Hypothesis: BPM Really Needs EA (start with the customer)

Courtesy of Steve Melville, EA Connections Manager…

At first blush, this statement might seem absurd. Many of you may already be reflecting on BPM projects where you managed to achieve perfectly fine results without the help of Enterprise Architecture (if an EA group even existed in those organizations).

Ah… the early days of BPM introduction, when low hanging fruit seems ripe for the picking! Hopefully, those successes led to other BPM projects. Wonderful! Sooner or later,

though, questions start to arise. How do all these business processes relate to one another? Where, exactly, do these processes start and stop? Where is the best data source for the information this process requires? How can I “unbundle” this hard-coded business logic that’s buried deep in an application, so that I can re-order or insert activities into my business process? How many different BPMS tools do we really need? How can we ensure the processes are available 24×7? Welcome to the domains of Business

Architecture, Information Architecture, Application Architecture and Technology Architecture — i.e., welcome to EA!

If you continue this Inside-Out journey you run into questions like… Do we really need this or that process? What are all these processes really for? And (with some help from the BP Group) you eventually arrive at the answer… the Customer! Welcome to Outside-In!

So… while I believe there are many facets to the connection between BPM and EA, I’d like to start with the Customer and, specifically, Customer Expectation Management (CEM). If you haven’t read Schurter and Towers delightful book on this subject, get it (http://amzn.to/9eaGi6). I liked the book so much when I first read it, that I put together a 1- page CEM Quick Reference Guide for my own use. I am happy to share it with EA Connections members.

Here’s a highly condensed thread within CEM:

Your value proposition sets expectations with potential customers. The more compelling your value proposition, the larger the pool of potentially interested customers and the fewer competitors that can match it. So, the goal is to create product and service offerings that set expectations that more customers find compelling and few competitors can match. In so doing, you have re-set the bar for customer expectations within your market and created the foundation for your organization’s success.

But here’s the catch… you have to deliver against those expectations. One failure and you begin to lose your customer’s trust. You lower their expectations with your actions, regardless of your lofty initial promises of value. And, with the explosion of social networking, blogs, 24 hour news channels, online reviews, etc., any failure to deliver against expectations, gets broadcast pretty quickly. Ask BP or Toyota what happens when you fail to meet customer expectations of safety.

So… to match the high expectations of your value proposition, the delivery processes of your organization need to consistently meet those expectations. And it is in the design and deployment of those delivery processes that the critical dependency on EA surfaces. For, in the 21st Century, such processes are heavily dependent on technology:

eCommerce and online support sites, mobile applications, ERP systems, RDBMS, SOA, SANs, etc. And not just some delivery processes, Outside-In companies recognize that the entire enterprise needs to be focused on delivering successful customer outcomes.

So the challenge becomes to align all of the process, application, information and technology resources across the entire enterprise to deliver successful customer outcomes in order to support higher and higher customer expectations. And alignment is the sweet spot of enterprise architecture. EA is the right fit because both its sweep (across the entireenterprise) and its scope (processes, information, application, and the technology that supports them) match the demands of the Operational Framework Layer of the Outside-In enterprise.

Your thoughts?
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3180325

Customer Orientation: The Overlooked Driver of Sustained BPM Success

Many companies have eagerly embraced the principles of Business Process Management (BPM) over the past decade. However, in hindsight, it is clear that results are not quite as positive as they first appeared. Recent studies suggest that the BPM success rate (i.e., the frequency with which BPM initiatives achieve, sustain, and continuously improve on performance targets) may be as low as 20%. Many executives confirm that the promised early savings from BPM has quickly dissipated. In short, benefits are not sustained over the long term.

What has gone so wrong?
A core problem is that companies often undertake BPM too narrowly, viewing the issue solely as a matter of identifying and grouping related business process activities, often defined through the short sighted “lens” of the internal customer. This is compounded by a focus on related information and data which further reinforces a ‘within the walls’ view of process. Although some would argue this approach is core within the BPM philosophy, it is simply ‘not of this time’ and doesn’t understand the changed needs of the 21st century customer.

If BPM benefits are to really stick and continue to drive on-going value, much more is required—companies must adopt a new perspective on process which is driven from the ‘Outside-In’. This imperative requires companies to identify their ‘real’ customers – the ones who generate revenue and sustain the organisation – and empower the “process leaders”—the business unit or functional managers who lead the revitalization of business processes and who are accountable for its success.

We articulate this shift to Outside-In thinking and delivery as going way beyond the inner confines of legacy BPM. It liberates the people in the organisation to get on with doing what they know achieves results in both the immediate and long terms. That is achieving Successful Customer Outcomes.

Is your BPM initiative on track? How are you measuring its success? Are you really delivering what is needed in the short term? How’s about ensuring the success that is needed in the long term?

Outside-In (aka Advanced/Enterprise BPM) measures success simply.
For instance in the last year by how much have you achieved simultaneous (a) reduction in costs, (b) growth in revenues and (c) improvement to customer service? Ultimately it is about changing to this customer perspective and achieving these on-going results. Leading companies of the 21st century are already delivering on that promise.

Are you inside-out or Outside-In?

Advanced/Enterprise BPM aka Outside-In

Thought we should post this before it dissolves into the data quagmire that Linked-In is:

What is Outside-In?

1. Outside-In is a philosophy and method of managing an organisation by understanding and delivering Successful Customer Outcomes.

2. Outside-In Process optimizes value-delivery to customers. By fusing customer-driven process with customer-centric strategies, O-I creates successful customer outcomes (SCOs) – the foundation for achieving sustainable growth and profitability in an increasingly buyer-driven marketplace.
(Customer ProcessOne Council, May 2010)

There are many accreditations in the process space. This BP Group community is sponsored by www.bpgroup.org which in turn advocates the Certified Process Professional qualification
(http://www.bp2010.com ).
There are four levels of recognition:
Certified Process Practitioner (CPP-Practitioner)
Certified Process Professional (CPP-Professional)
Certified Process Master (CPP-Master)
Certified Process Advanced Master (CPP-AdvMaster)

A significant part of that hands-on learning is focused on Outside-In and includes discussion of various methods such as CEMMethod http://www.cemmethod.com) and High Yields approach ( http://www.h-ym.com ).

There is a rapidly developing cadre of people and organisations delivering Outside-In training, consultancy and advisory services with case studies, presentations and podcasts at http://www.oibpm.com

The 18th Annual BP Group conference will have a strong flavour of Outside-In with notable organisations who are the pioneers of Outside-In present and delivering case studies, tutorials and workshops. We will be publishing details of that event in Florida in January in the next few days.

The above links are for reference however if you do want a more commercial discussion and personal recommendations drop us a line and we can progress your needs! 

Not least of which is the fifth book – Outside-In, now in its third edition ( http://www.outsideinthesecret.com )














How do you start the journey to Advanced BPM/Outside-In?

If I scan the fifteen or so new OI initiatives in large corporations I have worked closely with (in the last three years) I would say 80% of that work is through what you can think of is a 1-2-3 project cycle.

1. Start where you are – deploy, for instance the CEMMethod 21 techniques, especially the Moments of Truth, Breakpoints and Business Rules, in whatever is your remit. Just get going.

2. On the back of that success move upstream and downstream in the particular process. You will have internal advocates at this stage who understand how to do this stuff. At this point the fun and the wildfire starts 🙂

3. Take the ‘boil the ocean’ proposition to the top team. Ask for the biggest current organisation wide challenge and relate the internal benefits (Project 1&2, the external case studies, the videos of the CEO’s, the HBR articles, the Business week case studies blah blah) They will love the talk of results – reducing costs, improving revenue, enhancing service. Whenever have you talked to a top team and somebody has turned round and said those elements were not part of this years agenda eh?

Bingo – six months in and you’re on the organisation wide Outside-In transformation. 

There is an active thread started by Dick Lee on this theme at http://bit.ly/aY8a4H  

Get the latest book from www.outsideinthesecret.com

 

Outside-In is a business imperative

What are the challenges of succeeding in business in the 21st century?
Ask major companies and you would come up with the same list:
> Competition is fierce and global.
> Customers have become rebellious.
> Customers have expectations like never before.
> Customers demand choice, comprehensive information and the best price. 

Former IBM boss Lou Gerstner called this “commodity hell” and that is pretty much the nightmare for every business. With a list like this many businesses would claim to be already embracing the challenge and becoming customer centric with ‘voice of the customer’ initiatives. This is simply a collective delusion and is the root cause of why so many are failing the customer, the shareholder and their hardworking employees.

The delusion is easy to understand. Businesses have created departments that claim customer focus and extensively poll customer wants, seek feedback and then try to act on the information. While this creates an illusion of progress it is to a large part a futile exercise focused on fundamental misunderstanding of 21st century customers. Asking internal questions based on customer data results in such questions as “how do we improve service?”, “how can we reduce non value added work?”, and “how can we standardise?” . This thinking stems from a time when the world turned more slowly and is more appropriate to the 1950’s then this centuries new business reality.

To orientate to long term business and customer success we need to look at the enterprise from the Outside-In (OI) rather than inside-out. It is now about understanding customer needs (not wants) and eradicating all the things that do not contribute to achieving Successful Customer Outcomes (SCO’s).  

It is this Outside-In philosophy that leading global IT retailer Best Buy utilised to lead and dominate the consumer-electronics market in the US. In doing so Best Buy’s programme ‘customer centricity’ took the time to understand customer needs and accordingly align for the SCO, while long time competitors Circuit City and CompUSA struggled and ultimately went bust. Circuit City, previously successful in the 1980’s and 90’s did not understand the shift to Outside-In and continued to focus on reducing costs through laying off its highest-paid hourly employees, including salespeople, and replacing them with cheaper workers. At the same time (2007), then CEO Philip Schoonover rewarded himself with $7 USD million in compensation . Customers don’t like that old style way of managing business and voted with their feet.

Best Buy meanwhile moved to understanding the customer needs and directed their attention organising themselves accordingly. Early research suggested that men look for a specific product at a discount price so hence,  arranging stores around fast moving products, geared to guys worked in areas where the majority of shoppers were male. Alternatively in stores frequented by women the stores focussed on ‘bundles’ as women were shown to need say a digital camera with accessories such as cables, printer and other ‘value adds’. This was more important to that type of customer than discounted prices. As the Outside-In maturity grew audio-visual experiences were grouped together and themed as with the Magnolia theatre. Family oriented areas are now a familiar feature coupled with additions such as techie savvy Geek squad means Best Buy dominates a previously fragmented market. Their success is now being extended to Europe.

Making the leap from understanding to action requires a shift in perspective. Instead of functional specialist silo’s organised around division of labour and specialisation, enterprises rethink their centre of gravity. In what we call a Copernican shift the customer becomes the centre of the universe, rather than the legacy model were business organises itself inside-out as a pyramidal, left to right, top down structure.  In these legacy structures it is sometimes difficult to actually include the customer on the map – they are relegated to the extreme left or right, or into warlike metaphors such as ‘the frontline’. No great surprise that people working in these structures can be working very hard doing things right (following procedures, delivering projects, meeting departmental objectives) but really the customer isn’t their job. That surely belongs to someone else in marketing, sales or customer service? In the Outside-In world the customer touches everybody’s  job and the emphasis shifts to doing the right things and doing things right.

Breaking out of the straight jacket imposed by the inside-out organisation structure requires a different level of thinking, an incisive set of new techniques and tools, and a willingness to link every element of activity with SCO’s. A new focus embracing the customer experience as the process requires a renegotiation of partners, a realignment of relationships and investment in staff to ensure they can think and be customer centric. Reward structures become linked to customer success, rather than paying staff for turning up and following procedures.

Best Buy have broken the mould of their sector, as have others including Zara in fashion retailing, Southwest airlines, FedEx Office, Emirates, Chinamobile, Disney and many more. These companies are the leading success stories of the 21st century and understand the game has changed forever.

For most businesses today, adopting an Outside-In approach is a necessity for survival — the only sure way to ensure the organizational resilience that will keep a company out of the death spiral of inside-out commodity hell. The path finders have set the standard and established a winning set of approaches, tools and techniques readily accessible by all. Make that move now, before it is too late.

Do you use bad language?

Sometimes when we talk with colleagues, family and friends we create an unintended negative impact. I am sure you don’t use bad language consciously (not swear words of course) however the way we use words and intonation often creates this undesired negative effect.

The BP Group CPP Professionals and CPP Masters out there will know the importance of language in our Process transfromation and Outside-In programmes. In fact our referenced work, Robert Dilts, ‘Sleight of Mouth’ is an excellent primer for those seeking to help colleagues understand the need to reframe towards a customer centric view of the world.

Here is another perspective that might help offered by a global leader in cognition and NLP, Steve Andreas (he’s the tall guy on the left of the picture)

An example of the impact of nonverbal (tonal) qualities of a message.
Recently I sent a note to some colleagues mentioning that I had noticed that some people—more often women—ended a sentence or a phrase with an upward inflection that usually indicates a question. I asked if anyone had an understanding of this, since I didn’t want to rediscover something that was already understood. I got the wonderful response below from a linguist who asked not to be identified:

Read the full story at Steve’s blog at http://bit.ly/dzYdcY

Part 4 of 4: There are four distinctly Outside-In ways that you can rethink process and in doing so achieve Triple Crown benefits.

The previous three articles in this four part theme we reviewed ‘Understand and applying Process diagnostics‘ , the ‘Successful Customer Outcome‘ and ‘Reframing Process for an Outside-In world‘. Now finally we move our attention to the fourth way we can rethink process forever.

Rethinking the Business you are in.

In the Southwest airlines example reviewed earlier we referred to the different viewpoints of the ‘business’ you are in. The two views – one the organisations, regarded as inside-out reflect the activities and functions undertaken. So British Airways see themselves in the business of flying airplanes and approach the customer with that product/service in mind. They set about marketing and selling the flights and hope to pull the customers to the product through pricing, availability and placement. In a slowly changing world where customers have little choice this strategy can provide a route to success.

As we have already seen the tables have turned and the enlightened customer demands so much more.
Southwest and other Outside-In companies understand this challenge and take a customer viewpoint.
What business would you say these six companies are in: Hallmark Cards, Disney, Zara, AOL, OTIS elevators, China Mobile?  Try it from the customers perspective and you’ll arrive at a very different answer – try these, expression, joy, style and comfort, community, moving people, connectivity. Yes they are very different and will reframe the way you think of the service and products you provide. Go further and look inside your existing company.

Are you still separated into functional specialist areas providing specific outputs to other departments in the so called ‘value chain’? Do you have internal ‘service level agreements’ that specify what you’ll deliver and when? How much of our internal interaction adds ultimate value for the customer? This way of organising work imposes limitations on our ability to truly deliver successful customer outcomes. The Inside-out viewpoint is inefficient, prone to red tape, is extremely risk adverse (checkers checking checkers) and slow in delivering product and service.

Many inside-out organisations actually regard customers as an inconvenience rather than the reason why they exist.

What business are you in? Past, present, future?

Part 3 of 4: There are four distinctly Outside-In ways that you can rethink process and in doing so achieve Triple Crown benefits.

In the first two articles in this four part theme we reviewed ‘Understand and applying Process diagnostics‘ and the ‘Successful Customer Outcome‘ map. We now move our attention to the third  way we can rethink process forever

Reframing process for an Outside-In world

A fundamental principle of Outside-In is the understanding of where your process starts and ends.

In the 20th century many techniques and approaches developed to better understand and create processes. In its earliest form pioneering work undertaken by the United States Airforce created modelling approaches based on the Structured Analysis and Design Technique (SADT) that produced iDEF (Integrate DEFinition Methods). iDEF became recognised as a global standard as a method designed to model the decisions, actions, and activities of an organization or system[1].  iDEF as a method has now reached iDEF14 [i] and embraces a wide range of process based modelling ideas. Concurrent with the development of iDEF technology providers created proprietary modelling approaches, and subsequently developed into modelling language standards, used by many organisations to represent their systems and ways of working. The convergence of business process modelling and business process management (BPM) has now produced a rich set of tools and techniques

able to model and ideally manage an organisation. In fact one of the more accepted definitions of BPM (based on the British Journal of Management[ii]): “Business process management (BPM) is a management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organisation with the wants and needs of clients. It is a holistic management approach”

Until a few years ago process management approaches looked within the boundaries of the organisation and the combination of modelling and management approaches were adequate to understand the enterprise. The impact of process management in improving organisation performance has been profound however we now face a different reality driven by the customer.

As a consequence both disciplines now present a series of problems that include

(a)    understanding the beginning and end of the process,

(b)   the techniques used to model process are inadequate and focused  on the wrong things

Strangely customer involvement in a process often appears as an afterthought and the actual representation systems (left to right, top to bottom) create an illusion that fosters the belief that “the customer isn’t my job”.

Let’s deal with each in turn by example:
a.     The beginning and end of process

To aid the discussion let’s look at two airlines, British Airways and Southwest, and we’ll review how they ‘think’ about their business through the eyes of process. If you sit down with British Airways executives and asked the question “where does your process start and end?” the response reflects the main source of revenue, seat sales.

So the answer “the process is from the ticket purchase to the collecting the bags off the carousel” is no great surprise. In fact that is the way we have mostly thought about process in that it starts when it crosses into organisation, and finishes when it leaves. We can easily model that, identify efficiency improvements, improve throughput and optimise apparent value add.

As far as British Airways is concerned what you do outside of that process is no concern of theirs, after all they are an airline and that’s what they do. Now let’s change our perspective and visit Love Field in Texas and meet the executive team of Southwest. Ask the guys the same question “where does your process start and end?” and the answer is a whole different viewpoint.

The process begins when the potential customer thinks of the need for a flight, and only ends when they are back at home following the journey. The scope of this process is defined by the phrase “the customer experience is the process”. That’s an Outside-In perspective and creates opportunities across the whole customer experience.

More than that it raises the prospect of additional revenue streams, spreads the risk associated with a dependency on seat sales, reinforces the customer relationship and develops an entirely different way of doing business.  So let’s ask another question of our friends at Southwest “guys, what business are you in?”, and the answer changes everything you ever thought about airlines forever “we’re in the business of moving people”.

Downstream Southwest may well turn the industry further on its head as they move from being the low cost airline to the ‘no cost airline’ and give their seats free of charge. What would that do to your business model if 95% of your revenues, as with British Airways, comes from seat sales?

The business challenge for Southwest becomes one of controlling the process to benefit and maximise the customer experience. That involves partnering, sharing information and doing all necessary to make customers lives easier, simpler and more successful.

Now how do you model that?

b.     The techniques used to model process are inadequate and focused on the wrong things

We have reviewed the ultimate cause of work for all organisations is the customer. Organisations exist to serve the customer though the provision of products and services and in this way develops revenue that goes to the profit and onward distribution to the stockholders.

In other organisations without the profit motivation, for instance the public sector, then the effective delivery of services is measured by citizens and stakeholders.  Accordingly it stands to reason that everything happening within the organisation should be organised and aligned to deliver customer success and anything that isn’t is potentially ‘dumb stuff’. The techniques we use to ‘capture’ process are however not suitable to understanding the causes of work and focus attention instead on the visible tasks and activities that are perceived to create value for customers. In the context of the enlightened customer[iii] this is at best misleading and at its worst actually part of the broader problem. In Outside-In companies the focus has shifted to understanding the causes of work, and then engineering those causes to minimize negative effects.

Once more to go Outside-In we need a perspective shift and we can achieve this by identifying those three causes of work and then set out to reveal them and their negative impact.

How big is the size of the prize? Efficiency and productivity gains of 30% to 60% are common. Cost reduction of services by 50% is not unusual.

Cause elimination is a seek and destroy mission. It’s the challenge to weed out the “dumb stuff” in our organizations.

By truly fixing the Causes of Work, rather than messing around with the Effects (a bit like moving the chairs on the deck of the Titanic) we will all find our customers and employees life simpler, easier and more successful. Are you ready to challenge your assumptions and start eliminating those causes of work? Fix the Cause, remove the effect.

[1] http://www.idef.com/IDEF0.htm

[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEF

[ii] Understanding Business Process Management: implications for theory and practice, British Journal of Management (2008) (Smart, P.A, Maddern, H. & Maull, R. S.)

Part 2 of 4: There are four distinctly Outside-In ways that you can rethink process and in doing so achieve Triple Crown benefits.

In the first article in this four part theme we reviewed ‘Understand and applying Process diagnostics’. We now move our attention to the second  way we can rethink process forever –
Identify and aligning to Successful Customer Outcomes

“Businesses can be very sloppy about deciding which customers to seek out and acquire” Frederick F. Reichheld

The six questions we ask ourselves in this iterative process are:
I.    Who is the customer?
At first glance should be an easy answer however it is not as obvious as it seems. The ultimate customer for any profit making enterprise is the person, or company who provides the revenue by purchasing the products or services we produce. It is a matter of fact that in our inside-out legacy world we have created multiple customer-supplier relationships which include internal ‘service’ providers such as Information Services, Human Resources and so on. In mature Outside-In organisations the internal customer ceases to exist as we progressively partner to align to Successful Customer Outcomes and artefacts such as Service Level Agreements become a thing of the past.


II.    What is the Customers current expectation?
The 2006 book “Customer Expectation Management “ Schurter/Towers reviewed in detail the of creating and managing customer expectations and how through clear articulation companies such as Virgin Mobile in the US redefine their market place. In the context of the SCO map we need to understand the customers (as identified in the answer to question 1) current expectation. This often reveals both a challenge and opportunity. Customers will tell it as it is, for instance in an insurance claim process “I expect it is going to take weeks, with lots of paperwork and many phone calls”. That should tell you the current service is most likely poor and fraught with problems, delays and expensive to manage however this presents the opportunity. If that is a market condition (all insurance claims are like this) then moving to a new service proposition will be a potential competitive differentiator.  


III.     What process does the customer think they are involved with?
In the inside-out world we see process in a functional context. Therefore insurance claims are dealt with by an insurance claims department. Customer Retention is the baby of you guessed it, the Customer retention department and marketing is done by the marketing people. This split of responsibility is a legacy of functional specialisation created by relating to business as a production line. Adam Smith wrote in ‘The Wealth of Nations’ (1776) of an English pin factory.  He described the production of a pin in the following way: ”One man draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head: to make the head requires two or three distinct operations: to put it on is a particular business, to whiten the pins is another … and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which in some manufactories are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometime perform two or three of them”. The result of labor division in Smith’s example resulted in productivity increasing by 240 fold. i.e. that the same number of workers made 240 times as many pins as they had been producing before the introduction of labor division. The insights form Smith underpinned the industrial revolution however using this principle to organise ourselves in the 21st century is to a very large part the wrong approach. That is precisely what the answer to the question will tell us – “sorry sir you are talking to the wrong department, let me transfer you”. Or even getting stuck in automated response system hell “press 1 for this, 2 for that, 3 for the other and 4 if you have missed the first three options.” These are features of the labor division mindset. Ask a customer what process they think they are and you will frequently be surprised by the answer.


IV.    What do we do that Impacts customer success?
Often we ask customers to do numerous many activities which appear sensible  to receive service or indeed buy products. Relating back to the insurance claim we can see rules and procedure around how to make claims, the correct way to complete forms, the process of collating the information, the timeframes within which to claim, the way we can reimburse you and more.  Often times these restrictions that we impose made sense at some time in the past however they may no longer be relevant.

The situation is compounded by the way internal functional specialism focus on project objectives. Richard Prebble, a respected New Zealand politician writes in his 1996 book “I’ve been thinking” of the inability of organisations to think clearly of the amount of work they create and in fact “they spend a million to save a thousand every time”.
His story of the challenge within large organisations is typical “The Post Office told me they were having terrible problems tracking telephone lines … They found an excellent program in Sweden which the Swedes were prepared to sell them for $2m …. So the managers decided to budget $1m for translating into English and another $1m for contingencies. But, as the general manager explained, it had turned out to be more expensive than the contingency budget allowed and they needed another $7m. “How much”, I asked, “have you spent on it so far?” “Thirty-seven million dollars” was the reply. “Why don’t we cancel the programme?” I asked “How can we cancel a programme that has cost $37m?” they asked   “Do you believe the programme will ever work?” I asked “No, not properly” “Then write me a letter recommending its cancellation and I will sign it” The relief was visible. I signed the letter, but I knew I needed new managers.”

This type of inside-out thinking causes companies to create apparently sensible checks and controls within processes that actually manifest as customer inconvenience, cost and delay. Are you making the customers lives easier, simpler and more successful?


V.    The Successful Customer Outcome – what does the customer really need from us?
At this point we should have enough information to objectively create several statements that articulate the SCO. These statements should be specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). Usually there will 6-10 such statements which become the actual key performance measures as move the process Outside-In. For example a North American business school completed the SCO map and created these statements from the customer perspective for an ‘Education loan application’ process:
a.    I need to receive my financial assistance
b.    I need to receive aid  before the semester starts
c.    I need to attend the classes I have chosen
d.    I do not want to call to chase progress
e.    I need to receive the correct amount
f.    I do not want to have to fix your mistakes

There is no ambiguity here and we avoid a common mistake of using management weasel words such as ‘efficient, effective, timely’ which may mean things internally but to a customer are of little help. Creating SCO statements that may be used as measures for process success is a key aid on the journey to Outside-In.


VI.    And now we reach the core of the onion. What is the one line statement that best articulates our Successful Customer Outcome? This one-liner embodies the very nature of the process and sometimes the business we are in. In ‘Thrive- how to succeed in the Age of the Customer’ McGregor/Towers (2005), Easyjet (Europe’s second largest airline) is used as an example in this quest. Their simple “Bums on Seats” SCO sentence works both from a company perspective (we must maximise utilisation, offer inexpensive seats, get people comfortably and safely to their destinations) and the customers needs  “I need a cheap safe seat to get me to the sunshine quickly without a fuss”.  

The company one liner will become part of a series which are measureable through the SCO statements and can be tested and revised depending on evolving customer expectations and needs. It may in fact ultimately replace the inside-out strategic process and provide the organisation with its Raison d’être.

Of course when we start the journey it is often sufficient to create SCO maps to help grow understanding and even if the actual SCO Map is subsequently replaced (as we take a broader view) the improvement in understanding around the customer is invaluable.

In the third part of this four part series we will review “Reframe where the process starts and ends”