In the article“7 Business Lessons from The Grateful Dead”, it talks about the “experience economy”. How does that relate to the Globally Integrated Enterprise? Discuss a real example of a Globally Integrated Enterprise. and this is the the article 7 Business Lessons from The Grateful Dead Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead: The Ten Most Innovative Lessons from a Long, Strange Trip by Barry Barnes and John Perry Barlow (Nov 2, 2011) Grateful Dead lead singer Jerry Garcia and the rest of his bandmates wouldn't normally be classified as entrepreneurs. In fact, they didn't much care about the fiscal aspect of running a band, so long as they could keep playing music and making their fans happy. However, their intuitive approach to the business world turned out to be one of their greatest advantages, as they tossed out received wisdom and reinvented what it meant to run an organization. Without intending to, the band ended up pioneering ideas and practices that have subsequently been embraced by corporate America. My new book, "Everything I Know About Business I Learned From the Grateful Dead," examines the iconic band's contribution to our nation's idea of monetary success. Lesson 1 Strategic improvisation--the ability to plan, act, and make adjustments in real time--is the key to running a great organization. The Grateful Dead were masters of improvisation; not only in their music but also in the way they ran their business. They learned musical improvisation from jazz masters like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, but they also applied these skills to their business as well. Instead of selling a lot of records and doing limited touring as most bands did, the Dead reversed that model and toured year round -playing 80 shows a year. This new business model made them one of the most profitable and enduring bands of all time. Lesson 2 Be kind to your customers. By offering high-quality products and services and being responsive to their concerns, they'll become lifelong customers. Today, the companies most celebrated for fulfilling this legacy include Southwest Airlines, Lexus and Zappos, which display deep respect for their customers by offering the highest quality products and services. The Dead, though, were way ahead of the game. They insisted on the highest quality practices for manufacturing records, the best sound systems, and the most attentive customer service through their own mail order business. Lesson 3 Innovate continuously, despite risks of failure and financial loss, in order to keep your business ahead of the curve. "Instead of buying yachts and Riviera condos, the Dead have always poured money back into the scene in the form of sound and lights and musical instruments," said Dan Healy, the band's legendary sound man. Unlike most rock bands, the Dead wanted their shows to be not merely loud but also precise - to blow listeners away with subtlety as well as power. When they discovered they couldn't buy such equipment, they worked to develop the technology themselves, creating the Wall of Sound which was state-of-the art sound system used in late 1973 and 1974. Lesson 4 Create a Business Tribe: Harness the power of consumer tribes to collaborate with your customers, improve performance, and boost profits. The Deadheads created an entire culture, complete with wardrobe, foods, ethics, and rituals, that gave a powerful sense of meaning to people's lives. The band and its fans agreed that the true Grateful Dead experience could be found not in studio albums but in live performances. What's the difference between playing in a studio and playing on a stage? The audience. In the modern business world, customers and corporations work in collaboration - think open-source software, smartphone apps, or customer reviews on Amazon. As this happens, power is shifting away from companies and flowing toward their customers. The Dead anticipated this shift. Lesson 5 Insourcing--bringing as many business functions as possible in-house--increases creative control, keeps customers happier, and boosts profitability. The Grateful Dead, in this realm as in so many others, were far ahead of the curve. Most firms today that insource are simply reversing bad outsourcing decisions. The Dead, by contrast, found that they could take better care of their employees (by ensuring good jobs), create a higher-quality product (such as records), and provide a higher quality of service to their customers (through ticket sales) by doing it themselves rather than counting on outside contractors. Lesson 6 Transformational leaders create cohesiveness in an organization and inspire others to achieve greatness. What type of leader was Jerry Garcia? The type of leader who denies leadership and becomes all the more influential as a result. Garcia mastered the art of transformational leadership. As the business theorist Peter Northouse has explained, transformational leaders do their work through charisma (acting as strong role models), inspiration (motivating others to emulate their high standards), stimulation (encouraging creativity), and individualized coaching (teasing out top performances from each member of the team). Lesson 7 Exploit the Experience Economy: Provide your customers with authentic experiences that improve their lives. There was never any question about the authenticity of the Grateful Dead: what you saw was what you got. Similarly, most authentic brands today have a long heritage: Levi's, Coca-Cola, Harley-Davidson, L.L. The Grateful Dead's advice to business owners would read something like this: If you don't care about what you're doing, don't do it. They were not striving for success when they began in 1965, and yet they achieved success. Or, perhaps, they achieved success because they were not striving for it. Too many businesses today keep their eyes focused squarely on the bottom line and are shocked when profits elude them.