What the Customer really needed ..
(This post is also
available in a Swedish version, from the Enfo blog @ enfo.se/om/media/blogg/)
Working with technology on a daily basis carries the risk of
aligning ones thinking with the rather square and binary conditions applying to
the way technological solutions are developed – does variable x equal value z
(true/false), is version a compatible with platform z, do the stated conditions
fulfil the requirements (Yes/No) etc.
When transferred to the realm of day to day business
operations this perhaps accurate but somewhat two-dimensional perspective needs
to be expanded to match the real-life requirements of the challenges of
delivering value in our Customers’ business.
In the end, it’s the difference we can make for our
Customers end-Customer – the end of the value chain - that really counts. Better value, lower cost, improved quality,
raised service levels – the classic hallmarks of successfully applying
technology craftsmanship to business improvement. With that as a starting point however,
another level of complexity is added – it’s not enough to understand what our
main counterpart – the purchaser, the requirement owner – say they need and
want us to deliver. We need to
understand how our Customer works to fulfil their
Customer expectations, to create and deliver value.
Our ever-increasingly complex world of tailor-made services,
bespoke supply chains and specialized areas of expertise enable tremendous
levels of flexibility, but tends to break up reality into individual frames of
reference we understand individually, but carries a slight distortion through
each layer when it comes to explaining what better Customer value – or business
requirements – really means. From the
consumer, all throughout the value-chain, to – in this case – us, as the
supplier. Just like Chinese whispers ..
There’s a very striking – well- known and -circulated on the
internet - illustration of the innate challenge in successfully communicating
actual requirements between different roles and perspectives within a business,
“What the Customer really wanted ..”.
Working with Process Innovation and Project Management, I
believe in striving to take a holistic approach to help Customers cover an
extra perspective or two, in their role as purchasers, requirement owners, or
change leaders in IT implementation projects in their business. We all have our own unique set of experiences
and understanding for a particular situation – assets we can use to help each
other understand and fill in the gaps of the picture we don’t see at first, and
collaboratively identify what the Customer really needs. At Enfo, our established framework for
working with an EnterpriseArchitecture, or an Information Competency Center, are great examples of
how this approach can be applied practically in real-life Customer projects.
As this rather infamous illustration of crossing human
nature with the art of delivery vs expectations testifies, only attempting to
circumvent such pitfalls does not always make it so – but the awareness of the
inherent challenge we all face in the “Customer/supplier-relationships” around
us, regardless of business type, can support us in avoiding a few more of them
each time, and improving the business value delivered.
This helps us reaching further towards not only
what the Customer wanted in the “one-to-one” customer-supplier relationship –
but also in supporting our Customers in delivering what their own – colleagues
as well as end-Customers – really wanted.
To draw an analogy from age-old wisdom, - the Customer of my Customer is
.. my Customer!
