Notes

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As we wrap up our discussion about what
customer centricity is, I
just want to offer a few more
reflections or questions, associated with
customer centricity.
For instance, a really big one is, who is
the customer?
Again, is it the end consumer, who's
buying and using the product?
If you think about many situations, it's
not so clear.
I work with a lot of pharmaceutical firms,
when I ask people at those firms,
who is the customer, I'll often get four
different answers.
Is it the patient?
Is it the physician?
Is it the hospital or the medical
practice?
Is it the insurance company?
You can make an argument, that each one of
them is the customer and depending on who
you talk to, at the pharmaceutical firm,
you'll
get a very strong argument, one way or
another.
So one of the important steps on the road
to customer centricity,
is getting some agreement on that
question.
Agreeing, that one of these entities is
the customer, we care a lot about
the others, we need to keep them in mind,
as we go through our planning practices.
But, but, one kind of customer matters
more than others.
Going back to the Proctor and Gamble
example that I
mentioned before, there there's a
tremendous amount of clarity on it.
Proctor and Gamble knows,
that today, their customer is the
retailer.
I wouldn't be surprised, if 20 years from
now, Proctor and Gamble
said, the customer is the consumer, but
they're moving in an orderly way.
So it's important to first sit down and
figure out, who the, the customer could
be.
Who are all the different constituents,
who could qualify as being the customer?
And then having a healthy discussion, to
try to come up with the consensus about,
which one we're going to focus on, and
which
other ones, might still be on our horizon.
We also want to think about, what
are the barriers associated with customer
centricity.
A few of them, I've mentioned already, it
might be the data.
Perhaps we can't get the data, if you'll
be able to
individual customer doing things, over
time, there might be regulatory issues.
There might be reasons why, we can't treat
customers differently,
for instance in the pharmaceutical space.
There might be cultural reasons, it's just
impossible for this company,
to move from a product centric, to a
customer centric view.
If the company's been focused on,
developing and distributing block busters
for all
of its existence, it's hard all of a
sudden, to pivot around the customers.
So there's a number of barriers that, that
can be in place.
The ones that I just mentioned are fairly
general, they're fairly broad,
but every company is going to have its own
challenges.
And before saying, we're going to become
customer centric, it's very
important to come up with that list, and
think real carefully about,
existing barriers and new ones, that can
be arising, to, to
do a real careful inventory, of, of, of
barriers towards customer centricity.
And of course at the same time, you
want to
think about the resources that you could
bring in,
to address or maybe preempt, some of those
barriers.
Very often, the resources are going to be
financial.
You're going to have to invest money, to
build the information technology
systems and to hire employees, and to
start developing a data infrastructure.
Sometimes, they're going to be cultural,
we're going to
have to hire the right kind of people,
who can think around, conversion thinking
around the
customer, instead of diversion thinking
around the product.
So, there's a, a number of, of, of
different ways that we can start thinking
in advance, about overcoming the barriers,
before
the, the barriers actually start impeding
our progress.
Another important consideration is,
competition.
It's interesting, that in some cases,
seeing your competitors taking moves
toward customer centricity,is a very
strong incentive for you to do so.
So, for instance, we see a number
of industries where customer centricity
has really made
great strides, such as, financial
services, such
as, hotels and hospitality, where's it's
competitive pressures.
Hey, they're moving towards customer
centricity, we should be doing it, too.
But in many cases, the best motivations to
move towards customer
centricity, it's the entire opposite of
that, hey no one's doing it,
let's be the first.
That would be the example of Hammers and
Tesco.
Sometimes, being the only one doing the
customer centric
thing, is the way to make it most
successful.
So again, you want to think about the
ecosystem
for your industry, and is it better for
everybody
to be customer-centric, is it better for
it to
be only you, and that might drive your
decision.
In the end, the big question is, do you
want to be customer centric or not?
Does it make sense for your company?
And if not now, when should you be
customer centric?
And think about, again, a company like
Proctor and Gamble, Walmart and so on.
Making plans now, for changes that they
can make in a few years.
And as you decide, whether to be customer
centric, the timing about it,
you want to start laying some of the, the
baby steps towards it.
So, it might be developing
technology initiatives like, the Scan and
Go Program, that I mentioned for Walmart.
It might be an organizational initiative
like,
My Black Is Beautiful for Proctor and
Gamble.
It might be other kinds of experiments
that, that a company is going to run.
Let's just set aside, a part of the
organization or group of customers.
Let's treat them differently and see if we
can.
And see if it's more profitable than,
than,
than handling them, in the usual product
centric manner.
Those are the kinds of decisions,
I want to see companies making.
And I think, its very important for all
companies, to at least be thinking about
it, so they can make an informed decision,
about what customer centricity might mean
for them.
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