Proof that music is a universal language… this fact reveals Rogers' restless spirit, a trait common to all great jazz men… He composed all of the songs… many of which feature his exquisite reed solos." writes JazzReview magazine on David Rogers. A saxophonist and music composer, Rogers is also executive director of Columbia Business School's Center on Global Brand Leadership. Besides writing articles and case studies on marketing and digital media, he has also co-authored a book There's No Business That's Not Show Business. His next book, The Network is Your Customer: 5 Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age will be published in 2010. Rogers was in India to receive the Brand Leadership Award and as a keynote speaker in the Annual World Brand Congress held in Mumbai recently and spoke to BW Online’s Chetna Mehra on the trends in digital media and rise of customer networks. Excerpts.
 
What exactly does the customer network mean?
Customer network basically means that customers are the most important constituent of your organisation whether it is a business, a campaign or a non-profit charity, philanthropy. Your customers are no longer acting as just individuals, and business processes are always based on that assumption. Instead of having a lot of individual customers, when they have similar actions you sort of average them together and treat them like a mass. So, you think which product will appeal to most of these people, and they are just going to buy or consume or may be listen to what you communicate to them. Now because of all these digital technologies, customers are much more empowered, they are much more active. They are communicating with each other and can initiate their own ideas. If they do something with your brand, they change, innovate, contribute to it, the brand can actually spread between them.
 
The impression is like that half of your brand is extremely powerful because they can communicate it to many people. So, in a sense the customers can be your biggest competitors, if they are not working for you. But they can also be your biggest assets as an organisation. They can spread a word, they introduce new people to you, they can start to act as marketers, they give you new ideas of how you can improve your business, and they can collaborate and innovate new kind of products for you. 
 
Tell us about the five strategies that you talk about in your upcoming book in understanding the customer networks?
First one is the access strategy — helping your customers to more easily and quickly: on demand connect to the data, have the digital experience, interact in a really easy way. An example is the success of the Blackberry. There were a lot of complicated products like windows mobile etc. for emails that we tried for many years, but Blackberry made it so easy that you don’t even have to learn how to use it and that’s why was adopted. It made it so easy to access the data.
 
Second is the engage strategy. When we talk about creating a media company, it’s about creating content of your own. Not just advertising but the content that will engage your customer. Customer is the cost for which we are looking at new type of contents. They are really particular to their needs.
 
‘Customise’ is about giving your customers a choice, giving them an opportunity to make it just for them. They can choose the communications: what they hear and how they learn from you. The products that they (consumer) can customise and make a version that’s just for them. Making cars, designing special shoes, choosing what services they want from you. All of these are a part of customise strategy where you want to create an opportunity for choice for your customers because that’s what a digital technology offers, it allows everybody to have their own version of an experience, or a brand or product.
 
Fourth is the connect strategy, which is about the fact that customers want to connect with each other. They want to talk and share stories. Participating on these sites like Orkut, Facebook or Bharatstudent and being there as a part of the conversation, learning from your customers, seeing what they think about your brand and responding to them is important.
 
The last one is to collaborate; customer networks do want to collaborate. When they really care about something they want to communicate about it and become part of it by contributing to it in some way. Whether it is about shaping ideas on what your product could be, whether it’s engaging in some social cause that your company is supporting. A social enterprise, something that effects the life of your customer, helping them to contribute, giving them room to become a part of your business can be extremely powerful. 
 
In India such customer networks are really small. In India mass media such as TV, radio still dominate the scene and internet is yet to catch up?
Well, I think different countries are in different stages and may be India is in an advantageous position, if a few of these trends are a couple of years behind in terms of penetration. From other countries like US Japan and South Korea any businesses can learn some best practices and strategies from what companies have struggled with over the past two years and those markets say, ‘Ah, here is what I was getting ready for’.
 
If you look at India, the percentage of internet options is clearly lower from what I have seen but about 75 million internet users in India is still a large figure, second in Asia, only to China. They are still a lot of people and for most brands in India, the value of the brand is going to be touted more towards the more affluent consumers. And the people who are using internet already are the leaders, doctors and local consumers for a lot of brands. Though for brand setters may be mass market brands impact in India is smaller so far, but it also sounds like mobile internet would also be growing in India very quickly. The phenomenon certainly has been pan in East Asia.