So, we've been having this great conversation about customer centricity, what it is, what it isn't, why it matters, some of the surprises that emerge from it. As we push that conversation ahead, it's not enough just to understand what it is and to feel like, whoa, this is a cool strategy. But as we start moving toward implementation, we want to think real carefully about the challenges, the barriers, the things that will actually prevent companies from really making progress on it. because it's one thing to talk about customer centricity It's a whole nother thing to do it. So one of the things that I've been working on, and this is real cutting edge right now. It's not like I have a new book or anything on it. But something I've just been thinking about, is a list of some of these different challenges that are seen from actually companies that have actually been trying to take some of the content, like what we're covering here and moving forward with it. So it's things like organizational design. How do we organize ourselves around our valued customers? And how do we sort out the not so valuable from the valuable and find balance within the organization? Things like talent management. So how do we go about finding people who can really do that kind of convergent thinking, in order to figure out how to surround those valuable customers with the right kinds of products and services to enhance their value and so on. Things like branding. So we've certainly been spending a lot of time, not just in my part of the course, but some things that Barbara Consman talked about on branding. Well how do we come up with brands that resonate in all the ways that Barbara talks about it but at the same time, does justice to customer centricity? There's unique challenges there in terms of the name that we choose and the different kinds of communication tactics that we use. Yeah, and this is a brand new idea. So how do we find that just right balance between the kind of direct marketing activities that we associate with customers centricity and the more product oriented activities that we often associate with a brand or a different strategy? How about globalization? Given that the different parts of the world are more open to customer-centric practices, how can a multi-national firm be customer-centric in some parts of the world, maybe be a little bit more product-centric in others. So how do you find that balance? How can you have a coherent strategy when there might be some global barriers that prevent you from using the same kind of customer centricity, product centricity balance all the way across the globe? How about non-financial objectives? I mentioned that towards the beginning of my session, that the overall objective is to maximize shareholder value. And while that might be the primary objective, there's also some other objectives that we really should acknowledge. Like, what about our employees? What about the communities in which we operate? So, how do we think through some of those other objectives and kind of keep them in mind? And try to find ways to use customer centricity to enhance how well we're doing on those dimensions as well? How about channel relationships? I mean there's a real interesting challenge. That if we're going to be using some parts of our sales force to surround those valuable customers, to enhance value, and do all that kind of thing. That we're going to be doing kind of lower cost channel activities for those so so customers. So how do we incent our channel partners to want to play along? For those channel partners who are dealing with the lower end, how do we keep them from getting upset? And how do we use monetary incentives or other kinds of incentives to make them realize that they still play a really important part of the business, even if they're not necessarily dealing with the very best customers? How about performance metrics? So we understand that there's very different kinds of performance metrics for a product-centric company versus a customer-centric one. How do we come up with and communicate the right kinds of performance metrics both internally, to our internal stakeholders, as well as externally? How do we get wall street on board with some of the more customer-oriented metrics, that their not accustomed to using, that might be a better indicator of just how well we're doing as a company? And then last, but by no means least, how about corporate culture? It's a very different vibe that you're going to see inside an organization that customer customer-centric versus product-centric. I like to say over and over and over, it's not enough to just hang a banner on the lunch room walls saying we are now customer-centric. Changing the culture within the organization is something that's very difficult. It takes a long time to do, and a lot of companies are resistant to do it because it's a very risky thing to do as well. But you can't really succeed with customer centricity unless you want to take that one on. So that's just a list of some of the barriers and challenges that companies face. And I'm not really giving you the answers right now. If anything, I might be making you even more concerned about whether customer centricity might be right for you. But I think it's important to have that kind of full disclosure. And I think it's going to be important for us to flesh out this list and understand which companies are doing well or going to struggle with some of these issues. And to come up with some best practices to try to use whatever resources we have within the companies. Or to learn from other companies, or to learn from seemingly unrelated industries in order to overcome these barriers.
