VALKRE | Value Creation

Customer Value: Operating at Scale

 

I can’t help but laugh when I see this picture. Declaring to be Customer Centric and telling employees to deliver Customer Value does not make it so. 

Through my experiences, here is what I have learned about sustaining and scaling Customer Value

1. Projects are easy; sustaining Customer Value at scale is hard: I have conducted a boat load of Customer Value projects. The projects have varied and at the same time been similar. They have all been similar in their mechanics…executive sponsor, working team, project plan, check points, decision frameworks, outcomes, results. Some of these projects have been wildly successful, some, not so much. If you call me up, I can do a Customer Value project for you and it will likely succeed and generate results. Everyone likes to get quick wins; get quick wins and do more projects, larger projects. This is all good stuff, but it does not lead to scaling Customer Value or Customer Centricity. So the message here is, do projects to generate early results but don’t get caught in the project rut, which brings me to point two.
2. It’s not like changing a process: Companies are good at managing processes. You have to be in order to keep a company of any size organized and moving forward, and there are processes necessary to achieve Customer Centricity and deliver Customer Value at scale. But you know what; I find processes to be cold. You can hand over a new process for someone to follow, and you need to, but they don’t lead to scaling Customer Centricity. My message; pay attention to process but don’t be fooled into thinking process will lead to scaling Customer Centricity.
3. Entrepreneurial from the ground up: If I had to point to one thing that is the secret to scaling Customer Centricity and delivering Customer Value, it would be to rekindle your entrepreneurial passion. I think this point is counterintuitive for many of us. I know it has taken me a long time to figure it out. Being Customer Centric and delivering Customer Value is built from the ground up. It is the entrepreneurial sole. Entrepreneur’s very survival hinges on customer, you can’t fake it, there is nowhere to hide. Listen to customers, adapt, and think creatively to solve problems. If entrepreneurs help their customer to make money they sometimes survive, if not they go away. Think about this as it regards your customer teams. Do they live and die based on whether or not their customers receive value from your product and service? Are they equipped with the tools to ensure your entire organization knows when their customer is not receiving value? Do those tools help the organization to move with speed? Does it move?
4. It turns out there is a role for Executives: Don’t mess it up. In companies of size, executives are removed from customers. They are surrounded by the daily, and often overwhelming tasks of running the business. Whether the executive has the entrepreneurial spirit or not, they are not living in the entrepreneurial zone. They live in the zone of management. Once in a while these executives forget that a big part of their organization exists solely to serve customers, think customers, be customer centric, create value for customer, understand that value, work on creating more. That is the life of an entrepreneur. What executives can do is feed the entrepreneurial passion. Give their employees the tools, the room, the reward and the risks necessary to rekindle their entrepreneurial gene. There is an entrepreneur in every person.

Do your customer teams think of themselves as supreme beings compared to those two entrepreneurs working to win their first paying customer? In this question resides the key to scaling Customer Value and Customer Centricity.

Check out Other Blogs in this Series:

1. Customer Value: Customer Value and Speed are Changing Everything in B2B
2. Customer Value: What is Scaring Your C-Suite
3. Customer Value: "Speed of the Game": Welcome to the new Customer Value Reality
4. Customer Value: Achieving Speed with Simple 
5. Customer Value: "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!"
6. Customer Value: "5 Signs that you might not be a Customer Value Company" 
7. Customer Value: Operating at Scale <-- You Are Here!

Customer Value: 5 Signs that you might not be a Customer Value Company

Declaring that one creates value for customers is a popular thing to do. Could you imagine the opposite declaration, “no, we don’t create value for customers and have no intention of doing so”. The reality is at some point every company created value for its customers or else it likely never would have existed. But, in the back of every General Manager’s mind they worry, are we creating new value for customers fast enough, are we keeping up, will I be able to deliver all those promises I made to the CEO or to the board, am I going to be successful driving this ship…if I am not directing the right action and investment that customers see as valuable then we will eventually lose. Wholly crap, I hope that doesn’t happen on my watch.

So if you are one of those people who is worried about failing, here are a few signs that you might not be a Customer Value Company.

 #1: If I say Customer and you say Price, you might not be a Customer Value Company

#2: If someone says Customer Value, and you’re thinking about how much money you will make from the customer, you might not be a Customer Value Company

#3: If someone says let’s fix Customer Value, and your team suggests a 90 day project to fix everything, you might not be a Customer Value Company

#4: If you say let’s go talk to some customers, and your team suggests they know more about what the customer needs than the customers themselves, then you might not be a Customer Value Company

#5: If someone suggests a path to improving Customer Value, and an argument ensues about a failed project that happened 5 years ago, you might not be a Customer Value Company

Ok, there are more!

Customer Value: "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!"

Dorothy was clearly feeling she had entered an unfamiliar place when she told Toto they were no longer in Kansas. I think companies trying to be more Outside-In, more Customer Centric, while operating on the principle of Customer Value have a lot in common with Dorothy. They are scared of the unfamiliar place and simply want to go home…home to managing from the Inside-Out, everything in their control. So why don’t we change the story, Dorothy stays in Oz, the Land of Customer and Customer Value.

Here are a few things to do if you are planning to find, and stay in the Land of Customer Value:

Innovation = Customer Value

I am perplexed as to why the idea of “Customer Value” is not a more defined science in business. If you think it is well defined, then Google it…you won’t find much. No ads, no purchased space, and little content in relation to the importance of the concept. Much of what you will see has to do with Lifetime Customer Value, or the value of a customer to a supplier over a lifetime; a completely different concept than what the conversation we should be having on Customer Value.