Harvard Business Review Features Huge CEO's Prescription for User-Centric Business Strategy

As part of its special collection of articles on strategies to grow topline revenue, Harvard Business Review is featuring an article by HUGE CEO Aaron Shapiro, which stresses the importance of focusing on a broad set of stakeholders to ensure success. Shapiro’s article includes insights from his new book Users Not Customers, Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business.

Shapiro’s article “Users Are The New Growth Engine,” underscores the importance of a sound digital business strategy to the future viability of all businesses and advises business to focus their attention on preparing for the emergence of the “post digital” consumer, who are rapidly becoming the primary purchasers and decision makers in the new economy.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

Most companies are unprepared because winning and servicing this kind of audience requires executives to rethink what drives success in the marketplace. In a digitally driven economy, the preferred way for everyone to interact with a company is through internet technologies, such as a company's website, mobile interface, or Twitter feed. These things all serve to remove friction in the marketplace, making it easier and more efficient for people to make decisions, buy, and get service after the sale.

The result is that companies that compete and win in this new economy are in two businesses: their core business, which sells the products and services the company has always sold, and a new business, what I call the Software Layer — a layer of technology that surrounds the core business and serves as the focal point of interaction with the outside world. The most effective companies run their core business as effectively as they always did, and they also run their Software Layer. To win, they must run their Software Layer as vigorously and effectively as the Googles of the world run their organizations.

Read “Users Are the New Growth Engine” here.

Users Not Customers is Shapiro’s first book and will be published by Portfolio/Penguin October 27, 2011. In the book, Shapiro provides an important new perspective for corporate decision makers about the change in mindset and organization required for companies to succeed in an economy where a majority of consumer purchases are digitally driven. Interested parties can download the first chapter of Users Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business at www.UsersNotCustomers.com or reserve a copy of the book now.