Theres one question that’s been occupying my mind a lot of late. My interactions with people in the industry and the resulting responses thereof are leading me to it. And the question is this. Are the Indian IT Organizations ready to take on Web 2.0 Strategy Consulting as part of their portfolios?
My short answer to this is No. Giving it a more discussion/debate flavour I would say that I feel that the Indian Corporate sector is still very wary of using Social Media as an Internet channel for marketing, this could be the primary reason that the IT industry is reluctant to get into this area. I feel that this in itself presents a consulting business opportunity.
I have been doing a little bit of asking around and have got some feedback on this.
There is one view that that most 'IT' organisations, regardless of nationality, are very poorly equipped to provide web 2.0/social media strategy consultancy. What is required is a completely different skills set and background experience. The thought that leads from this view is that this is either missing or not being acknowledged in the industry.
There is another view which is similar with the additional input being that what is missing is the ability to think and act from the 'outside in' not just from the 'inside out'. In other words, being 'customer led' and using Marketing as a two-way conversation with your customers; a conversation with your network. Talking 'with' rather than 'at' your customers.
Another quite blunt take is that it is very tricky for a lot of organizations and that it is very difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.
What I strongly feel is that its not because of a lack of skill sets in any organization or that they are poorly equipped to handle consultancy in this area. Its more to do with a mind-set, being able to tune into the whole "relationships" and "conversations" pheonomena and be able to find ways to leverage that. Any IT organization is bound to have the skills and the ability to learn new technologies, so that cannot be an obstacle - its just opening up to the idea that there is a definite business opportunity in this area.
A suggested approach would be to have a 'new dog' working with the 'old dog', someone with a relationship/conversation mindset together with someone with strong IT skills.
We are talking about developing training programmes to try and achieve these 'hybrid' skills, say taking marketing graduates and training them in social media technologies; taking IT graduates and training them in the softer skills necessary for success in web 2.0
Do we have the vision to go down this path? Which are IT companies/Digital agencies that do offer these services at present? Are likely to try developing these “hybrid” skills in the near future?
What is your take on this?
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