NAMO moved the Cheese and ate it too !!

Who Moved Your Cheese is the apt book to read for all our politicians who are doing so called  introspection. 

Mr Narendra Modi has not only moved the cheese and but also comfortably ate it too. Everyone else during the campaign was denying that no cheese is not moving and they remain focused on old cheese. 

Yes , Governance and Development is the new cheese and others remain focused on caste , communal & secular politics.

Inability to see moving cheese happens when you lose touch with the ground reality and remain surrounded by YES men.   

Same rule equally applies to business enterprises. In a highly competitive market cheese is moving and those who can see is taking early advantage. 

Some will not accept till complete loss of business and some will agree after much of a loss to the business. 

New cheese is better Customer Experience (CX).  People have enough of options for goods and services.  They are looking for better customer experience.  Companies those who remain focused on all other internal competences will soon find that customer are not interested how smart you are internally.What matters to them or what count in the market place is what kind of experience your enterprise put together is delivering to its customers.

Many companies those who claim to be customer centric are only equipped with customer service department. They neither have mapped their customers journeys , nor has thought of offering scintillating rational and emotional experience (Most companies even have no clue about these aspects of designing CX).

Cheese is on the move , companies at the forefront are taking advantage. Companies in denial mode or in no clue mode or surrounded by YES men CXOs will realise the reality and learn lesson like the one learnt by most political parties after 2014 election (Most of them have not and will not learn even now).

Once again recommend the book Who Moved My Cheese.

Why Election Manifesto Should Start With Citizen Experience Statement ?

Like Companies , countries also create experience for its citizen & guests - investors & tourists. Concept of customer experience equally applies at national level. 

It is the fundamental role of every Government to create better experience for its citizen - through better governance, better infrastructure - hard & soft, better policies, better law & order , better & sensitive Government employees. 

Every Government will make or break their chances of winning back based on their performance counted on the above parameters of creating better citizen experience. 

If we analyse Government retaining the power and Government going out of power, deciding factor is track record or people perception of ability to deliver better citizen experience. Therefore election manifesto should start with Citizen Experience Statement ( like Customer Experience Statement for business enterprise ).

In the experience economy we all are living in creating better customer /citizen experience is the KEY , KPI whether its a company or Government or for that matter any enterprise - for or not for profit. 

The First Question

The First Question

Customer Experience Management is the mother of all enterprise level initiatives like lean, six sigma, tqm, process engineering, business strategy, human resource etc all are in a way is impacting customer experience. Now if we consider Customer Experience as sustainable competitive advantage then all our initiatives should commence by keeping CE perspective at the center.

After the company decides about the products and services it is planning to offer to the market and geography it decides to operate in THE FIRST QUESTION to be asked is what kind of customer experience company wants to create for its customers.

There are nine leakage points which dilutes scintillating customer experience. Therefore unless customer experience statement is defined lens of the management will miss these leaky points.   In the process to answer the first question company will define customer experience statement.

Having defined the statement every action and initiatives will be aimed to achieve & maintain this statement. Budget for any initiatives will be viewed in terms of its impact on customer experience.

Every initiatives mentioned above will be to fix leakage in customer experience happening through leakage points;

• a) Leadership & Culture ( Culture & Governance Policies )
• b) Customer Strategy ( CE Statement & whether every other function align to this strategy? )  
• c) Customer Expectations ( tqm, lean, costing, innovation  )
• d) People ( HR )
• e) Process ( BPR, Lean, Six Sigma )
• f)  Marketing & Branding ( Marketing , Social Media, Advertising , PR )
• g) System ( IT, Technology, Mfg or Service Set up )
• h) Measurement ( right measurement matrix )
• i)  Distribution Channel ( distribution policy, training and hand holding )

When the above nine points are focused upon on a regular basis by keeping lens of customer experience on , company will then hardly needs any other area to focus upon ( ofcourse except taxation ).

Time has come for every organisation to ask the first question and realign to answer the first question. 

SPEED UP – The only REFORM we want from Government

When we design customer experience , business processes r the most important thing after culture at the top and people.  Even that is true for Governments. Business and Governance processes are the most critical deterrents for offering delightful experience to customers/citizen. But when the matter is only of delight, we can ignore the same in favour of necessity, but when it has become necessity for development ,  economic growth and even for timely justice , we can neither ignore it nor remain inactive to live with that.  We can and must attack these procedures and processes which is delaying our - development, justice and everything in life.

Be it birth certificate,  death certificate, be it permission to start business or wind up the same,  be it permission to start construction or get conveyance of property, be it taking action by police for reported crimes, or admission in hospitals - everywhere delay  and follow up. Its consuming time of the nation enormously.

Recent global business survey held by World Bank puts India at 132 out of 185 nations for Ease of Doing business.  

Why doing business should be so uneasy? Why dealing with government departments is so uneasy and horrible experience of every citizen? Dealing with corruption is one part, getting things done in time is the most critical challenge. These kind of unease breeds corruption.

Mr. Kejriwal is right when he says there has to be  a Citizen Charter which states within HOW many days the application for anything in any govt (state/central or local) department in any state will be disposed off. & it must be done that way. Period.

Delay is even costing our social behaviors. People know justice will be invariably delayed hence there is no fear of law.

Govt is hell bent on Retail FDI and delaying Parliament Sessions ,  HOW many bills r pending other than Retail FDI? I fail to understand why Govt thinks Retail FDI is the Mother of all reforms? So much so that Parliament sessions are being sacrificed.

We are living with Govt with misplaced priorities as far as economic reforms are concerned. Why improvement of Ease of Doing Business ranking from 132 to under 50 is not a MISSION of the Govt?

Multiple problems can be solved – speed of doing business will attract more investments, faster implementation of projects, faster economic and infrastructure development, lower corruption, lower crime (speedier trials r deterrent) , speedier alleviation of poverty, reduction of stress (today people are stressed as things are not moving and they want it to move faster)  - and finally even victory in election.

I am not sure what benefit people and  Govt will derive from Retail FDI but Governance process rejuvenation will certainly help citizen, govt and nation as a whole. It will be hugely better citizen experience. Just don’t do any reform till 2014 and focus only on this. People will thank the Govt ……..  and VOTE may be one of the way to thank!! Who is listening and thinking in Govt?

Share your experience about - delay in governance/business  process. How things can be improved?