The ECXO is pleased to announce that Prof. Jan-Erik Baars will be our guest for the Executive Session on December 29th. We will be discussing ‘Strategic Design: The Key to Building a Successful Business and Captivating Customers,’ a crucial element for corporate success.
Date: November 29th Time: 1 pm CET / 12 pm (noon) GMT
”Without design, management is pointless; without management, design is useless” – Prof. Jan-Erik Baars
Join the CX Professional Business Network at ECXO for more enriching presentations like this one! Subscribe now at: https://ecxo.org/individuals/
What you will learn during this session:
1. The Holistic Concept of Design
2. The role of Aesthetics and Emotion in Design
3. Business Collaboration for Customer-Winning Propositions
4. The Significance of Customer-Centricity
5. Holistic Customer Metrics for Actionable Insights
6. Beyond NPS: Advanced Customer Feedback Techniques
Who is Prof. Jan-Erik Baars
Currently, Jan-Erik Baars heads the advanced studies program in Design Management at the University of Applied Science in Lucerne, Switzerland. There he also does research in organizational maturity, design leadership and customer-centricity. He created the Customer Centricity Score (CCS) and is the author of the book „Leading Design“, a hand and brain book to develop design-led organizations. He is recognized to be one of the leading experts in design management. He led the Bachelor Program in Design Management in Lucerne from 2011 till 2019. He also lectures at Universities in Germany and the Netherlands.
Furthermore, he is advising and supporting organizations to improve the effective use of design as a consultant. He is a member of the board at the Swiss design agency Vetica and co-owner of the Customer Metrics AG, a firm specialized in organizational metrics. Before starting his activities in consulting, research and education in 2011, he headed Design Management at Deutsche Telekom in Bonn, Germany. He joined DT in 2009 after 19 years with Philips where he worked as an industrial designer, design manager and Head of Design. His design work has won various design awards, like the Rotterdam Design Award and the IF-award in Gold.
Jan-Erik Baars is a Dutchman, living in Germany.
For more information, please also consult: www.janerikbaars.com
The facilitator for this session is Ricardo Saltz Gulko, Managing Director at Eglobalis and the Co-founder and visionary of the European Customer Experience Organization, ECXO.org with many other ambassadors.
Join the CX Professional Network at ECXO for more enriching presentations like this one! Subscribe now at: https://ecxo.org/individuals/
We look forward to having you join our session. If you find it interesting, please feel free to share it with your friends and business network.
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Hello wait a second we are going live now yes here we are perfect hello everyone how are you welcome to this session of eexo by the way you cannot see how many people are here all the time that’s uh a real problem that we have well at least it’s the two of us
Isn’t it so that’s already something yeah is is only working the LinkedIn right now and YouTube not working my Facebook and and the group of f in the Facebook let’s start okay um let me see the so welcome everyone from for this session for the EC EXO executive
Sessions um today we have a very uh distinguished guest okay and I’m going to introduce him in few minutes from now uh about first the eexo the eexo objective this actually dxo is a Open Access uh CX Professional Network that we are building around Europe and
World the objective of eexo is to unify 50 European countries and Beyond establishing a consistent level of CX maturity addressing the diversity across Europe we to briish CX maturity gaps while pres preserving cultural richness through educational research events and collaborative efforts with top organizations of all
Sizes um today we have an amazing guest professor Yan Eric bar speaking about strategic design and he is the author and I actually come across him a few years ago he wrote this amazing book here the first book of its kind that is really business oriented for leaders and I
Think is a great guide to guide a company through the design and customer centricity um uh path uh path that you have to take to engage your company and to and to improve your company so let me introduce to Professor Yan Professor Yan is the current is
Currently the the head and of advanced studies program in design management at the University of Applied Materials applied sciences excuse me in lern in schit in switzland we created so what he does he created the customer inis for ccs and is one author of The Amazing book that I just mentioned for
You um he’s also a member of the board at a company calls uh where is the company via Swiss design agency vatica and co-owner of the customer matrix AG uh firm specialized in organization Matrix which is here today and he have some many many ideas about that that can
Work really well so without further Ado I will leave now with Professor Yan and I’m going to disappear but I’ll be here for your questions okay thank you very much Ricardo for having me in your session hello everybody for those who are there hope you you’re inside cozy
And warm Let’s uh let’s guide you through like half an hour maybe through my presentation on strategic design and why this is key to achieve uh a sustainable business growth customer growth um well I already there’s a lot of been said about me so I think I can
Skip this uh maybe one thing to mention um for those that do not know me I am a designer by heart trained industrial designer and worked for as a designer in at Philips for almost 20 years and also do Telecom so I’m I was been many for
Many years part of the development side of business so to say engineering design that was that is my background so I don’t have a real business back um so let’s jump into the presentation so how do businesses become successful in the first place I mean that’s something that you would always
Ask yourself and but also I did in during my career and clearly you have to provide something that businesses really need isn’t it something meaningful uh which again more and more business are struggling to provide the sort of meaningful solution but it alone of course is not enough something that
People really need yeah most of the people have what they need um so what what beyond that you have to do is of course you have to provide something that people really want a proposition a solution which fits their pocket or wallet size their desires their needs uh
Beyond the fundamental so really being becoming relevant for customers is is the second thing you have to be able to achieve and still this would not be enough beyond that of course you also have to provide that what people really desire uh so something that is kind of
Encompassing this service or product or proposition that you provide giving it a an emotional touch allowing it to differentiate from other competitors providing an identity something that is very experiential these three things come together in what we call the experience economy where businesses increasingly are compe competing not on let’s say a
Functional or technical level but they exp they compete against each other on an experiential level and the ability to create very differentiated and very relevant Solutions is what what will determine the success of an organization so that means that for a lot of players out there it’s not anymore competing with your nearest
Competitor that will Define your success it’s competing with other experiences because consumers have been become aware of what’s possible and they create their world of experiences so they set the bar themselves with regard to what they expect from a customer and how they want to yeah relate interact and also use the
Services that they get so there’s a true shift happening here where organizations have to yeah deal with so in the end it’s the customer of course and always will be uh um at the center of this decision making it’s the customer deciding on what they really value in the experiences that they get
So to recoup at the center of course is the user experience the function the the the fundament the core service of an organization which is embedded in the relevance so the the customer experience so to say where you get a proposition made for yourself which again is embedded in a so-call brand experience
In an Iden something that is conveying the organization’s values and image and and yeah and design as from let’s say the outer perspective and the the value perspective so if this comes together we can see that customers really become excited about what they get and beyond
That they they start to behave in a way that we really need to become successful and remain successful they adopt a positive attitude they start to recommend the organization they start to engage with the organization build retention and um yeah and also are willing to spend maybe their whatever
They have on the company on the organization to support it yeah so of the of course the Apple Fanboys but this corresponds to the customer Fanboys so apparently organizations that have certain success do this by understanding that the customers at the center of everything they do and are also able to
Design an experience a holistic experience that is throughout really um providing consistency and coherency towards the customer so in this skill this this Mastery so to say to do this to be able to conceive and and also render a holistic experience is what set the um let say the successful
Organizations apart from those that will lag and fall behind now this means that you have to be capable in a certain way isn’t it you have to be capable to create these coherent and consistent experiences towards customers and that you have to make sure that you align everything you
Do in your organizations so that the outcome is really representing this this coherency and this is a true struggle in organizations and maybe most of you know this inside out because you are working in a in an apartment most likely in a function of an organization and this is how most of the
Organizations still are set up are designed are shaped in in let’s say silos in functional departments and where for instance the R&D function is focusing on usability on creating the core the core offer so to say and therefore is very much focused on creating satisfaction at the user but a marketing and sales
Department for instance could have a focus more on the consumer which not necessarily is a user yet I will set his goal on achieving customer attention so a different perspective and therefore not necessarily aligning in its effort to design a coherent customer experience and beyond that there might be a
Corporate Department building a brand image uh talking to the wider world to create attention to the organization and building a brand experience so uniting these activities that all create outcome towards customers is what I call Strategic design is where where all the design efforts are connected and create
Something that is more than just the sum of its part it’s where the word gal you know the the form giving really has this true meaning it’s we see some in the togetherness of what an organization is creating that is more than just this individual part and with that we create true
Impact and this this effect counts for every business b2c B2B I mean it doesn’t really matter what you do it’s also applicable to every organization the organization that I in I’m in we talk to The Wider world or to students I mean we also promise something and we have to
Deliver on it and even even in a larger skill in on societal level this still holds um all we’re all looking for clarity for a cohesion and also a consistency in whatever we are doing so it means that in in winning the customer to become yeah supporting your
Organization um you you have to to be care to be capable isn’t it it’s it’s in this saying um that what comes around goes around or in the German it’s even nicer always sounds nice if you say in the German language as well but actually it means that and any organization gets
The the customer it deserves or it creates if the organization is uncoordinated and not motivated customers also will be uncoordinated and not motivated so there’s a direct relationship between the organization’s ability and the customers let’s say reaction to it so organizational potential is determining the customer potential and
Thereby has a direct input or influence on how much value between these two parties can uh emerge can can be created so that means that we have to look into organizational capability and and and also understand what that is and also try to uncover the status of organizational ability to understand in
How far we with that potential can create customer experience that are truly exciting and with that can create customer potential in the form of loyalty or spending uh willingness or recommendation etc etc which in the end will yield customer value so it’s really about us the organization’s capability
That counts and we we need measures and methods to look into the organization and to find out okay how good is the organization in in creating a truly outstanding customer experience so how do we get there how do we how do we build an organization that’s more
Capable than it than it was before in order to create these experiences well first of all the organization has to want this isn’t it it’s like you know you buy a racing bike and you say okay let’s go across the Alps I mean nice you can buy a tool
But um you also have to be able be fit enough to do it so you have to adopt a certain mindset and Excellency mindset and this means is that you are able to address both of the two dominant issues that you have in your business both at
The same time so on the one hand you have to address all the burning management issues specifically these days the taining and maintaining the resources controlling your business setting yourself apart from comp competition growing efficiency and with that securing uh your business from from that perspective but at the same time you
Also have to master all the design issues that you might have creating the relevant propositions for instance being differentiating to your competitors creating an effect and also shape your future of the organization so designing the future of your organization these things come together and both all of the known yeah business models are
Describing this togetherness in the senses that they call these the primary and secondary activity of any business according to Porter in this case the primary activity being the one of creating the value for the customer and then the sporting activity being the one of administer and manage the
Organization so that it has all the means necessary and needed in order to fulfill the primary activity so it’s a really a balancing act that organizations have to play and bringing together design and management not separate but together equally developed on a high level so that in in
Combination they can create effect and efficiency at the same time because this is uh yeah crucial for for an organization’s capability now if we if we honest we look around or basically if we record the last 20 years for instance we can see that most businesses are very well capable of
Managing and administering their business I mean this is what has been taught as Business Schools most of the CEOs that I know have a business background they um uh they’re business people lawyers Finance experts whatever so that’s not really the issue isn’t it it’s more that the required high level
Of design capability in the broader sense even is not on an equal level it’s it’s because management is so dominating in an organization also setting the mindset the design is yeah captured provided but controlled minimized reduced most most likely being treated very efficiently and therefore not equally developed not on an equally high
Level and therefore also not yeah setting and dominating uh like management the mindset of an organization so in most of the organizations D days we have a a controlling let’s say bias and this is interesting to observe and maybe you also do this yourself so
In as I said before also in in the view of Porter an Optimum is a balance between the powers that are at play in an organization but also a a good balance a welldeveloped balance of the capabilities in an organization so that you have management and design capabilities very welldeveloped
Um and being present at all times but there is this some sort of a pendulum that might swing back and forth left and right in this case um yeah making an organization um dominating one over the other and as I said before in my observation in organizations and even in
Our society today we are uh in a management in the management area so to say this means that we’re very focused on on efficiency we are very focused on controlling what we do but also we cultivate a mindset that is fueled with doubt it’s basically the mindset that
You adopt if you truly are in that area whereas the mindset that you need in order to create to develop to design to um to create something new or change is the one that you where you act out of trust isn’t it you you need a freedom
For it you need uh a focus on effect rather than efficiency and uh and that’s what is is needed in organizations to create these outstanding very yeah refreshing new relevant Solutions so how can we get that pandum more towards the metal so that both of these competes
Competencies that are needed are are not eliminating each other but are equally developed because if you maintain a management view uh and you you’re acting out of doubt you are not trusting that much so M it means that you are reducing your time Horizons and you become very
Very shortsighted short focused you end up by overlooking a quarter so you get the quarter figures and the only thing that you will see contributing to your value is the efficiency that you can create so that’s why it’s so difficult for managers to um yeah to or designers
To break into this because there will always be you know out played by the call for even more efficiency because that’s what’s driving value creation but if you have a leader at play somebody that is also acting out of trust because it’s confident that you he
Or she can do things and you’ll see the Horizon is getting bigger and more and more Effectiveness comes in and then you will see that the effectiveness will create the value the Top Line will grow your business so for me it’s all about building a competent organizations and I
Where design and managing are equally developed and I want to dive into to this with you to show you how can we develop Management on these levels that we get a leading organization rather than a controlling organization good so let’s start with uh diving into that how can we build this
Strong design leadership how can we achieve strategic design in an organization so not just only you know the the painting up or the the beautification but really true strategic Des design there’s three things you have to do in order to achieve this first of all you have to really bring together
The silos as I mentioned as a design for a holistic experience and in that you have to empower the identity creation I will come back to that then you have to provide clear roles and Leadership so to make sure that these people involved in design can collaborate well and you have
To grow overall design maturity um coming back on the overall view on design as I mentioned what we do what the organization can do is what customers experience isn’t it so it’s it’s crucial that we start there with the notion that organizational capability is driving customer reaction
So to say it’s a bit of this idea of this backstage front stage phenomena where the capability of the backstage determines how good front stage really can be and on top of that of course it needs the right show so to say the experience that is really captivating but without this fundament
Of an operating system and and and managed well well-managed organization it will never happen and we also have to understand that what the customer then experiences is likewise very multifaceted it’s not only the user experience or the customer experience it’s also the brand experience it’s attractiveness and reputation floating around it’s a
Relevancy and the innovativeness on the customer experience level but it’s also on the user experience level the the quality and the sensibility of what people really get from an organization so all these things come together and can be measured and can be captured in order to give an indication to the
Organization whether they achieve a holistic design in lucern we created the so-called impact score but there are many other scores also available that that allow to understand what customers really feel and here I really strongly always yeah make an argument for for capturing the customer voice Beyond uh
NPS because that’s too short fetched also customer satisfaction is uh too much in a rear viw mirror approach rather do something where you can combine the various levels of customer um impact H so where you have one that is really looking into functionality which is a moreal of satisfaction review
One that’s more looking into in the felt or perceived individuality which is more uh yeah an inquiry whether you are relevant and then very crucial uh create a an understanding in how far you create emotional impact at your customer which is more related to NPS or maybe brand impact measurements
Etc and this will allow you your organization to get an understanding how capable the organizations are to to have a customer that really feels engaged whether the customer only feels a compulsory relationship or whether the customer might be satisfied or even hopefully is truly engaged with your
Organization um the field study on this instrument that we did in Switzerland recently um last end of last year so it’s just a year ago showed that customers overall and this has been confirmed uh this week also by a study in Germany by the by KPMG the customers
Are very critical these days they don’t feel any impact and so you can see here that the scores which are in line with The NPS scores so from minus 100 to plus 100 the scores are all very negative so customers yeah you have to really do something as an organization to create
Impact at the customer and there’s one other thing that we can see and learn from this data is that creation creating emotional impact is the most difficult of all the average score across these companies 20 in total we measured is minus 39 so it’s a it’s a and it’s more
Than 20% points lower than the average score for functionality so it is really difficult to create emotional impact and overall in general customers are critical towards what they hear from customers and this is uh this is something that we can notice everywhere the emotion seems to disappear from our business
Um the world is dominating maybe also by more functional issues by fear issues so people don’t see it and they don’t feel it and but they’re looking for it and they go to companies where they get it isn’t it there are companies that still can deliver an emotional setting in a
Customer experience where customers are invited to increasingly relate with the organization where even in functional environments emotional aspects can be introduced to create and more let’s say um yeah engaging effect so we do know this specifically as custom experienced people we know this that that organizations can do this and it should be
Done and this is a reflection of the capability in organizations to put this customer at the center of everything that they do and also here it is helpful to understand how well is this capability developed in an organization do the does the organization put the customer there is it just an ignorant or
Maybe fully centered and also here there are instruments to capture this VI an internal inquiry the customer centricity score which we also developed here in lucern that can Showcase in a similar level as the impact score what sort of role the customer plays and how capable the organization is to put this customer
Into the center and this this is the outcome is again uh reconfirming the story that we know for many years companies generally have a bit of a bias the employees are so much engaged in their own work that in general companies consider themselves to be quite
Capable but U but not as much as the customers think they truly are so here is this classical uh picture which is already now a couple of years old and our current data reconfirming this over and over again true yeah so the um the capability of organizations on putting
Customer Center is a is a good starting point to move on into um what then design can add to this because we know emotionality is underdeveloped there’s a the relevancy is hardly addressed so design must be play a role in this and this starts all with assigning a clear
Role to design activities major organizations deploy design no doubt about it I mean everybody knows that design is important but the way they add design skills and capability to their organization is somewhat yeah opportunistic let’s say it that way it’s done everywhere and it’s h yeah it’s
Done for all the various part so there’s there might be a brand design activity an industrial design activity user experience design work in the R&D then there might be communication design and campaign activities in marketing and sales and so forth and you’re lucky in as an organization if you have access to
These design capabilities but um some organizations don’t even have them they buy them in and then the big question is do all of these design activities can they add to the organizational capabilities and do they support the creation of a consistent and coherent customer experience and my my observation is not
Really most of the time as I men mentioned there’s a opportunistic treatment with how to deal with design so they’re mostly add-on and they’re also contradicting each other often design principles are fighting with brand principles because simply the designers don’t know each other they never collaborated and TimeWise they’re not in
Sync so there’s a lot to be done in organizations to improve this because the outcome will will be visible and will be felt by the customers so also here there has to be a new role for design a more um yeah strategic role for design where design is treated strategically so embracing
Not only formal design in the terms of you beautification but it’s also embracing the relational design which is marketing and the functional design which is R&D and bringing these things together under one so to say a design umbrella is what Dum in mburg once called this in a in a very important
Paper that they wrote bringing this together and also giving a clear leadership role to the formal design you build an excellent design capability in your organization and most organiz more most businesses don’t have this they still treat their formal design as an afterthought as an add-on and they don’t
Build a collective uh let’s say view on how these three uh levels of design work together the three functions of design so so this is design that counts it’s really the togetherness of R&D marketing and sales and branded design activities that together create what the customer is uh perceiving so it needs a
New strategic design approach something that is over that’s Binding Together I would you could almost call this the primary activity of an organization that brings these uh these entities together and coordinates it on a high high level so that’s that’s what the Strategic design means to me and should be
Implemented to achieve this though we have to improve one thing and this is the design maturity in the organization and in this case it means the maturity of the formal design activities that take place so the design that lead to Identity Creations so it starts with brand design and that goes through all
The different touch points and basically carries the positioning that is created by indentity design throughout all the various design projects that take place in an organization because only if this work is mature and only if the organization is capable in this area it can really start to have a fruitful
Collaboration between marketing and R&D where also the balance is right and where the in the collaboration through Excellence can can emerge so formal design the design um that is giving shape and articulates an identity into all of the constituents of a of an organization of course also touches the
User experience where the design of the function is generated it touches the customer experience where all the relationship to the market and the customers and so forth is shaped and of course it has its key role in creating the positioning the relevancy the sorry the the differentiation of the organization
Towards the wider World um so formal design of course is not restricted only to the form giving of the say the outer form of course it’s collaborating with all these different activities vice versa so therefore it’s important that the organization is really capable to implement this activity in a in an excellent
Way and there are many ways to describe the maturity of these activities most of you might know the this design letter which is is a maturity Model A step model actually it’s not a letter it’s a step model where the design capability is described on these three
Levels so so the capability of being able to implement on a high level uh the capability to spread the activities across the organization so it’s more like the process strength and capability and of course the capability to embed it on a strategic leading level H where it touches the brand identity setting
And where it sets the directives of all the organization and over the years many attempts have been made to yeah to describe the maturity levels and also to find out what are criteria um that we can Define so that we maybe can measure the level of Competency or capability in an
Organization and and since that’s my hobby creating measurement tools this is exactly what I did over a study of many years years actually I started with composing a so-called maturity model which is taking the clues from from scholars in the past like bit the mozota and also the design letter from KRA the
Staircase model and I kind of unified this in this sort of maturity model and uh that is basically the starting point of describing the capability of design in an organization and in a study that was sponsored by Mia and USM thankfully so that we could do this I
Was able to assess and validate 57 um organizations in German speaking countries to create something like a score a scoring indication of how well do organizations U manage design are capable in in including design in their organizations and also it was of course needed in order to generate the the the
Assessment model for capability yeah this is the outcome again a lot of red very little green um so the in total I have now 18 criteria that Define capability level of design in organization and they are split up over these three levels as you can see design strategy design planning and design
Realization so the the the being the thinking and the doing part and then we can see that most of these criteria which are you know about for instance obtaining and ensuring resources or Harmon harmonizing design projects across the company or positioning the the design as a strategic um entity
These are graded by the 70 sorry 57 companies mostly as being underdeveloped uh so the there’s actually only two criteria which were graded positively which is the knoow of the organization to deal with design professionals and the professionalism of the design professionals involved all the other criteria which as you can see
Are mainly managerial related activities in order to capture and ensure design are rated negatively in average so the average is minus 20 again this is the same NPS scoring model that we have and the top tier group so those with a high score so with the this were all the
Companies with an average score of 9 and 10 um has at least has a top average score of 46 and the low tier group so those that have rated six and lower minus 74 so there’s a substantial difference here in the scoring and here it’s interesting to see how the top
Groups top performing organizations are different from low performing organizations whether they have a different culture whether they maybe have different success criteria attached to them in order to start to build a correlation between between design capability and organizational success and this what I did in the study
So I think you know by just reflecting the growth of the organizations we can see that this top group so the group with excellent and or very welldeveloped design capabilities consider themselves to be stable and very working very much above the market so there’s no criticism in this respect
And whereas the low companies generally already say that yeah we’re stable or yeah we even have some areas below Market you I I would assume that respondents have a bit of a twisted a little bit but there’s a clear indication yeah top companies see this uh this issue quite
Differently likewise in the resilience that they feel and here we are back to the issue of you know acting out of Doubt versus acting out of trust top companies are predominantly optimistic they have an optimistic Outlook that very much showed also in the qualitative feedback that they gave uh so three
Quarters are saying yeah you know our future is optimistic we think we’re resilient we can overcome struggles lying ahead of us because we’re capable in in dealing with challenges whereas the low company yeah a quarter almost sees themselves as critically positioned towards the future so here I think you
Can see in the low company you know the D might be dominating the mindset whereas in the top company the trust is more you know present and hopefully very well balanced with a doubtful um attitude as well so just this this combination of of both things present for those interested in all the
Details in this um the study you can download study um on the website of pan design German design support organization is also available in English by the way yeah so to sum this whole thing up the Strategic design um is is recognized as something that really helps organizations to create an economic
Added value amongst other things so there’s a lot of questions that I’ve asked and clearly this is where all the average of all this 57 organizations say yes you know this will adds us but the same sample when it comes to the design resources Clearly say that they don’t
See themselves having the appropriate resources it needs so there is no capability present um we are not prioritizing in the right way so for me is this is a clear signal that there’s a huge potential that has been just not enabled in organizations um a huge potential which requires organizations to adopt an
Excellency mindset of course you cannot do this by just you know plotting along or managing your business you really have to adopt design and strategy and employees you have to also integrate all your design activities in into one orchestrated uh approach and you have to start to manage your design activities
Obviously much better you cannot leave it over to the agency or to the designer that you hire organizations have to develop their own capability in design or with design or for design in order to leverage that potential yes so closing off um as I mentioned before you get the customers
You deserve so your customers will only be as good as your organization is capable of creating an outstanding customer experience that is part of a user experience or or surrounding a user experience and embedded in the brand experience so it’s about enabling the the capabilities in your organizations that will create a
Success because in the end people us we all of us we don’t buy the management of a company do we we buy the design clearly that’s what is delivering us the value so thank you very much for your attention and I think we have a some good time left to maybe answer some
Questions exactly so we have here from thank you very much it was a great presentation now we have some San is just making observation and we have a question for Maran that I will show in few seconds if you want to relate to the to what
S saying yeah so yeah I just reading here um I don’t know what’s the first name CM I would assume I hope I pronounce it right yeah so it’s again the inter twinkling or the the combination I think I would call it the collaboration because in the end these
Are still different corporate functions with their own methodologies and approaches and processes most likely but they have to be um they have to be yeah guided into a a collaboration that has one common outcome in in View and the outcome always has to be customer impact
Because in the end you know if you if you are setting up a campaign or if you’re creating a proposition portfolio or if you adopting your pricing model whatever it is you do or even from an RD perspective you know if you change the whatever the the technology platform of
Your product or whatever it always comes together at a customer as a unified impact because customers do not separate oh that’s from the R&D Department oh that’s comes from the sales and service department oh this is coming from let’s say the brand design department they they perceive this together and judge
The quality of what they get together and that’s also why I always say don’t start to measure the results of your organization in for silos adopt to have a unified measurement at the customer and then from that try to Foster and grow collaboration so for instance have everybody confronting with the same um
Uh measurements so if you’re in if you would C do customer impact score and it would show that to marketing R&D and branding and all the functions at the same time and say this is guys what we all do then might help to sort out improved collaboration I saw something else
Popping up but it what going ah I show you one second we have a question here from Maran MH yeah based on the design maturity how one business that owns the different brands can deal with again there there are companies that are let’s say a house of brands for
Instance that you know are just a conglomerate maybe with a lot of brands in them or fcgs that that use brands in order that are product Brands basically or service Brands I think think they are they are are challenge in the sense that um they for every brand for every
Customer facing promise that they make that is related to an identity they have to make sure that the collaboration is put in place so of course they can they can build up a matrix organization with corporate functions where the brand is lying across and at every you know
Intersection point a brand manager for instance can utilize um the the capability of an engineer or web designer or just or a sales service um person but again uh the Viewpoint has to be a customer Centric so in the end um a responsible brand manager for instance
For multiple brands has to adopt a customer Centric View and has to also in that sense have a a clear directive towards the organization by saying guys we are building a coherent and consistent customer EXP experience so these are the the parameters that that are relevant and they have to be brand
Related parameters so like corporate like brand identity parameters that will set and Define the requirements towards R&D or sales and service so that they understand okay this is how we have to fit in our our capability into providing this holistic experience so it’s a challenging thing but in the end I think
The outcome is same if you’re walking through an aisle and you’re shopping for toothpaste and you you remember an ad from a brand or you remember something else and then again as a customer you have all these impact levels coming or making making up this impact in your
Mind at the same time so it in the end it’s the outcome is always the same so Mike winterstein is a great he he does a very creative work around the US and the globe MH and he’s a great friend as well and he is very similar to you I think
He’s your he’s your um your twin in Us in C way then we have to meet up yeah yeah he’s a very nice guy um Bart is saying here about uh let me see here Bart thank you he just thank you and we have a question for you so you mentioned in the
Beginning about silos and that’s obvious as we have to break silos we would like to know what is your approach for breaking silos because everybody have a different approach we want to hear yours what’s your your thoughts about that I think the only thing that can truly
Break a silo as a customer um because in the end you know I mean some organizations are truly resistant and the The Silo culture is so strong that even a customer um cannot break through and those those organizations are doomed to fail and and doomed to to be
Extinguished because in the end and that’s what I think Porter said yeah the reason to have a business is to have a customer why because the customer will break through the silos so if in the discussions I also had it in Phillips um when we started to relate more and more
With business groups with the different functions and there was sometimes a lot of tension you know because we had we still had different views on the customer the one group thought the customer was a user as mentioned the other one thought the customer is just a purchaser a consumer yeah the other one
Thought the customer is yeah a person to relate to by building an identity relationship so aligning for instance on how do we see the customer is very helpful installing sessions talking about the customer how everybody is relating to him or her and then trying to align on a common
View so building a customer Persona is Unified that is adopted by everybody and with that starting not to Break Down The Silo but to build Bridges Across The Silo to to build a connection between The Silo that’s a very interesting way because silos silos you
Will never take away I mean i’ now I’m like 30 years plus in in businesses and I don’t think it will ever go away and to be honest I’m sitting at a university right now I have to watch what I’m saying but the universities are the cators of the silos because in our
Universities we have departments and we have uh the business department we have the technology department we have the design Department sociology Department that’s where it all begins so if we want to take away the silos we have to redesign the universities will not happen better is to create a process that connects
Everything yeah Michael Mike that I told you before about him he is just saying that you are brothers of of other what another we have a question here from Uh sama um can you share a few companies that fall under the top companies yeah of course I
Cannot name them because this the study was done anonymously I know them because for a large deal the respondents were were you know they were addressed via the national design Institute so this was just not a random study so I know most of the companies and their names but I cannot disclose
Them but um there’s one um case there were two cases the company Mia and the company USM which is known for their high quality steel F fiture both of the companies underwent an audit so not only an assessment but a real audit so I interviewed all the management team
Members from all the silos and Consolidated a very Broad View on organizational capability and this was needed in order to understand whether the the model was really yeah cutting cake so to say or really working and and Mila for instance achieved a quite a good
Score but was not yet in the top group I think I can disclose that um so it it had an excellent result in uh in positioning work and also um yeah you know achieving a clear positioning which for very much adopted by the organization the design uh capability uh group was also
Recognized but they had issues in efficiency like any company like even the top companies their big issue is in efficiency in design what what does this mean it means that in most of these companies the top companies as well design is still not authorized so the design teams often have no chance to
Push back on decisions made or sometimes it’s even incentified Contra contraproductive because design teams are incentified to run projects because they have project budgets now I know this because I worked in Phillips like this for 20 years almost and the more budget the better which not always is the right decision
To take sometimes maybe as a design team you should say no we don’t do this project because it doesn’t fit in our brand position and then you lose budget now if you are accountable for your budget you don’t want to lose budget so even the top companies have a lot of
Issues built in them in the way they’re organized which is counterproductive to adopting Excellency models so we have a thanks here from Lis is telling you thank you and you have a question from uh El Elise do you have ideas on how to break silos when working B2B to see to see
Context where in design maybe across a multiple companies yeah together companies deliver a end user experience yeah yeah I think I I would tend to repeat what I said before because it says to B to B to C I mean you can make this list endlessly you can say B2B to
B2B to2 to2 B2 C in the end there will always be a customer which will be a user a consumer a passenger buy or somebody that or maybe a a citizen you know somebody that is at the end point or is let’s say the the the the personality the person that will enable
Value creation because up to a certain point value creation is just adding the work of B to B to be you know a bolt will put in the machine the machine will put in an apparatus the operatus will fuel the product the product will fuel the
Service and the service in the end will be of service to somebody so I think in in illustrating the desires needs and wants of that that person that is the value Creator so to say the end user you could call them or the end consumer the
End person and use that along the value chain also Downstream you know up to maybe suppliers in materials yeah I mean I remember from from from Phillips days that we once had a user Persona created and we went with this whole scenario model even to suppliers of
Materials in those days it was about more EC degrad EOS uh impact it was about degradable materials it was about stuff that you know we had to convince Downstream sorry Upstream wrong the other way the suppliers of materials wrong direction the suppliers of materials and so forth and by showing
Them this is what the impact will be of what you will do with your material to the end end end end customer it might convince them to adopt into it to collaborate better so I will use the same methodology same approach always think from customer we have one observation here
For you of a reader of your book yeah yeah hello yeah uh we have a question for you to S to start summarizing um how would you uh summarize the significance and influence of design on outcomes in customer centricity in the tech companies in Europe and what areas is still require
Attention here in Europe and you can say about the world but what’s your thoughts about that companies are not taking design as you and me take and Mike take yeah that’s a total different approach and they don’t understand that that’s the core the the the the the the pillar
Of adoption and outcomes and grow Etc so what’s your take on that yeah I think we can refer back to the the pendulum that swings back and right that that’s now fully in the camp of the of the so-called forgive me the word but it’s a bit of a management culture of course
Managers are not always like that but it’s dominating the manager culture which is a a mindset that acts predominantly out of doubt and it’s not bad for those that really follow my story I I I do an appeal for both to be present not for one to be present now in organizations
And this is dominating um the business and Society currently there’s a domination of management thinking of of doubtful thinking um which has to be counterbalanced by a more free-spirited more creative more open explorative thinking even to a certain point where I would say that even designers become
Tend to become more doubtful these days you know they are also very much fearful and not always looking into Improvement and betterment uh so so so I think it’s a huge Challenge and I think that’s what businesses miss it I think it shows in results I think those organizations it showed in
My study it also shows in other studies also the McKenzie study that organizations that are capable to build um design competency are the more successful ones because they’re they’re able to to create better overall outcome which emotionalize on a higher level which is more relevant to customers the
Outcome is more relevant and most likely also the base function is more sustainable more reliable and more qualitative and I think that’s that’s something that has to happen design and simplicity is what really makes a company as a very very successful and there’s a a research in sa and Gale that
I used many years ago that they showed the correlation of companies investing design investing simplicity and the grow of the companies compar with companies that are not doing that that’s very interesting point we have another observation here from from SEMA cost impact is outcomes yeah yes exactly I would agree yeah
That’s that that the the understanding what I read here customer understand and empathetic design to deliver value that’s that’s what I would call the customer centricity of an organization which is also an organizational capability um and and here you can see that uh as I mentioned sometimes
Organizations tend to be a bit more positive towards how they see themselves um but it it’s it’s good if if you if you start to look into the mirror very very honestly it’s like with the sports person I mean I had a sport career in the past and then sometimes you you tell
Yourself yo you can do it you know you can win this race and then you end up you know being the bunch so you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself okay so what do I really need to do to be better next time around I’m not saying
That the whole world is a competition but just as an analogy and then you have to be trust about trust to be honest about yourself and say well I might not be good in this and I might not be as good as I could be in that and then you
Have to train you have to develop and this is also something where I see a lot of organizations falling short they’re not understanding that they have to train I mean in the sense of practice you know it’s like no master falls from the sky if you if you’re a musician you spend
Every day hours and and then young CA CEO comes in the company says let’s do this ping ping ping and you ask yourself so where’s where’s the practice here you know and organizations also will not change from one day to over the other by just having a new shareholder or having
A new CEO it will not it will not improve over over day you can see time it takes time and you have to have a good trainer a good coach in the organization a CEO that’s coaching the organization to become better as whole I think this is what you see in in these
Companies that I Amire in Germany there’s company DM drug chain big drug chain company that has a coaching culture uh so yeah we find maybe other organizations that also have that I think that’s that’s the key so be honest about yourself and and and try to have everybody adopting a culture
Of continuous Improvement we have more two questions one from Mike here for you and another one for us and then we are going to start to wrap up okay maybe talk a little about putting design friendly guide rails into AI boots that people in different departments will be using
Opportun challenges yeah I think to me this sounds a bit more like um on on the systems or process level that uh tools and methods can Aid in in in you know uh improving also collaboration Al across departmental work um because in the end it’s of course
Also a bit about adheren and following guidelines and setting and given Direction strategic design also means that there is a strategy and everybody has to adhere to the strategy so if there are ways to improve the acceptance of directives fire for instance Smarter Tools or Bots or other activities that
Can improve the adoption of strategies yes I all I’m all for it but it starts also with again it starts with the uh the culture of the people so if if if they reject a strategic perspective given by somebody for a purpose saying okay okay we’re sheer driving pleasure
That’s our objective just name one and then somebody in the R&D department has this idea you know what I just invent self-driving cars and the passenger can sit in the back the sorry the driver can sit in the back I kick out the steering wheel forget all about it yeah sorry
That won’t work if you if you’re promising sheer driving pleasure it’s it should be focused around the driver isn’t it so that’s what the it starts with with having good directives and and um which will improve the adoption rate and then I can imagine that these tools
Will also Aid and help in the adoption yeah yeah Michael is saying yeah yeah that yeah I mean that’s a that’s a wet dream of every manager to have a bot that can do things very cheaply and effectively and and also hopefully uh in the right way uh then
Definitely efficiency always will be an issue as I said it’s both it’s not either or you cannot ask for more design and and then yeah hope that somebody else will give in yeah so yeah that’s Professor Yan thank you so much for your time to come in here to talk with us was
Really appreciated great session very effective how do people can find you they can find me on LinkedIn I’m I’m pretty active there and and my website of course which is my name with Yan Eric Bars all written together I’ll take that with your presentation later to post in
The in in the places so then we can we can share that right that you share the presentation later yes yeah if it’s if it’s kept among the community then SC because there are some pictures in there which I don’t think I have all the rights for so perfect so you have first
To take that to avoid actually I was Su it because I took a picture from somebody else so I have to we have to be careful about that today all right thank you very much everyone for coming for the European customer experience was a pleasure to have you here and you have
More sessions in the early 2004 all right and we are doing a lots of work right now to create our educational program and other things that are coming in 2004 thank you so much 2024 sorry oops have a lovely have a lovely week and we will talk soon thank you so
Much thanks Ricardo for having me
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