Outside In Consulting
Telstra has kicked off a restructure what has been described as be the most comprehensive since the company was privatized. Called “Project New”, the Telco has in the order of 500 people working on 27 sub-projects, with one of these sub-projects already claiming the jobs of around 350 senior managers in the last two months. On the surface, some of the early messages seem to be aligned to the success of customers; “The restructure aimed to simplify Telstra's internal business processes and improve to the way it approaches - and delivers - customer service”. Simplification is one of the keys to delivering customer success, remove the causes of work and make every customer interaction a successful one. Unfortunately, this is what follows and it shows the old Inside Out thinking as it talks about “a view to cutting underlying fixed costs and becoming more competitive.” Perhaps Telstra should learn from the thinking and experiences of some of this century's most successful companies. Apple has become the leader in the mobile device space despite Nokias long standing dominance in the market. Nokia still maintains the stance that it has the best technology and perhaps this is correct but dominance is no longer achieved simply through technology. McDonalds has been the leader in the fast food industry for decades yet their profits started to decline when their goal was to have the most franchises. Around 2003, they turned their focus to delivering what customers needed. The secret behind the success of these, and many other of this centuries most successful companies is the adoption of an Outside In strategy. One of the Telstra sources was even quoted as saying "examining its organizational structure" as part of its move to a leaner operating model.” And Telstra don’t appear to be trying to change customer expectations very far judging by this statement ” Telstra had been testing the network and customer services provided by its competitors - going as far as buying their products and "lodging complaints and seeing what they do" about them.” Perhaps the fate of Telstra will be similar to that of Toyota if it adopts the same process improvement methodology. The demise of Toyota is perhaps attributable to its shift away from delivering what customers want to a desire to become the largest card manufacturer, classic inside out thinking. Looking further we see another aim to be an increase in the number and percentage of sales and customer service interactions are through online and self-serve channels from a current level of 10%. So, instead of allowing customers to get frustrated with their automated voice system before eventually being able to speak with a real person, Project New will encourage people to get lost in a tangled web of poorly designed internet systems designed by online marketers. Telstra New should take a leaf out of Zappos experience and put their customer support number on every page of their website and encourage people to talk to a real person and empower the customer service representative to fix the customer’s problem. In fact, I wonder how many of the 500 people and 27 projects are really dedicated to improving customer satisfaction, fixing the causes of work, eliminating moments of truth. How much of Project New is really about aligning the company to deliver successful customer outcomes and how much of it is merely about delivering the same old poor service at less cost; effectively shifting the deck chairs on the titanic? 1 Comment Check out this video on Carphone Warehouse's success with process. Knowledge@Wharton interviewed George Day about the challenges companies face in implementing "outside in" strategy, especially during a recession; what benefits companies can realize by adopting this approach, and which companies have done this well and which haven't, among other topics. In the video, he discusses his book's contribution to the ongoing debate over marketing strategy, and relates how McDonald's used an "outside-in" approach to turn around its business. See http://bit.ly/9hFUB4 Developing Outside In Software Systems 10/10/2010
Turning Feedback Into Inspiration (1) Steve Jobs has often cited this quote from Henry Ford: "If I'd have asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!' " This is Jobs's defense of Apple's reluctance to listen to even its most passionate customers, and the line is a good one to remember the next time you're considering a new round of focus groups. "The whole approach of the company is that people can't really envision what they want," says Reid. "They'll tell you a bunch of stuff they want. Then if you build it, it turns out that's not right. It's hard to visualize things that don't exist." But Jobs doesn't exactly ignore customers; he uses their ideas as inspiration, not direction; as a means, not an end. Ever since the netbook boom began, many people have begged Apple to put out its own. These tiny, ultra-portable machines represented the fastest-growing segment of the PC business, and the company seemed to be missing out. Some people (yours truly included) even went so far as to hack PC netbooks in order to run the Mac OS. Jobs could not have been more dismissive. "We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk," he said of the prospect of an Apple netbook. Cut to January 2010, and there's Jobs unveiling a $500 computer that isn't a piece of junk. But the iPad isn't a netbook. It's both more, and less -- not just a faster horse. Outside In Software Development So, are traditional software development methodologies using an Inside Out approach and could this be a significant factor in the failure, or mediocre success, of most software development projects? It is interesting to consider this paradigm in the context of Steve Jobs' comments. I believe traditional software development lifecycle projects typically use an Inside Out approach to developing solutions. That is, they use an approach where users or customers are asked what they want, typically during user interviews and workshops. The responses gathered during these sessions are then collated in the form of a business requirements document. This document then forms the basis from which systems are developed and tested and are said to comply with the requirements. The problem here is that once users have been asked what they want, nobody is performing an analysis of what they really need. Wants are translated into business requirements without any regard for understanding the really need, from the user perspective or from the Outside In. Outside In describes a way of analysing a situation by examining it from a user perspective and in doing so, it aims to provide value to the user. Outside In Software Development is an approach whose focus is to provide value to a system’s users. By using scenarios and stories, the Outside In approach provides development teams with a clear understanding of users’ needs, bringing them out of their IT domain into the user domain and thus reducing the incidence of systems which do not fulfil user’s requirements. Added benefits of this approach include:
References (1) Invincible Apple: 10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere http://bit.ly/bOb6S5 An Introduction to Outside-in Development http://bit.ly/cOjCXM Measuring, Managing and Improving Business Agility
Workshop facilitated by: David Mottershead BP Group Manager ANZ A seasoned practitioner with over 20 years industry experience, David is a pragmatic and forward thinking professional with a talent for solving business problems by distilling information quickly and helping people to see things from a new perspective. David is a passionate advocate for advanced business process management (Outside-In), customer experience and innovation. David is Managing Director of Outside In Consulting, a company which specialises in helping businesses simultaneously reduce costs, increase revenues and improve services through business agility. What is Outside In? 09/13/2010
Ever wanted to know what Outside In is? Well, Charles Bennett, Certified Process Master, BP Group Commercial Director provides a perspective on introducing Outside-In in this white paper. Download it here or click on the image below.  In a recent training session I was hosting, one of the delegates talked about her experience with a car dealership. She said that she had bought her car through the dealership and was very happy with the service she got. She also continued to use the dealership for regular maintenance on her vehicle and every time she picked up her car, she let the dealership know at the time she picked up the car how pleased she was with the services provided, as the car was not only serviced, but also cleaned and polished and ready when she arrived. A few days later, and despite having let the dealership know how pleased she was with the service, a customer satisfaction survey form arrived in the mail. The format of the survey was such that the majority of questions were about the dealership, about 20 questions, with only a couple of questions toward the bottom of the survey dedicated to issues customers are concerned with. Having told the dealership how pleased she was at the time the car was picked up, she chose to ignore this survey form and filed it in the bin. Having not returned the first survey form, several days later she received a letter stating that the previous survey had not been returned and she received another survey form. Once again, she ignored this form for the same reasons. Another week passed and in the mail she received another letter and another survey, this time from the car manufacturer asking about her customer satisfaction. So the question is, why do companies spoil good experiences with customer surveys? In another example, I recently needed to fly to Melbourne for business. In order to find the best deal for the hotel, I went to tripadvisor.com and found the best value deal through a third party site. They were by far and away the cheapest and with some trepidation, I made the booking. To my surprise, when I turned up at the hotel I had no problems whatsoever and the hotel was very good. I told the staff at checkout that I had had a good stay and was pleased with the customer service they provided. The day after I checked out, I received an email with a request to complete a "Guest Satisfaction Survey" and a note from the CEO of the hotel group which I filed in my email trash. The following day I received an email from the third party website I booked the hotel through, advising that I had been registered for their rewards program even though I did not opt-in for this service. The following day I was sent another email from this third party website asking me to comment on my stay at the hotel, once again I deleted the email. The following day I received another email directly from the hotel asking me to complete the same "Guest Satisfaction Survey". The following day I received another email once again advising me that I had been registered for the third party website's rewards program. That's five annoying emails which have detracted from a good experience. So, why do companies spoil the customer experience by repeatedly bombarding customers with mail/email survey requests. If customer satisfaction and customer feedback is so important, companies should implement systems to capture this information wherever and whenever customers provide it to them, not just when it is convenient for the company to receive it. Megan James, Event Director IQPC, interviews Steve Towers, CEO & Founder, BP Group and co-host for the Next Generation BPM Summit about outside-in process thinking and plans for the 2011 Summit. Visit the Summit home page here. Business Analyst World Sydney - August 2010 08/22/2010
Here is the presentation, Business Analysis is a the Time for Innovation, delivered at the Business Analyst World 2010 conference in Sydney. Another great Business Process Professional session in Sydney. Here is a photo of the team, 18 more Certified Process Masters.  |  David Mottershead
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