In almost every meeting that I have with ISVs (Independent Software Vendors), who are thinking about joining the TIDWIT Digital Ecosystems Network, one of the first concerns voiced is how to protect their \u201cUser Experience\u201d. The intent of this user experience is of course to engulf users on a site or platform to ensure they keep them coming back, consuming their content and interacting. It is common and indeed desirable in B2C. However, while providing a great user experience is always desirable, what I have often found is that in B2B, user experience is erroneously interchanged with organizational or \u201cEcosystem Experience\u201d. They are not the same nor does providing the first necessarily lead to the latter. For example, if an individual user from another organization who connects to my organization is satisfied, it does not necessarily mean his entire organization is equally satisfied. In fact, having worked with ecosystems across the globe, I would argue with a high degree of confidence that insisting on \u201cUser Experience\u201d with complete disregard to the \u201cEcosystem Experience\u201d will almost always deteriorate the overall experience and possibly the business relationship between organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider the following example. User \u201cA\u201d in Organization \u201cX\u201d needs to connect to Organization \u201cY\u201d in order to get a deeper understanding of all their products and\/or to get trained and certified on their solutions. The typical response is Organization \u201cY\u201d will invite User \u201cA\u201d into its portal, allow the user to register, and then provide them the content that they need to meet their goals. At the end of this experience, the user gets certified and all appears well. But is it really? There are several key questions that need to be answered. First, how much does Organization \u201cX\u201d, to which User \u201cA\u201d belongs, know about what just occurred? Will it have access to Organization \u201cY\u201d\u2019s systems and data to get deeper insights? Will it have content curation or any type of control to make sure its users are not wasting time? What about compliance as it pertains to their user data? How will their systems update this data? Sure, user A may have enjoyed the experience, but if his organizations is kept in the dark at arms length, it becomes an overall negative organizational experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now let\u2019s add a layer of real-life complexity. In all likelihood, to fulfill their job functions, User \u201cA\u201d from Organization \u201cX\u201d will in addition to accessing Organization Y\u2019s content, need to access Organization O, Organization P, and Organization Q as well\u2014each promising its own \u201cUser Experience\u201d and running different systems, none of which talk to each other or allow any form of standardized user experience. In this case, what is being promised to User \u201cA\u201d by Organization \u201cY\u201d as an optimal user experience is only a partial truth of multiple inconsistent experiences of logins, searches, enrollments, etc\u2014all of which cause a suboptimal overall experience for that user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adding volumes of users to the above leads to even more complexity. If only a handful of Organization \u201cX\u201d\u2018s users are accessing a different organization\u2019s system, perhaps it may not mind some inconsistencies. But, if it has 5,000 employees needing to access half a dozen different partner organization systems, and it has no standardized user experience, no automation, and no metrics visibility into any of them, the optimal \u201cUser Experience\u201d promise soon turns into an organizational or ecosystem nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n