A Threat to Outside-In (Customer-Centricity): Left intact, inside-out organizational design can undo it all

Posted by Dick Lee on June 15, 2010

4 comments | 1310 reads

Companies that achieve a significant measure of Outside-In, customer-centricity are at constant risk of “organizational memory” snapping them back or pulling them back to bad-old company-centric operations. And it’s not just internal organizational memory, but new management only familiar with inside-out settings pulling their function or new companies back inside their individual comfort zone. We just saw that happen with Continental Airline and their new CEO.

Best Buy is another example. After all their efforts to become customer-centric, they’ve now set draconian (to customers) customer service policies that reek of inside-out. The combination of these “customers-last” policies―plus the Geek Squad, which is becoming a parody of itself―has the potential to eventually unravel all the company’s good O-I work, and if service isn’t turned around it might not take long.

Republished with author's permission from original post by Dick Lee.

Dick Lee

Consultant, author and educator Dick Lee, founded High-Yield Methods in 1994. HYM helps clients build customer-centric organizations with process design, organizational design and enabling technology. Please visit Dick's Linkedin group Building the Customer-Centric Organization. For more information visit www.h-ym.com.

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Thomas Olbrich

June 19, 2010

It's all in the mind

Dick's posting should be mandatory reading for everyone involved with processes. Even supposing that you've defined the right project, staffed it the best of people (and intentions), once the project is over its results get handed over to an unprepared and basically unaware organisation. Process performance (reaching objectives) is bound to go downhill soon after. The overall negative impact of a missing process mindset is even greater when you attempt to do Outside-In due to the dynamics of customer behaviour involved.

Thomas

Graham Hill

June 21, 2010

Blinkered Vision

Thomas

Reading through Dick's post and your comment reminded me of the old saying; 'if the only tool you have is a hammer, sooner or later everything starts to look like a nail'. There's much more to business than processes.

Graham Hill
Customer-centric Innovator
Follow me on Twitter

Interested in Customer Driven Innovation? Join the Customer Driven Innovation groups on LinkedIn or Facebook to learn more.

Thomas Olbrich

June 21, 2010

Graham, 'course there's more

Graham,

'course there's more to business than processes but try explaining that to someone who thinks processes are regular pattern of pink-green-pink symbols on a chart that's hanging on his/her wall.

I think the point Dick was making was perfectly valid.

Thomas

Graham Hill

June 21, 2010

It's Much More Than Just Processes

Hi Thomas

Everyone should agree with Dick's core message; that change programmes often revert back to their previous state if long-term support for them is removed. Indeed, research suggests that management support has to be maintained for 2-3 years after a change has been implemented if it is not to revert to type.

But it is not just about implementing processes per se. It is about building a broader set of value-creating capabilties that includes business processes but also include much much more. Processes are but one part of a larger means to an end. They are not the end in itself.

Graham Hill
Customer-centric Innovator
Follow me on Twitter

Interested in Customer Driven Innovation? Join the Customer Driven Innovation groups on LinkedIn or Facebook to learn more.

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