The books Digital Darwinism, by Evan I Schwartz, and Customers.com, by Patricia B Seybold, offer differing views on some topics while expressing similarities on others. A notable difference in the books is the writers� focus � Schwartz stresses business reengineering using technology, especially Web applications, is needed for survival, while Seybold focuses on enhancing processes being reengineered from the customers point of view using technology when appropriate. Both of these books are relevant to today�s e-commerce and present excellent views on where we have been and where we are going.
Schwartz and Seybold both examine ways companies can improve how they do business. Both authors agree that companies need to streamline their business processes. Schwartz stresses the need for reengineering in the introduction to his book Digital Darwinism.
Throughout Digital Darwinism, Schwartz builds towards his seventh strategy �integrate digital commerce with absolutely everything.� Closing the section on this strategy he states �In the end, you must evolve into the ultimate hybrid enterprise � finding new ways to integrate everything that your company does online with everything that it does offline�(page 183). Schwartz has left the customer out of the equation. Even when Schwartz touches on the customer in his first strategy �build a brand that stands for solving problems,� he stops short of focusing on the end user. He states in closing the section on this first strategy �Identify a problem facing either consumers or businesses, a set of issues that no one else is doing a good job of addressing� (page 42).
This is not to say Schwartz�s book is not worth reading. It is. Both books are excellent. While both books are excellent, they should be read together with Digital Darwinism read before Customers.com. Schwartz brings out several good ideas that Seybold takes to the next level by bringing in the customer focus. Because Schwartz does not focus on the customer but on systems, he brings to the forefront several strategies Seybold overlooks.
Both Seybold and Schwartz agree that even successful companies need assistance with marketing their goods and services. The difference between the two authors is who they portray as assisting the company. Schwartz�s strategy �let affiliate partners do your marketing� focuses on the company using partners to market products and goods. He states
Patricia Seybold guides the reader through five steps to success and eight critical success factors. Each of these steps and critical success factors brings the reader to focus on specific actions that affect how the customer does business with a company. Seybold enhances these steps and critical success factors by case studies of sixteen companies which have successfully reengineered their systems. Hertz is an example of a case study used by Seybold.
Hertz is covered in CSF 2: Own The Customer�s Total Experience. In this section of Customers.com, Seybold states �The single most important thing you can do for your customers is to anticipate and eliminate snags and delays in their experience of dealing with you� (page 107). Summarized, Seybold lists seven �take-aways� or items that can be learned by studying how Hertz does business
Again, Digital Darwinism and Customers.com should be read together. Each writer presents reengineering from a different point of view. The result of these differing views is to frame a solid business, using technology to enhance customer relationships, in their readers mind.