The Soft Edge

Success in business has traditionally meant excelling at the hard skills: controlling costs, boosting speed, effectively managing the supply chain, and superior number-crunching and analytics. For years, mastering these hard virtues was enough--but in today's climate, it's not so simple. The very appeal of the hard stuff, the fact that it can be measured and quantified, also means it can be analyzed and copied by the competition. So what does it really take to get ahead, and stay there?THE SOFT EDGE argues that soft virtues are the key to any business's success in the modern economy. Soft virtues create meaning, inspire trust, and motivatepeople. Soft virtues offer a clear framework for seeing through the disruption of a rapidly changing environment. THE SOFT EDGE identifies 5 key virtues: Design: Clever product design and integration are proxies for intelligence--they make customers feel smart. If your product or service is seen as a badge of intelligence, you're far along the road to lasting success.Teamwork: Team-oriented selling and sales commissions outperform individually focused sales teams by 30 percent.Smarts: In the age of Google, true smartness means the ability to see and recognize patterns--and constitutes the difference between forecasting a likely future or simply following the conventional wisdomTrust: Customers must trust that your product or service is authentic and robust enough to withstand the immediacy of today's media. When things go wrong, customers and stakeholders believe you'll do the right thing.Story: In a world where outsiders can weigh in and have a greater voice on your brand, the ability to create an effective narrative is more important than ever.How can organizations ensure that they get the most out of the soft virtues? THE SOFT EDGE explains that tools like Big Data hold the key and draws on the close collaboration between the authors and NetApp, a major player in the Big Data market. Datasets drive product design, and numbers and statistics can make once-subjective results provable. Since analytics offers a common vocabulary between CMOs, CFOs, and CIOs, Big Data helps companies boost the bottom line across the organization.The post-recession economy can reward you if you do the right things, but will punish you, swiftly and severely, if you don't. THE SOFT EDGE provides the essential tools for any organization to stay competitive, now and in the future.