This is the twelfth in the series of interviews with business leaders in the ‘customer’ space, leading authors, thought leaders and general all round good guys and gals, that I think that you will find interesting and helpful in growing your businesses.

Previously, in Adobe, Customer Experience Management (CEM) and fear in the boardroom, I spoke to Rob Pinkerton, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Customer Experience Management across at Adobe.

Today, I want to introduce you to Laurence Buchanan who is Head of CRM & Social CRM at Capgemini here in the UK.

Our discussion focused on creating a customer centric business in the modern world and covered issues like:

• Customer centricity and thinking outside in,
• The role of disruptive technologies,
• The emergence of social CRM and how mindset change from inside out to outside in is the most fundamental aspect of the whole Social CRM topic,
• Successful examples of social CRM (Giffgaff & Threadless),
• To make change stick it has to flow top to bottom but it’s employees at the ground level that make the difference and that people behave how they are measured,
• How Sky is becoming a UK exemplar of customer retention,
• Constant change is going to continue and be the norm,
• We don’t know what the next disruptive tech will be but what we do know is that it will arrive at some point and we need to build organisations that are agile enough to respond,
• The consumer move from buying to renting,
• Facebook’s move into movie streaming and on Netflix being agile.

About Laurence (taken from his LinkedIn profile)

Laurence Buchanan’s credentials speak for themselves. With a decade of experience at SAP, where he was Vice President for SAP CRM, he is a recognised authority and evangelist on CRM, Social CRM and customer experience transformation. He has spent over 12 years working in the CRM market, both as a sales and marketing leader and as a CRM subject matter expert.

Laurence heads up CRM and Social CRM within the UK for Capgemini (Technology Services). In his current role Laurence is responsible for Capgemini’s CRM & SCRM go-to-market strategy and business development across all packaged vendors and industries. He is passionate about helping clients articulate their customer-centric vision and strategy, and enabling that through the smart use of technology.

Laurence holds a masters degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford. He writes regularly on Social CRM at The Customer Revolution and is a member of the CRM advisory board at the Rotman Centre for CRM excellence in Toronto.

Do check out Laurence’s blog, The Customer Revolution, his Capgemini profile, and connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Let me know what you think of our discussion about customer experience and the changing world around us in the comments below.