Ten Core Values - Zappos

How do you get people to align to Successful Customer Outcomes? There's a whole bunch of things however a main theme is the attitude, behaviour and culture within the organisation. here's how Zappos create the ecosystem for customer success.... (see if you can spot the CEO)

True Customer Centricity - Zappos

Lots of disucssion underway about the culture of truly customer centric organisations. This Zappos video gives you an insight :)

Synopsis The world of business is undergoing dramatic change. Driven by a number of factors organizations are needing to realign themselves to adapt and evolve. This transformation is global and reaches into every business sector impacting how companies create, deliver and sustain their products and services. This three part article introduces the reasons for the change, the size of the challenge and how some world leading trend setter companies are achieving dramatic success in this new order. | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | The current challenge Almost without exception anyone in business these days learned their trade during the Information Age which arrived with the advent of mainframe computers in the 1960’s. The transformation of the way work, especially in services industries, was radical and gave birth to new ways of doing things that had remained largely unchanged since the invention of the steam engine. Alongside this information revolution a change came about in the way we organized business in order to exploit the advantages offered by automation. People talked of software and hardware; information systems; bits and bytes; system development; data processing. In fact this new way of doing work influenced every aspect of our lives and we adopted a predominantly a left brain structured approach to organizing ourselves. The very way we designed work became dominated by ‘structured approaches’ for systems development and management. Subsequently this information age mindset grew its influence into work areas such as human resources, sales and marketing, operations and all the other ‘functional areas’ we are now very familiar with. The specialists in each of these respective functions, take Accounting for example, thought of their world through a lens provided by the information Age which ensured a structured methodical approach to change that would indeed harness the power of computers. Everything became information centric.  Think about this for a moment. What is the language you use in your particular discipline? For instance in Financial Management the talk may be of Activity Based Management systems, Budgetary control, Accounts reconciliation, purchasing, Cost Codes and such. All these things are underpinned by ‘systems’ and we draw structures that represent information processing. Companies like Oracle and SAP prosper in helping companies understand these functional controls and databases. The things we do as work can also be represented as processes and these are conceived, developed and distributed through the information age lens. Swim lanes, functional hierarchies, business process management systems, process modeling languages and much more. Where has this all taken us? To put it bluntly away from the customer who is, let’s not forget, the very reason why our businesses exist in the first place. If you are involved in creating processes or systems think about the designs you produce. Where is the customer in those ’pictures’ and designs?  Customers are frequently an afterthought and at best at the ‘beginning’ or the ‘end’ of a process. We draw organization models as pyramids and talk about the ‘front line’, interestingly customers are usually placed at the foot of the organizational pyramid. Our very ways of thinking isolate us from the customer and many can pretty much carry on with their functional objectives often without even thinking of the real customer as anymore than something at the beginning or the end – nothing to do with them. Where we have taken time to think about customers we have created ‘Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems’ which are frequently islands of automation not fully integrated with back-offices – what is that the ‘back office’?  Groups of people remote from the customer, processing information and occasionally needing to deal with other parts of the organization. Sometimes the apparent disconnects between different functional areas result in another initiative to ‘outsource’ work that is regarded as not being part of a core competence. Customers then end up talking to remote people sitting on the other side of the planet with mixed results. Some people may argue that they do in fact deal with customers – those internal counterparts in other functions. We establish customer-supplier relationships, negotiate Service Level Agreements and busy ourselves with negotiations and agreed targets. Competition for scarce resources is the name of the game as we go into the annual round of bidding and corporate in fighting. Sounds familiar? Well you are not alone as this is the way of the Information Age mindset. Work has become so complex with the interconnection between people and systems that we seem constantly to be reinventing projects to ‘sort the mess’ out however our efforts are stilted by this very complexity with unfulfilled promises of new systems and improved ways of working. It just gets even more complicated. The is a New Way - The Unified Theory of Business Customer Expectation Management is a business framework and system for creating and sustaining successful organizations. It’s central tenet is that all organizations should be built and designed ‘outside-in’ with a focus to achieving Successful Customer Outcomes. In industry and business no one invents anything completely new. Rather people see how existing ideas fit into new frameworks. The components of a new idea are usually floating around in the milieu of business research and discourse prior to its discovery. What is new is the packaging of these components into a cohesive whole. Similarly the idea that all business should be oriented to achieve Successful Customer Outcomes and ‘Outside-In’ is not entirely new. It has been floating around in various forms for some time. But is has not yet assumed its rightful position at the centre of business theory and practice. Ironically some of the pioneers, both business leaders and theorists,  of ‘Outside-in’ thinking and practice had a notion of how best to align businesses to achieve success. In 1985 Paul Strassman  in ’Information Payoff The Transformation of Work in the Information Age’ discussed how information technology changes the very nature of work and why we do it …. he didn’t use the words Successful Customer Outcomes or Outside-In but he was thinking along the same lines. Since the mid 1980’s, terms such as customer centric, business process management and the agile organization, have grabbed the minds of business leaders and academics alike. They all refer to related ideas. For example, in 1993 Hammer and Champy in their book ‘Reengineering the Corporation’ proclaimed the need to ‘start over’ and rethink the way work is done. Writers and Consultants such as Charles Handy , the leading European authority, academics Kaplan & Norton , author Peter Fingar , Dr. Tom Davenport and many more of written, theorized and in some cases pointed out the pivotal role of the Customer for all organizations. What has been lacking is putting these disparate ideas into a coherent and practical framework. This I argue has not been done before and is precisely what Customer Expectation Management (CEM) is all about. While successful ‘outside-in’ organizations may not explicitly call their approaches CEM the principles, methods and application are there and accessible by others. In Part Two we will ‘look into’ some of these success stories including Virgin, South West, Best Buy, Citibank, FedEx Kinko, Zara plus others  and examine emerging best practice and its implications for everyone. If you wish to explore the subject further immediately you can: Download the Customer Expectation Management Toolkits (there's six) Join us at one of our mentoring & professional coaching sessions and qualify as a Certifed Process Professional® Review Steve's fifth book "Outside-In The Secret of the 21st century leading companies" http://bit.ly/OutsideInTheSecret References: | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |  Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO’s) Charles Handy – The Empty Raincoat (1995) Kaplan & Norton – The Balanced Scorecard (1996) and Strategy Maps (2003) Peter Fingar – BPM The Third Wave (2003), Extreme Competition (2005) Tom Davenport – Process Innovation (1992) About the Author Steve Towers, Co-founder and Chair of the BP Group (www.bpgroup.org) and founder of Towers Associates, is an expert on process and performance transformation. Steve founded the first community focused on business process management in 1992. Steve has bases in Europe and Colorado. Meet Steve at http://www.bpgroup.org/bp-group.html Copyright 2012, Towers Associates

Management Guru's - A Handy Guide :)

Charles Handy is ranked amongst the world's leading management guru's.

Listening to him speak and having read many of his books is a great way to start your journey to OutsideIn and Enterprise BPM.

This resource shares Handy's selection of the worlds leading management guru's including:

Peter Drucker | Tom Peters | Warren Bennis | Sumantra Ghoshal | Kenichi Ohmae | Gary Hamel | Rosabeth Moss Kanter | Bill Gates | Ricardo Semler | Michael Porter | Fons Trompenaar and Charles Hampden Turner |

Management Gurus - a quick guide - http://bbc.in/g944UC

Helping the UK leadership team (outside the PM's office)

The Power of Words

What could you say today in your meeting people that completely reframes the meaning?

What do people say to you and how could that have been said better?

Clara H. Scott (1941-1897) put it very nicely..

Open my eyes, that I may see 
glimpses of truth thou hast for me; 
place in my hands the wonderful key 
that shall unclasp and set me free.

Enjoy the video and open your eyes ;-) 

BPGroup Update, Top Blogs, Downloads and Videos

22 Techniques download, Videos (for your use), Case Studies and Articles

Welcome from BPM Towers.
Combine that with the 50,000+ non LinkedIn members and your not for profit has never been so active, so drop by.... http://bit.ly/joinbpgroup


**Featured LinkedIn Discussions**
http://linkd.in/FeaturedDiscussions
Mark Barnett - Brad Power - Dianne Davis (PEX) - Martina Beck-Friis - Janne Ohtonen - James Dodkins


New downloads - Florida workshop (January)
http://bit.ly/ProcessCompany

Successful Customer Outcomes - delivering the Triple Crown (workshop)
**2012 Coaching Accreditation Program**
http://www.bpgroup.org/register-venues--dates.html
With 150 sessions planned this year


**New Videos promote the ideas and potential**
3 minutes (with PEXNetwork): http://www.bpgroup.org
10 minutes (winning the Triple Crown): http://bit.ly/SuccessfulCustomerOutcomes


**Top conference Recommendations**
South Africa - http://bit.ly/PEXSouthAfrica2012
London - http://bit.ly/PEXLondon2012


**Featured Blogs** (see below - excellent new contributions)


All the Very Best

Steve
http://bit.ly/LinkWithSteve (and get a copy of my latest book!)

Featured Blogs

Successful Customer Outcomes http://bit.ly/SuccessfulCustomerOutcomes Steve Towers

Outside-In Insider http://bit.ly/OutsideInInsideOut  James Dodkins

BP Community http://bit.ly/ProcessCompany BPGroup

Making You Think http://bit.ly/MakesYouThink Ian Gotts

Janne Ohtonen http://bit.ly/JanneOhtonenBlog Janne Ohtonen

Process Ninja http://bit.ly/TheProcessNinja Craig Reid

BPM for Real http://bit.ly/BPMforReal Chris Taylor

PEX Network http://bit.ly/PEX4Process IQPC

Customer Service http://bit.ly/Service4Customers Service Untitled

Successful Customer Outcomes - delivering the Triple Crown (workshop)

BPGroup & PEX week workshopThe workshop from Florida in January during PEXweek

View more presentations from Steve Towers.

BPGroup Update, Top Blogs, 2012 CPP Program and some

Welcome from BPM Towers.
One month of the new webiste / Nine most popular process blogs / Top Articles / Top BPM Training /
Combine that with the 50,000+ non LinkedIn members and your not for profit
has never been so active, so drop by.... http://bit.ly/joinbpgroup

**Featured Blogs**

> Successful Customer Outcomes < http://bit.ly/SuccessfulCustomerOutcomes > Steve Towers
> Outside-In Insider < http://bit.ly/OutsideInInsideOut > James Dodkins
> BP Community < http://bit.ly/ProcessCompany > BPGroup
> Making You Think < http://bit.ly/MakesYouThink > Ian Gotts
> Janne Ohtonen < http://bit.ly/JanneOhtonenBlog > Janne Ohtonen
> Process Ninja < http://bit.ly/TheProcessNinja > Craig Reid
> BPM for Real < http://bit.ly/BPMforReal > Chris Taylor
> PEX Network < http://bit.ly/PEX4Process > IQPC
> Customer Service < http://bit.ly/Service4Customers > Service Untitled


**Featured Discussions**
> Mark Barnett < http://linkd.in/w8CEuC > Process Intuition

**2012 Coaching Program**
With 150 sessions planned this year
> http://www.bpgroup.org/register-venues--dates.html <

**After visting the discussions have a look at the brand new squeaky clean website**
http://www.bpgroup.org

and review the seminars, conferences and program for 2012 :-)

**Also if you are qualified do join the closed user groups on BP Group on LinkedIn.**
More giveaways (in December we 'released' to members 21 iPad2's!!)
and access to all the downloads, videos, updated case studies.....

On the subject of giveaways the next London Masters comes free with an iPad2 to boot
- see http://londonpromas.eventbrite.com/


All the Very Best
Steve

http://bit.ly/LinkWithSteve

The OneGoogle Policy - the Silo destroyer

Google is the epitome of an Outside-In company. Successively reducing costs, improving services and delivering consistent and growing returns for its investors. To some it seems as if there is magic underway as they struggle with changing markets, volatile customers and economic chaos.

What is the secret? At it heart lies a simple formula. Align with Successful Customer Outcomes and you drive out unnecessary complexity, reducing costs and speeding service. We see this in Googles products and services everyday and on occasions our attention is drawn to a particular initiative. This very thing happened a few days ago with Googles new privacy policy launch.

Here is the email many of us received:

Simple and elegant. A prime example of complexity removal and aligned thinking to the benefit of the customer and the organisation.

Not so magic after all once you know the trick!

Thanks to Mark Barnett for bringing this one home - you can reach him via mark.Barnett At bpgroup.org

For more tales of magic and successful outcomes review http://www.bpgroup.org and access resources. If you would like a complementary copy of the book Outside-In The Secret of the 21st century leading companies drop James.Dodkins At bpgroup.org a line with the reason why and we'll oblige.

All the Best
Steve