Page 21 - CSA Speaker Bulletin September 2016 | CSA Celebrity Speakers
P. 21
BOARDROOM DIALOGUE
Mission customer and align all of your activities for “support departments” who claim
Critical: against this! not to be customer facing).
Aligning
Decision This was easy in P&G as it was part 3.Stop as many projects as
Making to of the culture. However, on leaving possible. At Eurostar, when
your Business P&G, it became clear that the real
Goals decision making challenge was, not in your business is losing several million
identifying the right thing to do for the pounds, it is easy to develop a long
HAMISH TAYLOR customer, but in getting confidence list of perfectly justifiable projects. I
that the decision-making by the did this …. and failed. However, one
When I started my career as a Brand rest of your team was properly thing was more important than all else
Manager with Procter & Gamble, aligned to this goal. – Leisure revenue. So what if that is
the standard currency for a Brand’s the only thing we do for the next few
performance was market share. Here are some lessons I learned months?
Why? Because winning the customer (usually by getting it wrong first time)
preference battle was seen as the in how to do this? The key? Ruthless 4.Communicate and re-
primary route to profit. As a result, the simplicity! communicate every day!
customer was seen as the key to
all decision making: - Identify the 1.Create a very simple Amongst other things, I put a note
“benefit” you wish to deliver to the customer promise on my door: “if you are not coming
to talk to me about Leisure revenue,
describing the customer benefit (eg then don’t bother knocking!”. In other
BA business class “Arrive Ready for words, create every bit of “theatre”
business”) and the 2-3 ways this would you can to get your focus message
show up for a customer (eg more across.
sleep, less airport hassle etc).
5.Make it Easy:- Even if you have
2.Align all departments done a brilliant communication job
behind this (what is your role?). – it is not enough. You also need to
find ways of helping staff to implement
Regardless of technical discipline, your decisions. You are asking your
ensure everyone’s job description and staff to do something new – so help
workload is focused on this (no escape them to take the first steps. n
HAMISH TAYLOR has been a
management consultant at Price
Waterhouse, Head of Brands at
British Airways and CEO of Eurostar
and Sainsbury’s Bank. He is a
driver of innovation and change
in a number of very different
environments.
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