Strategic Discipline Blog

Thales Teixeria, author of Unlocking the Customer Value Chain shared this “Did You Know” slide.

Costco: Costco makes a profit entirely due to its membership fees.

Grocery stores: Supermarkets get more profit % from brands who buy shelf space and cap ends than they do from the products they sell.

P&C insurance: Pay $100 per click yet still feel they get an efficient ROI!

FedEx: Has very slim margins. FedEx absolutely, positively must have systems that work consistently.  One phone call complaint, eliminates Profit!

Apple: Like Dell Computers Apple receives your payment before paying for the parts to make your iPhone.

RyanAir: A $15 international plane ticket is profitable because RyanAir makes so much on upgrades from passengers.

Business today is conducted far differently than it was 15 years ago. Teixeria shared three slides on how things have changed for one of his favorite restaurants he frequents over the past 15 years, and how they will change further soon.

Disruption Today – Decoupling

Today there are four possible disruptions taking place in Turmeric Thai Garden’s Customer Value Chain. .

Yelp now helps you choose a restaurant; you can use Google to do the same thing and look at their review ratings.

Open Table similarly helps you to reserve a table, while Uber can get you there, or bring the food to you. The Toast App allows you to pay for your meal!

Soon CloudKitchens Apps will allow you to order/receive food or drinks from a restaurant you’re not even dining at.

Where does Decoupling Occur?

Decoupling occurs when customers tend to be most dissatisfied with the established company.

How do you determine opportunities and measure your customers’ dissatisfaction to discover where you need to improve?

You need to identify all the segments of your purchasing chain. Teixeria provided several examples with the Automotive buying process being one most of you are familiar with. Find the weak link in your purchase process by questioning several of your customers in each segment.

Car buyers, particularly women, hate the negotiating segment. While everyone enjoys the feeling of driving off the dealers’ lot with a brand-new vehicle.

Measure Customer Satisfaction

To discover your customers’ purchase chain satisfaction, ask them. Teixeria doesn’t feel you have to ask a lot of customers either. First, build/identify your purchase chain, and then find a half dozen or more customers for each segment and measure how they feel about the experience. You can use the NPS scale, or another consistent measure to determine your customer’s satisfaction level.

Improve Where it’s Low.

Once you’ve determined how your customers measure each of your purchase decision chain segments, the best place to start is where customer satisfaction is low. That’s where decoupling starts.

This is a customer-centric approach to improving customer satisfaction. It will stir innovation and make your customer experience vastly better.

Three Options to Improve 

What does customer satisfaction come from? Three costs really:

1. Too expensive
2. Too Slow
3. Too Complicated

Think about your customer experiences. Too expensive may not deter you, however, if the remainder of the elements in your purchase decision chain doesn’t meet or exceed the value levels for your customer’s experience, it will encourage them to look elsewhere.

Too slow can occur in several of the segments of the purchase chain. Any lackadaisical or sluggish element can easily persuade a customer to look elsewhere.

Complicated? Anything easier will always serve customers better. Uber is a prime example of how the industry changed overnight by simplifying the ride-hailing industry.

Developing a customer-centric strategy prevents decoupling and disruption. Unlocking the Customer Value Chain is an enlightening journey to open your mind to innovative ideas to spark opportunities.

Unlocking The Customer Value Chain - A Playbook for Innovation!!

To create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best, contact Positioning Systems today to schedule a free exploratory meeting.

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

Robert Glazer, author of Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others offered a compelling vision of the kind of business he wanted to create. Build a company your son or daughter or grandchildren would be proud to be part of. The vision inspires his dream. We’ll share how he put this into practice in my next blog.

Building an enduring great organization requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, superior results, producing a distinctive impact on the world.

Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.

A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics, and Meeting Rhythms.   Forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance improve dramatically.

Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.

Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:

Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $500M+) businesses Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing! Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com to Scale Up your business! Take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against other Scaled Up companies. We’ll contact you.

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