[0:07]Businesses are increasingly talking about customercentricity. In fact, we can see here that the term's use has exploded in written text starting in the mid-1990s. The internet age, smartphones and big data have all ushered in a renewed focus on staying close to the customer. Now, you might look at this and wonder if it really makes sense. Surely, businesses have always been focused on their customers, right? And yes, every company focuses on its customers, if they didn't, they simply wouldn't be in business. But to be customer focused or even customer obsessed and to be customercentric are subtly different. So, what is customercentricity? Let's have a go at a definition. Customercentricity puts the customer at the heart of everything the business does. A customercentric strategy entails reorganizing a business, its data, its technology and its culture to serve the most valuable customers more effectively. So, it's not just about exceptional customer service, although of course that's something we would encourage. It's a strategy that rethinks every aspect of the business to place the customer at the center and it entails tough choices. Because who is the customer? It's not just every single customer, our definition references the most valuable customers. So a customercentric strategy uses data to understand customer segments and their demands. Some may require more attention than others, some may want more choice than others, and yes, some will be financially more valuable than others. It is also a forward-looking strategy, rather than always seeking to respond to whatever the customer wants today. Based on the segments with the highest future potential, a company can decide on which products to invest in. Let's look at how customerity differs from productcentricity or brandcentricity. Let's imagine I open a dog grooming salon, as would be the dream. I've got a name and everything. Central Bark and a slogan, no rough edges. Now with my salon, I could take a productcentric approach. This strategy would entail creating the very best product on the market, investing heavily in research and development, building technologies that other salons cannot match. I would focus on creating a range of services to cover all the bases. A byproduct of this would hopefully be customer satisfaction, but the product comes first. Now, if I went for a brandcentric strategy, I would want presence and awareness. I would want salons in prestigious locations. Given my name, right next to Central Park should work pretty well. I might work with influencers like this guy to build brand and dogs would come to my salon to get that particular grooming experience. I would work hard on my brand positioning statement. I might even go for a gimmick like a giant dog-shaped billboard. Look at this guy. No, the product would have to be good or no one would come. They're not mutually exclusive, and I would want happy customers, but it wouldn't be a customercentric strategy. Clark's customercentric dog salon would choose data to segment the audience and then tailor the offering to the needs of the most valuable segments I want to target. I would look at broader trend data too, but the focus would be on those particular owners and their unmet needs. So, let's look at one customer here. They might want a home service or an all-day service that includes dog sitting as well as grooming. Or a cafe next door where they can work or socialize while they wait for their pooch. But the idea would be to narrow our focus and then get closer to that customer segment building out from their needs. To achieve this, I would need a simple vision for the company that every employee knows. We would choose a text stack that gives us access to customer data, and we would have that unified view of the customer across all our marketing channels. I reiterate, brand and product would remain essential to my success, but they would be viewed through the lens of the customer and shaped by their unmet needs.
[4:30]Customercentricity is about taking tough choices to create simplicity. That simplicity becomes a guiding principle for the operating and business models, the company culture, and of course, the customer strategy. For more of these hightech videos, sign up somewhere over there. Thanks very much.
