Quality Management Principles and formal standards 10018 for the quality management of people involvement and competence. The principles and standards include the concept of an enterprise approach to engagement; i.e., a consideration of the need to address customers, employees, vendors, distribution partners, etc., in an integrated way to ensure alignment of priorities and expectations.
In August 2019, the Business Roundtable changed its definition of the corporation to focus on the need to benefit all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. [11]
In fall of 2020, the World Economic Forum issues recommendations for Stakeholder Capitalism metrics. [12]
In November 2020, the Securities & Exchange Commission requires publicly held companies in the US to report on their human capital practices to the extent they are material to their businesses. [13] In June 2021, the SEC announced that it would begin the process to enhance human capital disclosures to require more detailed information. [14]
The emergence of enterprise engagement is based on the growing ability of organizations to measure the long-term benefits of engagement in a way that has drawn increasing attention to the subject from leading investors in public companies.
Engagement involves a broad range of disciplines and tactics. A comprehensive study of what motivates people in business conducted in 2002 by the International Society of Performance Improvement for the Incentive Research Foundation identified the following key factors:
Businesses use a wide array of tactics to address the above issues, including:
The expertise, products, and services related to these various practices comprise the emerging field of Enterprise Engagement. Bottom line: Much more research is needed to better understand how these various elements affect customer and employee engagement, and financial results.
{{
cite web}}
: |first1=
has generic name (
help)