Category: Outside-In

It is change Jim, but not as we know it.

The accelerating rate of change brought about by digitization and customer promiscuity has changed the change agenda forever. What can individuals and corporations do to win the day and stay in front of their game?

Interviewed at the annual PEX summit in the USA I share some possibilities and options for today, next week and the next decade.


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

Lean Six Sigma – let’s bridge the Gap

In my encounters I am frequently asked the question of what is the difference between Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and Customer Experience Management method (CEMMethod™). Often the question is prompted as a consequence of the huge investment many large corporations have made into up-skilling their people and processes to LSS. Many times those same executives are querying the return on those investments and hence now looking at more progressive alternative approaches to evolve their business performance.
For those familiar with Outside-In thinking and practice the difference is fundamental however if you haven’t been exposed to such training or working in one of the worlds leading Outside-In companies it would be good to have a short comparison of the key thematic differences.
In the interests of full disclosure I was an Industrial Engineer qualified as a Lean Master and Six Sigma Master black belt and I see and witness the significant differences everyday. Does the implication of the difference mean we should abandon LSS? No, far from it. In fact integrating the Outside-In perspectives into existing programs is a proven tried and tested way of advancing LSS to the centre stage of winning performance.
Case in point is a North American plastics extrusion company. They had previously been a powerhouse of Six Sigma, grown into and become a Lean ‘Toyota way’ dynamo only to run into the problem of diminishing returns. Investing just as much in getting better the decreasing returns and eroding margins made it an issue at the top table. In true pragmatic Texan style (their CEO is from Dallas) they embraced Outside-In big time. Over 6-9 months people were upskilled and let loose to transform the organisation. Not only did they save their bacon they are now a world leading company. And what do they call their program? OIL – Outside-In Lean. Nice eh?
So be pragmatic. Look for the bridges from here to there and you can have the best of both worlds.

Table 1: Comparison of some differences between Lean Six Sigma and the CEMMethod(tm).

Element
Lean Six Sigma
Customer Experience Management/Outside-In
Mind-set
Industrial Age
Customer Digital Age
Focus
Improve current work
Align to achieve SCO’s
Intent
Process will exist at the end of a review
Processes may be removed
Results
Focused on improving outputs
Focused on delivering Outcomes
Cost reduction
Triple Crown achievement (Cost/Service/Revenue)
Structure
Accepts the functional hierarchy
Proposes the appropriate structure to deliver SCO’s
Techniques
Effect based activity (value/non value added – waste identification – SPC etc.)
Causal based activity (what creates the work in the org. then let’s fix the causes)
Intelligent Processes
No mechanism exists to ensure processes are intelligent
Specifically designed to implement and mature intelligent processes
Customer
End to End working e.g. SIPOC
Centric working – the customer is at the heart of everything that happens
Are at the end and beginning of processes
Are enlightened, Promiscuous, Rebellious, Prosumer, Multi-channel, high expectations
Enterprise objectives
Operational and tactical. Aims to fix process.
Strategic and Operational. Aims to implement a sustainable architecture.
Scope
Process based improvements
Enterprise wide transformation
Other resources to explore:
Outside In The Secret: www.outsideinthesecret.com
CEMMethod™: www.cemmethod.com
Certified Process Professional: www.certifiedprocessprofessional.com


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

Customer Journey Mapping – ensuring success

Forrester Research’s[1] recent report suggested that despite good intent many Customer Journey Mapping initiatives fail. Why is this so despite the often significant investment required, the many consultants offering help, and the good intent of the people involved? The key reason in our findings is that fundamentally Customer Journey Mapping does not sufficiently represent the Complete Customer Experience and instead skates the surface and emphasizes just customer touch points and the customer lifecycle.
So how do you represent the Complete Customer Experience?
The BP Groups research with 800+ clients worldwide in the last two years provides us with an easy to apply 1-2-3 guide to maximise the chances of success.
  1. Ensure your mapping exercise encompasses 
    (a) the customer experience – the moments of truth, and 
    (b) the internal interactions which contribute to the moments of truth, the handovers and business rules within our organizations.[2] 
    The reality here is that all work an organization does is ultimately spawned from those moments of truth. Hence you need to map the complete customer experience.
  2. Understand the Successful Customer Outcome[3]. 
    Mapping is a worthy task however it needs to have context. Do you fully comprehend the real customer needs that shape the customer experience? There are organizations that spend years customer journey mapping with context. Why are we doing this and what is the ultimate Successful Customer Outcome? 
    It should come as no great surprise that top teams lose faith with efforts that lack clear definition and purposeful delivery.
  3. Focus on mapping the Causes of Work[4]. 
    It stands to reason that identifying the causes of work and then seeking to eliminate them will significantly reduce costs and improve service simultaneously. All too often process improvement work focuses on the tasks and activities that are an ‘effect’ created by a ’cause’. Masking the pain never works, it will get worse and spreads. You need to identify the Cause of the pain and eliminate it. 
    This then becomes a ‘seek and destroy’ mission and as a consequence Customer Journey Map’s should be broad and deep. It is about the Causes of Work that create the activity across functional silo’s. By identifying the very Causes of Work and in subsequently fixing them much of the internal complexity becomes unnecessary. Do not get deflected by specialists who may be fixed in a shape of work created decades ago.
The Complete Customer Experience represents a unified view that enables Customer Journey Map’s to deliver success from the get go.
Customer journey mapping is just the beginning of customer centric transformation. To deliver ultimate success you need to include the complete customer experience – not just the bits directly experienced by the customer but as importantly how the internal systems and processes are wired. Reframing the organisation to achieve success requires a multi disciplinary effort involving the front line, the back office, the top team and the technologists. For a more detailed review of emerging shape of organisations James Dodkins latest book ‘Foundations for Customer Centricity’ is short and stimulating read. You can download a complimentary copy at this link:http://bit.ly/foundationsEbook
In summary Customer Journey Mapping should be inclusive – let’s make it so.
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8KSN_McWIg


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

Outside-In. A definition?

“Outside In is a way to focus an organization on doing one thing, achieving one goal and doing it right.

By focusing the organization on this one goal, the unnecessary complexity of all other things that do not contribute to this goal can be eliminated.

Outside Inners know that customers are the key to achieving this goal.”

Steve Towers & David Mottershead

Some organisations may avoid the term Outside-In and use other terms such as ‘customer centricity’ or ‘customer alignment’. But at their heart such approaches fit this definition precisely.


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.

The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.


Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism
 http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

The Customer Experience is the Process – how can you do that?

James Dodkins, CCO BP Group

Marketer’s are fond of segmenting customers by circumstance, for instance, where you live, your age profile and median salary. This approach is very limiting and only provides sparse information on what are the real Needs of the customer. For that we need a little more science and understand those requirements by identifying the successful customer outcome. 

This leads us to Categorizing by Need. So for instance a potential customer in the experience of either buying, renting or servicing a car might be ‘tech savvy’ or ‘silver surfer’ or ‘time is money’ people.  We can drill down into specific needs and identify how to operate the underpinning workflow systems, necessary interactions, people skills and so on.

We can summarize this into a handy grid we call the Customer Categorization approach (a handy tool created by BP Groups CCO James Dodkins www.jamesdodkins.com)

Naturally you should try this for yourselves and if you want to get professional about it join us on one of our upcoming CPP classes where we discuss, try out and prove 50+ other techniques as part of the CEMMethod™ approach. You will go away with a working template of how to deliver customer centricity and outside-in for you and your organization.

Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16
http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism
http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

HELP! Book cover choices down to the last 2…. what do you think?

HELP! Book cover choices down to the last 2, Please help us choose. Fav for ‘Face’ cover RT for ‘Red Square’ cover 🙂 pic.twitter.com/gVrgdX18LL
— James Dodkins (@JDodkins) December 29, 2014 #foundations


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
Orlando USA March 16-20, Denver USA March 23-27, Dubai UAE Apr 12-16http://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html
An internationally recognized program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service.
Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.
Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalismhttp://www.bpgroup.org/book-class.html

Say what you do, do what you say

Managing customer expectations and creating the experience to deliver it makes good sense. 


Why is it then almost an after-thought for most large corporates? At best it seems happen chance. 

The way to success is to put the effort into creating successful customer outcomes (SCO) and then managing customers expectations to them.

Craft the associated experience and ensure all the interactions (external and internal) contribute to this SCO.

Another perspective? See http://www.successfulcustomeroutcomes.net/2014/11/customer-experience-management-truth.html


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
(Dubai UAE Dec 7-11, Orlando US Jan 22-23, Denver US Jan 26-30, London UK Mar 2-6)
www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

An internationally recognised program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service. Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.

Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism.www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

Understanding Customer Needs

You have to understand the Customer Need and work backwards into the organisation to ensure everything you do aligns to that need.

And that is not about asking customers what they want – you have to understand the need even when the customer doesn’t know it themselves. Until Apple invented the iPhone 3 none of us knew we needed it.


We call this thinking and the resulting actions Outside-In.


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
(Dubai UAE Dec 7-11, Orlando US Jan 22-23, Denver US Jan 26-30, London UK Mar 2-6)
www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

An internationally recognised program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service. Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.

Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism.www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

You cannot manage the future by micro managing the past

How much do you need to know to know you know you know enough?
There is an industry out there which encourages detailed analysis of the past to understand the future. It didn’t work then, it doesn’t work now. 

Stories of generals fighting the last war are legion. So don’t become a victim of Analysis Paralysis.


Certified Process Professional Masters (CPP-Master) Program
(Dubai UAE Dec 7-11, Orlando US Jan 22-23, Denver US Jan 26-30, London UK Mar 2-6)
www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

An internationally recognised program with proven track record delivered by been there and done it coaches more than 130 times, in 52 cities with delegates from 105 countries.
The program, now in its tenth year, utilizes the BP Groups approaches and framework to help you and your organization win the triple crown – simultaneously reduce costs, grow revenues and enhance service. Producing Immediate and sustainable business results across any industry and sector.

Become a qualified CPP-Master and demonstrate your professionalism.www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html

Customer Experience through a looking glass

Ten points for who said ‘a 20-year business cycle in which the most successful enterprises will reinvent themselves to systematically understand and serve increasingly powerful customers.’ (answers on a postcard please)

It has to be a Research company who may just want to add to the current customer experience hype with a review of what worked in the past. However we are living in a new age of customer liberation. Nothing like this has been witnessed before (well perhaps the Gutenberg press has a parallel impact – see here) and so drawing comparisons with a couple of decades ago really misses the point? Or am I completely wrong and we should just focus on Lean, Six Sigma and industrialization to help us understand customers better?

My take from a recent Process Excellence conference (PEX) on how we all need to shift our perspective Outside-In.