The End of Business As Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution

Hugh MacLeod Celebrates The End of Business as Usual in a Cartoon

Hugh MacLeod is an artist, cartoonist, and Web 2.0 pundit whose blog, gapingvoid.com, has two million unique monthly visitors. His first book, Ignore Everybody, was an Amazon Top Ten Business Book of the Year and a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Check out his cartoon to celebrate The End of Business as Usual:



Amazon Exclusive: Guest Review by Tony Hsieh

Tony HsiehTony Hsieh is the New York Times best-selling author of Delivering Happiness and CEO of Zappos.com, Inc.

This book covers an important concept for businesses everywhere. The future of business isn't just about the latest technology, it's about market disruption and how an organization recognizes and adapts to new opportunities. Without adaptation, businesses will fall to "digital Darwinism", as Brian says.

Consumer behavior is changing and, as Brian observes, we are witnessing the rise of a more connected and informed customer. At Zappos, one of our core values is "Embrace and Drive Change." According to Brian, to reach and ultimately earn the attention of this new connected consumer, businesses have to establish a culture of change and innovation. And, to succeed in the long-term, businesses will also have to empower employees and rally them to champion the transformation. The future of business comes down to co-creation and the ability to learn from internal and external stakeholders to have any hope of one day leading them.

At Zappos, we realized over time the importance of culture and service. We built the entire company around our employees and customers. If employees weren't happy, they would not make customers happy. If customers weren't happy, we wouldn't be where we are today. We believe that if we get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like delivering great service, or building a long-term enduring brand will just happen naturally on its own. Delivering happiness supported by a culture of service became our vision.

With The End of Business as Usual, Brian makes the point that you can't succeed if you lose sight of the existing customers; a balanced approach is necessary. But he does introduce us to who these new customers are, how they find and share information, how they make decisions, and how they do and do not support businesses and why. He looks beyond the Millennial to show how new consumerism is demographic agnostic and as a result, opens our eyes to new possibilities.

This book can help you if you want to have a business that is able to adapt to an ever-changing business landscape. Through experience, research, and examples, he introduces a blueprint for an adaptive business and inspires readers to think beyond business as usual. The entire book is a call for any business to compete for the future through relevance. As Brian asks, without creating remarkable customer experiences through products, service, and engagement, what is it that your customer will share within their connected networks? According to the book, it's time to adapt or die.

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