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Turning Your Business Outside In |
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Success in business used to be about selling what you could produce. Companies financed production expansion and lowered prices to drive demand. Once the recession hit, high debt and radically reduced demand meant dwindling profits and closing businesses.
Ranjay Gulati, author of Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, says businesses can profit regardless of market conditions by developing an outside-in focus. Electronic retailer Best Buy uses this approach to fine-tune their offering for market segments such as young tech enthusiasts, suburban soccer moms, wealthy professional guys and career women.
By wallowing in their customer’s needs, customer-centric teams influence everything from store layout and support offerings to staff training and product options, all focused on improving the shopping experience for each segment.
According to Gulati, profitability in the future will be less about what your company can produce and more about fulfilling the most pressing needs of your customers. That singular focus may take companies beyond their own borders and into broader partnerships with other firms for combined solutions delivering unprecedented value to customers.
“We have done better than of our peers in the Internet space because we have focused like a laser on customer experience.” Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
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