A Revamped Business Model: The Introduction of Customer Centric
New challenges need new responses. The common organizational model looks like the generic drainpipe structure, meeting the mammalian need for an ordered hierarchy and flow of power within a business.
Most companies have evolved in the last 2 decades and their functioning has become almost entirely customer centric. Their customers’ priorities drive most of the business workings. The traditional drainpipe model frequently stifles customer responsiveness and innovation, therefore there is a clear need for a new standardized customer centric model of business.
The new customer centric model starts with customers at the apex of the organization. It is the customers’ needs which the organization is trying to serve, so directly aligned with the customers is the sales team. The function of the sales team is to have an intimate understanding of the customers’ needs. Only then can an organization create successful products. An organization can outsource almost everything else it does, but it can never outsource its sales.
Two other key functions which are equally important and support the sales team is marketing and research & development. Between these three we form the top tier of the modern organization’s structure.
