New research from continuous product design (CPD) firm Quantum Metric uncovers why businesses must build their culture around the needs of their customers to meet the rapid expectations of digital experiences.
“In today’s digital-first world, a company’s web or mobile experience is as critical to customer success as the products or services they actually sell,” said Mario Ciabarra, CEO of Quantum Metric, in a news release. “Working with the top digital leaders, we’ve seen how a customer-centric culture can transform an organization and drive effective innovation at scale. Our report further proves this and spotlights digital innovators who have fully invested in continuous product design to build meaningful digital experiences.”
The new report, Aligning Your Entire Organization Around the Customer, in partnership with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, features interviews with top digital leaders at HSBC, Virgin Voyages, Canadian Tire and Seera Group to capture first-hand examples of how Continuous Product Design minimizes organizational friction and helps leaders align their teams around customer needs. This is supported by findings from recent Harvard Business Review Analytic Services’ surveys and research, which cite the need for a more customer-centric approach to digital design.
Key takeaways from the report include:
CPD empowers digital businesses to harness quantified empathy
Customers today are looking for a more human experience from digital brands. Digital leaders such as Michael Spiteri, global head of transformation and innovation for HSBC Life and Insurance Partnerships, find using customer insight to uncover common struggles in the digital experience creates long-term value and engagement.
Customer-centricity evolves product design away from feature-factories
CPD empowers organizations to make product decisions based on customer needs. Ronnie Varghese, vice president of digital product at Seera Group cites how CPD helped his organization evolve from building features for pipeline, to directly responding to customer struggles.
Technology isn’t enough; culture is key
Harvard Business Review Analytic Services found 84 percent of executives cite culture as a key “pillar” of digital transformation. At Virgin Voyages, Mariana Fonseca, vice president for ecommerce, notes that minimizing friction starts by acknowledging the challenges in cross-team communication and a CPD platform can serve as the needed collaboration tool.
Digital transformation starts with leadership
To achieve a customer-centric culture, leadership needs to subscribe to the practices of CPD. John Koryl, president of CTC Digital at Canadian Tire says a digital strategy must be guided by an overarching corporate strategy addressing “What do you want to be for your customer?”
