Digital Transformation through Connected Processes

Digital is an all-pervasive phenomenon and the industry is trying to wrap its arms around it to extract real business benefit it promises. It is omnipresent and all aspect of business, from customer at one end and supplier at other with production-logistics in between, can be transformed using Digital. Creating a compelling experience with every interaction with customer is one of the key benefits apart from other efficiency / financial benefits on back end. Companies are experimenting in different technology areas like Cloud, Mobile/Internet technologies, IOT, AI, ML, Deep Learning, Robotics, Big Data and experiencing some benefits. It is still in the nascent stage for most of the organizations and experiments are being done in for limited area/topic. Industry players are not certain of what needs to be done to achieve Digital Transformation holistically and reap benefits to its true potential.

There are three important components of Digital i.e. Data Capture, Data Analysis and Business Application of the same. It is critical to understand each one and their relative dependencies to define the road map for transformation. This paradigm is different than the one we are used to for several decades. There is no dearth of data points, there is too much data, too much variety and significant speed of evolution. The critical factor for digital transformation is to identify most effective and economic way of capture/usage of this data for transformation of business. 

This blog describes one method, if followed by the organization, can provide an effective way of using digital. The method involves CONNECTED PROCESSES. Let us take example of customer information.

Customer information in various forms is used in key processes like Marketing, Sales, Merchandising, Procurement, Warehousing, Delivery logistics, Customer service, Incentive planning for sales persons, Product design, Product planning / manufacturing, etc. With the level of customer centricity organizations aspire to build, customer information in one form or other will be used in all the business processes.

This customer information is available from various sources and in various forms. The information is available from internal systems like Customer master, Purchase Orders, POS information, Loyalty programs, Customer complaints, Returns, etc.  There are indirect data points like Response to promotions, Response to social events / campaigns run by the company, etc. There is a third capability of obtaining tertiary information from social media, wearables, online transactions, etc.      

It is a Many-to-Many maze which creates difficulty for an organization. The dilemma is how to decide on what type of data to collect, how to collect i.e. what hardware / software they need to invest in as well as how to use the data i.e. what treatment that needs to be given to the data or what information should be extracted from the data intelligently vis a vis transformational benefits expected to receive. On top of this, the technology is changing rapidly, posing further challenge of selection of technology which will not be obsolete at least till it recovers the investment made.  

One of the method to simplify this journey is creating a map of connected processes and mount a layer of digital on top of it.

Let us take an example of a process of point of sale transaction at a store where customer is paying for the goods purchased. The step by step process map of this sales closure process could be:

·         Scan the items

·         Scan the loyalty card / Telephone no.

·         Apply applicable discounts

·         Scan the customer credit/debit card or receive Cash and complete payment

·         Bag the item and give the receipt to customer

·         Say thank you

Each process step requires help from other processes e.g. when you scan item, the bar code reader scans it, goes to the Item master, searches information like make (brand), design, color, size, price, etc. and displays the same on the screen. Similarly, when the loyalty card is scanned, or telephone number is provided, the CRM system is accessed. It fetches customer information like name, address, status, etc. and displayed on the screen so that the employee at POS terminal can greet customer by name. Similarly, it performs remaining steps and it either fetches or updates one or many systems in the background.

Now assume that Digital transformation team working on enhancing the customer experience believes that the experience could be enhanced if we build some intelligence in the system and make it available to the employee at POS counter to create a lasting experience. One of the idea could be “Creating special PERSONALIZED discounts/ offers ON-THE-FLY in additions to the discounts published. Each person gets specialized discounts / offers which has a significant potential for increasing customer experience as well as improvement in business volume and basket of products that a customer would buy. It would really please a customer if he/she gets special discount when he/she returns to store after a long time and gets a coupon for the brand of cloths he/she likes for the next purchase. A person would be very happy to get special deals on furniture, home decoration when he has just closed a home. Customer would definitely come back if he/she gets a gift of shirt / dress (brand which store wants to promote) based on purchase volume. A deal on travel, based on a personal event like marriage, kid getting admission to college where he/she needs to travel. Customer getting a special discount on merchandise of his favorite football team. The base idea is to create these offers without asking customer but using an AI engine which uses the information captured from multiple sources. The diagram below depicts the new process  steps for the same process at POS and how it can be implemented.

This has all the classic components of digital i.e. multiple aspects of information gathering, storage and building an intelligence from the data collected to create a memorable experience for customer. The diagram shows a different mechanisms of data collection which need to be deployed. The variety is significant and so are the challenges around selecting an economic way to deploy these mechanisms. It is the relationship between “Mechanism of data collection”, “what components of data” and “How this component to be used” which guides the path forward.

Let us take example of two mechanisms depicted in the diagram i.e. “Social Media Sniffing” and “Returns”; one appears in every aspect and one appears for only one aspect.

Social Media Sniffing is a vast area which starts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and goes on.  The objective of this sniffing is to create certain profile of customer with specific view point which is required to help achieve the objective of process underway. Let us consider “Customer Likes /Dislikes” as one such view point; we are using this view point to create a personalized offer to customer at the point of sale. However, the same view point can be used in multiple processes such as Online Sales, Mobile Sales, Campaign formulation, Merchandising, Product Design. These processes are connected, and the binding glue is “customer likes/dislike view point”. Each process may use a little different processing of sub components as per its need, but the base data is common. This exercise provides a clear list of what data components need to be captured for every customer. Once we know this, we can look at the tools/ technology available at our disposal e.g. is it sufficient to look at Facebook data only or we need to look at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or may be Tinder, etc. Which then provides us the mechanism that we need to adopt, is it going to be only indirect method, or we need to look for some direct methods like surveys (which could be designed based on holistic requirements for more than one processes) or just use the data available in the CRM system.

We have seen that Social media sniffing can be used to create some other viewpoints also like “Customer lifestyle”, “Customer Health”, “Customer Personal Events”, etc. These viewpoints are now used in multiple different processes and we get some additional data points that needs to be captured using the same or different tools / technology. These are the important points that needs to be kept in mind while selecting technology for its holistic application.

Same principles apply to the “Returns” also. The returns information is used in multiple processes in the organization in different but unique ways. e.g.  Any “Feature Dislike feedback” from this info is useful for Product Design Process to see what could be improved so that product is attractive to the customer as well as it becomes part of Like/Dislike view point. Any “Non-Performance feedback” is useful for Manufacturing process to understand if any improvement needs to be done while manufacturing the product.

Any “Damage in transit feedback” helps the Logistics / delivery process to see if something needs to be improved. This feedback is typically captured in the returns transaction either through a form filled by customer (Physical / online) or the interaction customer service agent has with the customer at the point of return. Many a times, this may not be the real reason. Company can use other methods like customer purchase history, their likes and dislikes on social media etc. to collect and corroborate the data and get the real returns view point/ information for driving improvements. This aspect of collecting data from tertiary sources to corroborate the data collected directly takes it beyond aspects of “Returns” and gets connected with multiple other processes in the organization which are planning to use mechanism of “Social Media Sniffing”. It has created two maps of connected processes.  

Thus, creating connected process map/s help us understand the ultimate data that we need to collect and the technology that we should use for the same to bring in desired digital transformation in holistic manner and reap the desired benefits.

Very few people EXCEL in personal / professional life, Do you? – a simple mantra to try!

There are a few leaders in the corporate world, who have provided a steady growth to their organization while they were disrupting the industry at the same time. You see this phenomenon in non-corporate worId also. I observed them to understand what is their secret sauce; what is that they have done which enabled them to excel surmounting the odds. 

After a careful study, I observed one common theme across all these people, their secret sauce. They believed in one simple rule and implemented it rigorously in all aspect of business or any non-business operations managed by them. They made it a point that everyone on their team understands it and incorporates it in their part of work for the organization. The rule typically is so simple that it is very easy to understand and key for winning is its comprehensive implementation across all aspects of business.

Let us take one well known example of Steve Jobs; he believed in the simple rule of “Be Yardstick of Quality”. It is easy to understand; it means the industry should look at apple products for what it is called as “best quality product” and build their products to reach those standards. This is easier said than done though.  It means all aspects of the product right from conceptualization, design, features, performance, manufacturing, distribution, sales and finally service; all aspects, should demonstrate this YARDSTICK QUALITY and being in commercial world, the product also should be price competitive in the market. The apple team, has taken this rule of “be yardstick of quality” and implemented it comprehensively in all aspect of business and result is in front of us. It takes a significant effort to incorporate the theme in all aspects of daily working when there are multiple external and internal stakeholders / partners doing their part to get the product in customer’s hand.

There are several examples like this; " Put the Customer first, Invent and be Patient" by Jeff Bozos; “Be no 1 or 2 in the industry we operate” by Jack Welch took GE to new heights. Similarly, “Non-Violence” by Mahatma Gandhi created a huge freedom movement in India leading to its independence. There are several such rules come to my mind like “Just Do It”, “Be Authentic”, “Do what you say”, etc.

One of the common theme we hear from various people / organizations is around “Customer Centricity or Customer Focus”. Different companies and their leaders provide their own spin of this theme. When we observe these organizations, we can clearly see difference in their performance, perception of their customers about them, their product portfolio, their customer service based on level of depth they have gone to implement the theme they proclaim. The organizations, which have primary focus on customer benefits in preference to regular things like cost, profitability, etc. are seen to be performing well on all fronts, including profitability.

This same thought process or mantra could be extended to an individual who wants to excel. First step is to identify a rule that resonates with you; it could be simple as “Respect Others”, “Do as you say”, “Make others smile” or anything personal like “save 20% of my salary for future safety” and Next step is to implement the same in all aspects of your life and see the miracle. Start small, experiment with it and then create your own niche.

Once again, the Mantra to excel – “Believe in Simple Rule and Implement it rigorously in all aspect of business / personal life”

Next frontier of excellence in Customer Experience – Extreme Personalization

Customer experience is one of the things which is keeping C suite executives awake in the night. As a result a we see slew of initiatives implemented by various organizations in the hope of improving the experience provided to the customer in every interaction. Significant investments in technology and algorithms have been made and continued to be made in order to understand customer & their needs to build a great experience mechanism. Companies have used AI, Machine learning, IOT, Robotics and a whole lot of analytics platforms to come out with such mechanisms which will elevate customer interaction.   

Some of the areas where companies have worked are

·      Proactively identify the product customer may want to buy and build some special schemes around the same

·    Reduce the price points and increase convenience points through multiple aspects like efficient operations, Direct to customer, free delivery, same day delivery, order online and pick up at the nearest store, etc.

·     Provide a significant choice to customer and make return easy to reduce the hesitancy of impulse buying

·        Use social media information and create a product for specific groups and provide a special deals for specific group

·         Train the last mile employees to provide a great experience at every touch point with customer

·         Creating a powerful online channel to help customers buy from where ever and whenever they want to buy

All the efforts are towards making buying process delightfully rewarding to customer that customer returns to buy more as well as provides word of mouth publicity.

It is also important to note the temperament of the current generation; they do not want to go out to stores to have a feel of the product they want to buy but they are happy to order it from their mobile phone. There is no loyalty for a seller/shop, who so ever provides lower price, good return policy gets the deal. Although brand plays a role in decision making but convenience and price determines the purchase decision.     

Companies like Amazon, Walmart have leapfrogged in this art and are creating more and more mechanisms to engage the buyer meaningfully. I call these mechanisms as Gen 1 mechanisms which involve changing / optimizing/ improving everything around the product. The next step in this would be to include product itself in building the lasting customer experience.

The Gen2 of mechanisms will include the product and extreme personalization will be at core. Simply put, enable customer to define /design product of their choice and provide the delivery with the same efficiency and convenience we have built in the Gen 1 mechanisms.

One example, in today’s situation, if one wants to buy a Shirt , first you visit a website, you choose style followed by selection of either color or pattern from the list available in the size that fits you. Select delivery option and see the total price. Normally, person will check on multiple websites if the same brand and similar shirt is available on any other website and finalize the decision based on the best pricing.   The next generation of disruption is going to come from extreme personalization i.e. by allowing customer to design their product. If we translate this to purchase of shirt situation, then it will be something like this – you visit a website for shirt, every one does not have a great chiseled body and std sizes do not fit them properly so you provide your photograph so that your measurements are understood by the company. Then you can choose the cloth, pattern, etc. from a significantly large repository of designs and cloths. The website provides you with the picture of shirt with your specifications worn by you (using the photograph provided by you). If you like it, you can place an order. It will be manufactured to your specific size, design and shipped you efficiently. It is a tailored shirt purchased with convenience of sitting at home and price of a mass manufactured shirt and delivered to a destination of your choice.

  

It will be a 100% “made to order” scenario, but a completely automated to remove any manual work typically involved in “made to order” scenario. The technological development in terms of machine to machine connectivity and various facets of automation will allow us to share the order from a mobile phone to the shop floor which will manufacture the goods to the specifications provided using the raw material for specific order and then it will be shipped to specific address. This will create a significant impact on the entire industry as companies will not have any stocks of finished goods, no warehouses for finished goods, no worries as to how to take out the unsold stock, etc. The warehouses will only hold stock of raw material and you will have many automated specialized plants to manufacture specific category of products connected with the websites picking up orders. With 3D printing capabilities getting evolved, this can be enhanced significantly. It might look impossible at this juncture as it will need to dismantle the whole industry and rebuild it with new principles, but the competition will drive us to conquer this new frontier of extreme personalization to create that super duper customer experience.      

Leadership Circle

Have you faced a situation where many of the projects/ programs of the organization running on track because they are led by good leaders however these leaders were burning themselves due to lack of leadership / ownership type of support from the team under them and there are associates who want to lead but have no leadership experience and hence can not be deployed in leadership roles in projects. It is a time bomb ticking and one snap can lead to a major problem for a customer. You are looking for a solution to build the leadership capability at every level in the organization which is,

• Scalable to be used with large mass of consultants at medium to junior level,
• Has a good pull (It cannot be forced on to anyone),
• Is able to provide leadership experience beyond any theoretical knowledge,
• Is cost effective

“Leadership Circle” , which has inspiration from Quality Circle movement, is the solution for the same. 

  

Leadership Circle is a group people who want to become leaders in whatever work they are doing coming together. The typical size of a Leadership Circle is @ 7-8 people comprising at least one mentor. They meet once a week for an hour to discuss various topics like

• What it takes to become a leader,
•  See videos, listen to various leaders in person
• Discuss key learnings from various leadership books and how the team intends to use them or have used them
• Present various situations at their workplace and deliberate possible way to lead in these situations,
• Identify real projects to experiment the learning
• Execute the projects and present learning in the circle

There is no relationship between leadership circle and performance management system within organization. It is expected that results will automatically be seen in the regular work performed by these consultants and reflect in their performance review. This is a voluntary participation initiative and no special concessions accorded for participation.    

Key observations and experience from running Leadership Circle is collated in a few points:

• These are open and semi-structured meetings. The outcome depends on acceptance of this mechanism and participation. Typically the team participating in Leadership Circle is used to get the instructions from their leaders and execute them and not used to make decisions. Mentor needs to play a big role here to coach the team through different methods.
• One of the critical thing which takes a very long time is, to internalize the key aspects of leadership. It was very easy to describe what qualities a leader should have from various books, articles; however doing an introspection to check where one stands on each of them, accept shortcoming and consciously take efforts to build them, was very difficult for many. Mentor needed to take the team slowly on right path, once they understood how to inspire themselves to learn new capabilities; we have achieved a major milestone.
• Sometimes members are sensitive about identifying problems within them for the fear of adverse action from the organization as a result they find difficulty in their improvement. It is important from mentor’s side to provide that confidence that nothing disclosed in the circle goes in to any of the HR records. Once team gets this confidence, they start opening up and positive results start showing up.
• The success of this program depends on self-driven efforts by individual and each person progresses at his or her unique speed. There will be some drop outs and one needs to be prepared for the same.
• Providing some kind of experience of “leading” in everything the circle does is key. Devising simple rules like each circle meeting would be led by a different individual every meeting helped. He/she will have complete freedom to design the meeting and conduct the same within a base framework. He/ She will intimate others in advance if it is expected that team should be prepared in specific area for the meeting. Many members were confused how to do this, many of them continuously sought validation from Mentors, many were hesitant to establish protocol for their meeting. Mentors helped the specific individuals and after a couple of months this protocol started working nicely.
• Identification of projects for the team to experiment within organization was important and I want to talk about one project of conducting an organization wide competition. The project was assigned to one of the leadership circle team. They did everything from conceptualization, presenting the concept to management, get budgetary approvals, creating theme and detailed design for competition and popularize the same within the organization, generating some additional volunteers to help them run the competition, actually run the competition, identifying the right panel of judges, get the entries evaluated and finally organize a prize distribution for the same. This was a big challenge as none of the faces from this team were familiar to the larger audience (barring a small group of friends of each member) within the organization. Team worked hard, faltered a few times, mentors spent some good time with the team in terms of guidance only (no actual participation in any of the activities). There was significant hard work but the team had first hand experience as to when they own something, what all things they need to do to complete the same. Big change was observed in circle members in the way they started looking at things they are doing in day to day work life.    
• As a result of such successes, confidence levels of the members increased tremendously and aspirations for taking such challenges in professional life also increased. This was expected result and we were happy about the same.       

Many members were happy on personal level that they now understand what it really meant by “Leader” and they have experienced the same in some or other capacity. They also feel nice that they have a peer forum where they can discuss some problem they might be facing on the work front and find a solution.

This initiative is like a movement and takes time to provide results. However when the results come, they are really beneficial to organization as well as individual.

Keys for Success of Leadership Circle:

• Visible support from Management for this initiative. Teams put in efforts on their own to build their leadership quality and demonstrate them through various projects they undertake; this should be recognized and supported
• It is a voluntary initiative and the results depend on the drive each person has. So it is critical to have at least 5-6 persons out of 7-8 with passion to lead while beginning a circle.
• The success of this initiative depends on the “Mentor”. Higher investment from mentor’s side better are the results. It is important to have a mentor for this Circle from business (not from HR) who is somewhat recognized as leader within the organization at least at some level and understands that he/she needs to “mentor” and “not to lead” this team. A battery of good mentors is critical for success.
• Organization should help this initiative with identifying various projects that these teams can take and execute to gain experience of leading. There is always an apprehension to use any customer projects for experimenting so all the internal initiatives could be run through these circles and can bring in the experience portion to the team.
• Based on the observed performance, some of the team members should be assigned to some leadership roles within the project world to provide a clear signal that organization is serious about this initiative and if they find some good talent, they will pick it up for better roles. Few members do start aspiring for a better role as their confidence improves and there is always a risk of they looking out for leadership opportunities if not provided in-house. This aspect needs to be managed well and business leaders becoming mentors helps in this aspect.
• It is important to remember that the idea of this initiative is not to create more project managers but to create a leader who in any capacity can lead when needed and measurement of its success should be with the same yardstick. It is more like a movement and not a focused training.
•  Leadership Circle takes some time to see results and it is important to have patience from mentors as well as team members

Leadership Circle is the right movement that every organization should embrace to build the leaders within. 

Delivery Excellence a new approach

When any organization thinks about “Delivery Excellence”, it is always a top down approach and using a guiding framework like ISO, CMMI, ITIL, Malcom Baldridge, Deming’s principles, etc. Many a times a special department or authority is created to run this program. This authority creates all the necessary processes and supporting templates and tools. These are implemented through training, coaching, and auditing to ensure uniform progress and results across the organization. There are several measurement criteria defined to measure the progress along the way to final destination. There are external audits/ assessments carried out to understand the progress made and results achieved through an unbiased view. The whole structure works like a uniform machine and each person knows the expectation from him/her and performs to that expectation in anticipation of good results. I have observed that organizations try to maintain the highest level of certification/ assessment throughout and it is herculean effort on both employees and organization every 3/5 years to undergo an external audit. There is no roadmap beyond this certification for further improvement, there are still stray cases where things fall through the cracks but the life goes on.

In my earlier blog on Delivery Excellence on Auto Pilot*, I had discussed how to make this top down process more effective and lasting in terms of results. However I am going to discuss a different approach here which will remove all the pitfalls of the top down approach and provide a fresh outlook to achieve the delivery excellence.

Organization is made up of people. Each person is responsible for several activities and part of several teams for whom these activities are performed. These teams are also part of some larger teams and so on. Finally all the teams form one team at organization level which is responsible to achieve organizational excellence. In this new bottoms-up approach we keep the definition of excellence in mind i.e. “Excellence is the commitment one makes with one self to continuously do better than what one has done previously in the entire activities one performs on personal and professional life. The benchmark is oneself and it is continuously moving upwards. There is not end as to final level of excellence” and encourage each person to the following; we are sure to have a positive result

• Self Question* the way he/she is doing a specific activity and see how it can be done better and how it can help the team he/she is working for to achieve its objective
• Experiment* with new way of operation and see the results. If the results are encouraging, then implement the new way of working and share this improved way of working along with results with others in team. A new and improved way of doing a specific activity has been found and registered in the repository for reference by others in the organization. A small step in achieving delivery excellence has been taken and multiple such steps create a momentum necessary for big result
• Repeat this process from individual level to team levels up the hierarchy

One question comes to mind; - If everyone in the organization starts thinking and implementing his/her own improvements then will it not be chaotic and uncontrolled delivery?  The answer is NO

The definition of excellence guides the individuals that their improvement actions are required to achieve better results than their current level and thus all the new improvements will direct the results in positive direction. We can build a common high level metrics for each team (which we already have) and performance be measured based on the same. As long as we are able to measure the performance through these metrics, the teams can have freedom to do their improvement journey as per their thought process. Building certain individual metrics like Say-do ratio* and Ownership Quotient* will help teams to monitor themselves on regular basis. In the beginning, the process may look un controlled as there is a significant level of freedom available to the teams on ground, however it enables teams to contribute better in achieving overall results. Allowing people to perform* provides a great motivation and ensures results.

*- There are separate blogs for each of the idea mentioned here and can be referred for detailed information 

Customer Experience and Organizational Excellence

“Customer Experience” is the current battle ground for the industry to win new customers as well as retain customers and drive better revenue and profit. Simply defined, Customer Experience (CX) is the product of an interaction between an organization and a customer over the duration of their relationship. This interaction includes a customer's attraction, awareness, discovery, cultivation, advocacy and purchase and use of a service. Forbes say that customer experience is the "cumulative impact of multiple touch points" over the course of a customer's interaction with an organization. It involves hard aspects like physical experience during interactions at stores to softer aspects like interaction over digital media, perception, social, psychological impact, etc. With the developments in technology, significant changes have been introduced in the way customer is engaged and experience is measured and improved. Significant investments are being planned in this area and many companies have appointed Customer Experience Officers (CXO) to spearhead the activities around it. One very important characteristic of the CX is; it has a start but no end point, it needs to be improved perpetually. If we do not improve the level of customer experience it automatically diminishes in terms of customer perception.

This characteristic is very similar to how we define Excellence;  i.e. “Excellence is the commitment one makes with one self to continuously do better than what one has done previously in the activities one performs in personal and professional life. The benchmark is oneself and it is continuously moving upwards. There is a starting point (where you are currently) but no end point / final level of excellence. It is a journey which typically has view of only next milestone or two and remaining milestones emerge as we move forward”.

“Customer Experience” and “Organizational Excellence” are two aspects which have similar characteristics and can be designed to feed each other in a positive spiral giving dramatic benefits to an organization

Author James Allen mentions that although 80% of businesses state that they offer a "great customer experience”, only 8% of customers express satisfaction with their experience. This throws light on the gap between what is perceived great by industry vis a vis by customers. This pushes companies to work hard on understanding customers better and provide them a better experience. One of the mechanism organizations can adopt is to drive organizational excellence initiatives based on the customer experience needs. This will improve the excellence levels of various activities performed by the organization and drive the customer experience automatically. This cycle of achieving higher and higher levels of Customer experience through different innovative excellence initiatives will drive the ultimate objective of better revenue and better profits. A quote by Steve Jobs, “You have got to start with customer experience and work back towards technology-not the other way round” vindicates the approach mentioned here.

There are two approaches to build Excellence initiatives which will be fed by the needs of better customer experience and move the needle in the right direction.

1                     Reverse Planning for a Customer Experience thread

2                     Creating multiple pairs of supplier/customer within ecosystem

1              Reverse Planning for a customer Experience thread

As we know there are multiple aspects / avenues where companies connect with their customers such as in retail stores, on web site/ mobile/social media, through service desk, through advertising campaign, special interest groups, etc. In this approach we pick up one thread and create connecting activities backwards till the raw material sourcing / design stage. Identify critical activities in the same which will have impact on the final customer experience. Analyse each one of them and identify initiatives to improve the excellence level of the organization unit performing these activities. The activity should be analyzed holistically from multiple angles covering People, Process, Technology. Each activity needs to be questioned as to can it be performed with higher level of excellence and what changes / amendments that need to be brought out to do the same. You get a comprehensive set of initiatives which are linked to a specific improvement aspect of customer experience.

Let us take a simple example: “Customer needs help in locating certain merchandise and wants to know some more information about it and she asks an employee on the floor of the store”. How do we enhance the experience customer gets during this interaction?

At the basic level, the employee on the floor must have the information about merchandize, where they are located?, how to reach there?, how much stock do they have in store right now?, are there any similar products which customer can consider?, are there any deals going on the product requested by customer or a similar product?, are there any related products that could be suggested to the customer?. We can assess each of the area and see what is the level of excellence we are working with, identify changes that we want to bring in with respect to people/ process/technology so that we can bring it to higher level of excellence and this have an opportunity to create a better experience. In this case, we can check

•         Is the information available with employee?
•         What is the mechanism of making this information available to the employee on the floor
•         Is it available to a few employees (category wise information distribution) or any one would have this information?
•         How intuitive is the mechanism to provide information?
•         Is the information accurate?
•         How current is the information?
•         How fast is the access to the information?
•         How easy / fast search capability available with person on the floor?  

Look at each and every aspect of information with focus of how are we doing today and is there any better / faster / efficient way to do it. Identify such areas as excellence initiatives and start implementing them

This experience could be further enhanced, if the person on the floor is well trained in engaging customer in an effective manner. Every up sell /cross sell happens through a better engagement.

The third level of enhancement to experience comes when you reach to the location specified by employee on the floor and you find your merchandise, it is not out of stock and has the same deal as mentioned by the employee on the floor. This leads to other aspects of business like store lay outs, stocking as per lay out, matching physical layout and electronic information, stock levels, logistics aspects of merchandise movement etc.  We have started the thread for customer experience for a simple transaction customer has with an employee on the floor and how it traces backward to various activities which need to be performed at a higher level of excellence in order to provide a better customer experience. Analyzing and creating excellence initiatives in each area will help improving the customer experience systematically.     

2              Creating multiple pairs of Supplier / Customer within the eco system

This approach handles the customer experience at a different level. Instead of picking up a thread and going back till the design stage, it works on a chain of Supplier / customers within eco system and improvement in the specific experience at each pair level will automatically improve the overall customer experience that the company can achieve. Some of the pairs could be

•         Customer and Store team
•         Customer and IT Team
•         Customer and Customer Service team
•         Store team and Warehousing team
•         Store team and IT team
•         Warehousing team and Planning team
•         Warehousing team and Production team
•         Production team and Procurement team
•         Production team and Design Team
•         Production team and Sales team
•         Sales team and Design team

Each pair has one service provider and one service receiver and set of activities through which they interact and customer experience of this interaction is noted. This interaction when analyzed gives clues for excellence initiatives to be undertaken.  

So, in summary, road to higher revenues and profits passes through the focused excellence initiatives around customer experience. 

Applied Excellence

As we know that Natural / Pure / Basic sciences define principles / develop information to predict or understand a specific phenomenon occurring in the world and applied science is the discipline of science that applies this existing scientific knowledge to develop more practical applications, like technology or inventions. Physics is a pure science; however Applied Mechanics is the science which uses laws of physics for the applications to design structures and appliances. Multiple Applied sciences emerge based on the nature and area of application of principles of pure science. Continuing with example of Physics; the disciplines of optics, quantum physics, materials science, applied mechanics, nanotechnology, micro-fabrication, mechanical engineering, biophysics,  electrical engineering,  control theory, aerodynamics, energy, solid-state physics, etc. are all applied sciences emerging by applying specific principles of Physics in different areas.

Excellence is also kind of basic science, which can be applied to various aspects and provide us process or methodologies to be adopted in the specific areas. E.g. Baldrige Excellence Framework has been created by applying excellence principles to overall business performance. This framework coupled with methodologies, processes, measurement KPIs, etc. has emerged as one of the Applied Excellence Science called “Business Excellence”. Several corporations have taken cue from this and built their own global excellence frameworks to be followed creating a number of flavors of this.  Deming applied principles of excellence to product quality and defined 14 principles to be followed for achieving excellence in Product Quality which ultimately became a TQM movement still in practice. This is another example of Applied Excellence. Henry Ford applied the principles of excellence to assembly style of manufacturing giving rise to Manufacturing Excellence stream of thinking. There are several such examples of application of excellence principles to build a new science altogether.

I have made an attempt to apply some of the key principles and aspects of excellence to an Individual and define certain signs to identify if one is progressing on the path of excellence or not. The idea is to keep them simple to understand, simple to apply and simple to measure. Ideally one should be able to do it in “self-service” mode without any external intervention or help.  

First and foremost thing about excellence is, that it has a start point, which is when one realizes and takes up this journey consciously, but no end point. It is a continuous process of going to a better state / stage of performance level from where you are today in any aspect of life. When this aspect is applied to an individual, it means one needs to learn something new every day, one needs to do things better and better as the days pass, one needs to move forward in the achievement of current goal of excellence on daily basis. If one asks three simple questions to self before sleeping and answers them with honesty to oneself; one can provide a clue as to if he/she is on the journey of excellence or not; these are  

Have I done anything today to improve myself?

When we talk about an individual, it could be relationship with spouse / Children on personal side or Boss / Subordinate / Customer at work. or it could be reading a new technical article to improve your knowledge about specific technology or it could be doing some experiment to learn or it could be something as simple as complimenting someone for good work. The key here is to identify proactive actions which we have initiated and executed to seek an improvement in the desired area/s during the day. We might face a little trouble in the beginning to differentiate between proactive and reactive/ suggested actions but once we start getting hang of this, each action identified creates a positive feedback to us and pushes automatically to do more of these actions driving us ahead in the excellence journey.   

Have I done anything NEW today to improve myself?

This question is different than the first question. One word “NEW” differentiates both. We can do things which we have done in past again and again to improve the situation and we would be achieving some results. But it is important if we are trying something NEW which can give us different results and with a possibility of better / faster improvements. A person trying new things is positioned better to receive better and differentiated results than a person using the things which he / she has been using for many years. If you are taking certain actions again and again, you expect the similar results again and again and after a while the effectiveness of the actions and results starts diminishing. So, one needs to ask this question separately.

What I am going to do tomorrow to improve myself?

This question provokes oneself to do something new, different for improvement. It also allows oneself time to think about it in advance and assess if there is anything different one can try the next day for areas where one wants improvements or one has to continue what one is doing currently to ensure results. It also helps one to plan for the next day which is a key in getting things accomplished.

What is my SAY-DO ratio?

Last and most important question one needs to ask is what is their SAY-DO ratio? Many a times we make plans when we are thinking but are not able to act on the same as planed and do not realize that we are really not acting as we desired. Our SAY-DO ratio is poor. We realize this when some external source points out that results are not changing. Normally it is too late for any correction and we might have missed the bus. So it is important to consciously assess one self using this question which will help us to ensure that we do what we plan.

When we ask these 4 questions to oneself before sleeping, we apply some of the basic principles of Excellence and create a Applied version for improving Personal Excellence.