Did you see this Fast Company Article on Innovation?

Hey …did you know that Illumina, was able to bring the price of their technology down from $300,000 per genome to $1,000? 

How did they do that? 

What Innovation ‘secrets’ guided their work?

Check the Article here:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90568249/calling-all-entrepreneurs-its-time-to-build-an-innovation-engine-for-the-virtual-era

So what does that mean for you?

Well, you can either:
1) OPTION 1 – CARRY ON WITH THE SAME-OLD-SAME-OLD APPROACHES
2) OPTION 2 – JUMP ONTO A SHORT FREE WEBCLASS
The Six Step Innovation Approach (6Si)

…in fact, you can Adopt the 6Si Approach immediately personally or in Your Teams now and get immediate results!

Get started now:https://tiptopinfluencers.com/cxinnovation
To Your Success!
Steve Towers
Professional WebclassStartsDuration
Accredited CX Master
(ACXM)
16th Nov4 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Process Professional Coach
(CPP-Coach)
3rd Nov4 weeks @
3 hours per week
Certified Process Professional Champion (CPPC)9th Nov3 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Outside In Master
(COIM)
17th Nov7 weeks @
3 hours per week
Certified Process Professional
(CPP)
23rd Nov2 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Process Professional Master
(CPPM)
23rd Nov4 days @
5 hours per day
Accredited CX Champion
(ACXC)
1st Dec3 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Outside In Champion
(COIC)
8th Dec3 weeks @
3 hours per week

Innovation Masterclass in 13 minutes… seriously!

The CEMMethod Six Step Innovation (6Si) approach is sure to win hearts and minds of those needing to Innovate in organizations suffering Covid Shock.

If you like I let me know – I have a couple of neat bonuses in the swing.

Professional WebclassStartsDuration
Accredited CX Master
(ACXM)
16th Nov4 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Process Professional Coach
(CPP-Coach)
3rd Nov4 weeks @
3 hours per week
Certified Process Professional Champion (CPPC)9th Nov3 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Outside In Master
(COIM)
17th Nov7 weeks @
3 hours per week
Certified Process Professional
(CPP)
23rd Nov2 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Process Professional Master
(CPPM)
23rd Nov4 days @
5 hours per day
Accredited CX Champion
(ACXC)
1st Dec3 days @
5 hours per day
Certified Outside In Champion
(COIC)
8th Dec3 weeks @
3 hours per week

The Reason Why You Will Never Become Customer Centric

Business failures are all around us, nothing new there then. If we go back a decade or so we saw the demise of Nokia, we’ve seen companies like Blockbuster crash and burn, and other companies in the High Street whether it’s in Europe or in the US disappear and never to be seen again.

Why is this so? When you look at the investment those companies were making there was no lack of intent to spend in understanding how the customer was changing. In the year that Apple introduced the iPhone Nokia was investing heavily in voice of the customer (VOC) surveys, customer satisfaction and NPS.

But they missed the point. Progressive Outside-In companies (think Amazon, Zara, Zappos, Emirates) are not about retrospective subjective analysis of perceived performance.

Also it isn’t about overlaying processes with a new language when fundamentally the very systems and processes were never designed to deliver customer experiences. Those now creaking processes were designed with a factory mindset centred around production line thinking, throughput and waste. Hence the challenge for many is more fundamental as it’s not about rejigging what you’re doing – it is about a complete rethink to move outside in the way that you do business.

Remarkably even in the third decade of the 21st century there are still those companies that think they can just tweak and change the language inside their organisations.

As if doing better advertising and marketing to customers and talking about ‘new’ services on top of their existing infrastructures and IT systems hacks it. The actual reality is somewhat different.

Senior Executive commentary

Top teams and senior executives need to grasp this challenge. Roland Naidoo, a senior executive at African based entertainments company Multichoice puts the choice starkly:

“Would you measure how fast a 1600cc car performed around an F1 circuit. No? Then why would you try to measure customer experience AND improve it on processes and products there were never designed with experience in mind. Go on enter your 1600 into the next F1. Wonder how it would perform?”

Roland Naidoo, Multichoice Africa

Lipstick on a Pig? Surely not…

Those companies who understand that ‘outside-in’ thinking calls for a complete realignment and new appraisal of what the customer experience consists of.

Rather than, to coin a phrase, putting lipstick on a pig. You have actually got to think about what is it you’re trying to achieve; what does success look like for our customer? And then align across all functions, all systems and ways of working towards successful customer outcomes. Disney refers to this alignment as getting everybody to understand where true north is and not to do anything unless it contributes to that alignment. Imagine all new initiatives being assessed by a similar approach?

Are you working in a Rubik cube?

Another aspect which comes into play is this idea that traditional measurement* is predominantly subjective and retrospective. Progressive outside in companies are not reactive – they get scientific about the customer experience.

Measuring each interaction as it happens and if necessary course-correcting in real-time. They develop the ability to see around corners to understand what’s coming next. They don’t have to wait for analysis 2 weeks after an event to decide that some remedial action is required.

This knowledge in the instance of what is happening requires us to create this idea of ‘action in the moment’ for all our employees. Zappos**, for instance, give their employees the tools and the capability to be able to make decisions in the moment (without the need to escalate to supervisors).

Industrial Age thinking will kill you

And there is another challenge companies face if they are still organised around functional specialist silos. If you’ve recruited low paid people and given them a script to follow, manage them to average handle times and throughputs you’re going to fail.

Once more the outside-in companies have an edge here as they understand that to give your most precious resource (the customer) to the employees then you need the right people in the right place able to do the right things at that moment of truth.

So what is your organization doing? is it trying to put lipstick on the pig? is it just trying to overlay the existing process is an infrastructure with this new customer-centric way of talking and doing?

It is very simple. You need to get down to brass tacks of rethinking what customer experience is all about its implication for the organisation going forward. Those organisations that are taking this outside-in approach find the world becomes simpler, faster and much more directly oriented towards delivering successful customer outcomes and winning for the bottom line.


* Why does traditional measurement fail?
from the CX Rockstar aka James Dodkins at https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6566333517070954496/

** Zappos – Wow customer service: https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2018/09/15/the-secret-of-wow-customer-service-is-breathing-space-just-ask-zappos/#7da91ff01b2c

Roland Naidoo can be reached at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roland-d-naidoo-b403a029/

Join our upcoming Coaching and Accreditation sessions online, LIVE & Interactive

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Master (CPPM)
10th Aug4 days @ 5 hours per day
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(ACXM)
18th Aug4 days @ 5 hours per day
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(ACX-Mentor)
1st Sep4 weeks @ 3 hours per week
Accredited CX Champion
(ACXC)
8th Sep3 days @ 5 hours per day
Certified Process Professional
Champion (CPPC)
22nd Sep3 days @ 5 hours per day
Certified Outside In Master
(COIM)
8th Sep7 weeks @ 3 hours per week

Innovators Innovating Innovation

Limiting mindsets. A scourge of modern times and a limit on human performance keeping us in thought straight jackets.

Dare! Amazon Number 1 Best Seller (2020)

If you want something new you have to stop doing something old

Peter Drucker

So what are modern day thinkers and Innovators doing to break out of preconditioned constraining beliefs? Well if you google ‘innovation’ you get 1,650,000,000 (one billion, six hundred and fifty million) responses which would be a bit of light reading for the weekend 😉

So I tried another tack and thought about the best online videos and books featuring innovation, and yes there is a fast track way to watch and hear the thoughts of today’s greats, in action doing their innovative things.

Who are the best and what are their secrets?

I revisited my lists of sources, contacts and influencers, brought them up to date (the last two years or so) and collated the best across the domains I operate in. I included the recent Award winners acknowledged for their contributions to business. The result you can access below which contains the people, their LinkedIn connections, their best videos and in some cases additional resources.

So the next time someone asks me a question about TipTop Innovators and influencers I am going to point them here!

All the Best, Keep safe and well,
Steve

Innovation Experts 2020

Click the image to access videos, books and other resources!


https://tiptopinfluencers.com/tiptopinnovators

Learn the 8 questions that transform your Customer & Employee Experiences forever

FREE webinar from the BP Group
Access this FREE webinar featuring the OUTSIDE-IN STRATEGIC MATRIX (OISM) and the SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMER OUTCOME CANVAS (SCOC)

Access this powerful toolkit with downloadable templates to use immediately.

Keeping it Simple works best

What will they do for me?

Change your perspective to looking at your life and work to the Outside-In (the way guys like Jeff Bezos and Gary Vaynerchuk do). You will probably never think of the world in the same way again.

Signup here now – https://cemnext.com/customergame

Here are some of the testimonials that talk about the approaches:
You have impacted the lives of many of us in the Business Process Management community, in a big way in our career journey. Our success can be attributed to your insights on Outside-In Thinking and Customer Experience, among others.
Mashaba Mulaudzi, Manager Process Innovation, South Africa

What an amazing journey to Accredited ACX Coach,
this experience has completely transformed how we measure, collaborate, communicate and innovate with the customer in mind. Keen to guide the next willing souls on this journey.
Durrel Ramrathan, ACX Master Coach

A year after CPP training in London just wanted to shoot a note of my continued gratitude. Hope to remain involved in the CX events and work with you again..that training was beyond invaluable.
Juliana Coates – Member Services, University of Albany, New York

I’m writing to endorse BPGroups Certified Process Professional Masters program. It completely changed the way I think about a process.

Steve Towers and the BP Group taught us amazing secret techniques of process improvement. The program provided me with the ability to apply all the learnings immediately after the training. Very effective training with a wealth of knowledge to share. This is a must training for everyone who’s interested in making a process better!
Maria T Ferreira AVP – Client Experience Process Improvement at Citi

Signup here now – https://cemnext.com/customergame

SEVEN STEPS TO ENSURE YOUR PROCESSES AND CX ARE TIP-TOP FOR 2020

INTRODUCING… the much requested (and anticipated) now available ONLINE Outside-In training.

To compliment our globally successful classroom program (now 118 countries with 100,000+ certified professionals) I am running SIX online live sessions over SIX weeks.

If you are already qualified it is 80% NEW STUFF. If you are not then COME ON DOWN. Early Bird registration now Open.

Download the one-pager here
Early Bird registration now Open.

Innovate or Die…

If you are looking for Innovative leadership then this will inspire you onwards and upwards. Shared by one of South Africa’s most progressive business leaders, Roland Naidoo:

Having just left the football field with my 5 year old son I was finally motivated to write this blog. Why? Trying to teach him to kick the football in the correct way, it dawned on me in that moment I was doing to him what every organised structure is designed to do.

As I caught myself I paused, looked at him and said, “My boy, you figure it out, play, have fun, and find new ways to kick a football.”

  • Be the doctrine of the how and the why.
  • Be the standard of the where and the when.
  • Be the one and only way.
  • Have the right answers!

New Realisation

The dawning of that realisation underpins why innovation is so important to me. Innovation should by definition not be defined Ior it will simply succumb to every other conformity we know. It should live in every one of us.

This is the need to ask ourselves ‘why?’. Why am I doing this in this way? Is there a better way? Is there a different way? Is there even a need for this at all?

A spirit of innovation is not technology or wonderfully bombastic ideas, but the courage to question our education, rules, bonafide truths and all so-called absolutes in between. Know that your bravery will be rewarded with knowledge; am I. Know you were courageous enough to acknowledge you were wrong and move forward.

In the future when you find yourself saying or even thinking thoughts like this is how it’s always been; this is the way we do things; there is no other way; this is impossible; these are the rules; some things can’t be questioned, stop, take a breath, and find a new way to kick a football.

Roland

Footnote (from Steve)

So go find that ball and a new way to score for your team!

You can reach Roland at: Roland.Naidoo@multichoice.co.za

6 Ways to Transform Process and the Customer Experience (at the Same Time)

Steve Towers Keynotes

Where do I start?

I was keynoting a conference in Europe recently, and senior executives in the room were getting the rationale behind moving Outside-In. However, there seemed to be two perplexed groups in the place.

One was what a refer to as the ‘traditional process guys’, and the other ‘the customer is first people’, and interestingly they both asked the same question “Where do we start?”

My honest and most direct answer is “You do not have a choice. You have got to start where you are and go from there!” OK, I get what you’re thinking, how could they take that away and begin to transform their organizations?

So, I walked them through TWO distinctly different ways to navigate to Outside-In working and practice, depending on your mindset, enterprise history and maturity. For the two categories of customer in the room, the NEEDS are the same, just the way they navigate to achieving them is different.

What are the Results?

From a results perspective, both approaches focus on winning the triple crown, that is Improving Service, Growing Revenues and Reducing Complexity (and hence lowering costs).

ApproachProcess EngineeringCustomer First
FocusProcess is the starting pointStarts with Customer Needs
ScopeReengineering the ProcessesAligning everything to Customer Needs
IntentionBuild out from Process to Department to Division to EnterpriseArticulate Successful Customer Outcomes and Remove the complexity of things that do not contribute to it
BenefitsLocal wins building to business-wide transformationImmediate delivery against Triple Crown benefits
Executive Buy-inSlow burn, however when they see the benefits and ‘get it’ the support is significantStarts at the strategic level so influences everything the organization does
RecommendationIf your remit is just ‘improving processes’ this approach will get you their steadily, however, the challenges facing traditional business are seismic so is there time? So, make immediate gains but push hard for more quickly.By demonstrating the value of ‘customer first’ in terms of the triple crown the enterprise can align quickly and effectively. Importantly avoid the ‘soft and fluffy’ sentiments expressed by many in the customer experience world.

How can I Implement?

Back in 2006 the BPG launched the CEMMethod™ and built out an approach, using the 50+ techniques based on global next practice from companies like Virgin, Zara, BMW, Zappos, Apple and Emirates. Since then more than 3,000 companies in 116 countries have become accredited and certified to transform their processes and organizations.

Now in version 11, the choice you make in deployment is based on your ambition and remit within the enterprise.
If you are a leader needing to embrace the digital customer ‘Customer First’ leaps out as the main option. Alternatively, if you are in a traditional process-based business (lean, six sigma, BPM etc.) the more conservative ‘process engineering’ approach may be preferred.

You can access the following resources that will help you make an informed choice:

CEMMethod™ – review its potency and pedigree:
www.cemmethod.com

Outside-In The Secret of 21st century companies (free access): http://bit.ly/StevesOIBook

The Accredited Customer Experience Program 2018-19: https://www.bpgroup.org/acxp1819.html

The Certified Process Professional Program: https://www.bpgroup.org/certifiedprocessprofessional.html

I look forward to guiding you to transformation when you are ready!

Certified Process Professional Level 5

Certified Process Professional Level 4