Organize for Delivery

You’ll know your organization is fully customer-centric when employees are empathetic and insights drive strategy, products, and experiences. Learn to move in that direction.

What is change management?

Change management is a discipline that supports organizations in moving from their current state to an envisioned future state. It guides management teams as they prepare, equip, and support employees in successfully adopting change. A structured change management approach enables organizations to systematically plan for and access human and financial resources. In turn, newly developed systems and enablers break down old behaviors, allowing organizations to pursue new pathways that lead to sustainable growth and value creation.

Key Resources

Woman holds chair out, offering good customer service to a low-income customer at a prototype financial services business in Accra, Ghana

How does leadership catalyze a change process?

Once an organization becomes aware of the need for change, leadership creates a sense of urgency which enables people to rationally and emotionally connect to the change agenda. Clarifying vision and values sets the groundwork and ensures that strategic priorities and customer-centric change are aligned. Leadership builds a coalition of change agents to champion and embed the new thinking. Leaders plan and resource for change, and give sufficient attention to the financial and human investments necessary to drive it.

Initial steps test the waters and acclimate people to the idea of a long-term change process. The organization begins to learn from customers, experiment with new approaches, and stimulate a mindset shift through immersions that connect employees with customers.

Key Resources

People talk during a MicroEnsure leadership workshop that explores customer centricity, and designing products and services for low-income segments

What are the key change enablers?

4 key enablers accelerate and sustain customer-centric transformation:

  • Developing and continually nurturing organizational culture facilitates a mindset shift toward a customer focus.
  • Storytelling embeds a mindset shift toward customer centricity.
  • Aligning rewards and incentives with organizational values reinforces the culture and outcomes you want to achieve.
  • Digital technology strengthens and connects systems within the customer-centric architecture being assembled. It supports data-driven and customer-focused decision-making and agile, cross-functional ways of working. Technology empowers employees to better serve customers and succeed at their jobs.

Key Resources

low-income man and woman repair fishing nets, a daily task for small business entrepreneurs.

How do you empower employees and agents to deliver customer experience that generates value for customers, organizations, and themselves?

The only people who can empower employees and agents are employees and agents themselves. Empowerment is the end result of a process through which they:

  • Decide that they want to help deliver a customer experience that generates value for customers, organizations, and themselves
  • Try to deliver that experience
  • See themselves achieve valuable outcomes

What a customer-centric organization can do is to facilitate this process. You can offer employees and agents resources that strengthen their ability to deliver valuable customer experience and motivate deeper engagement. You can do this most efficiently by assessing current levels of engagement and ability, segmenting employees and agents on the basis of the status quo, and then prioritizing provision of resources most needed by each segment.

Key Resources