How to reorganize your company by truly putting the customer at the center

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you, you’ll have to ask my colleague.” “Look, let me speak with the relevant department and get back to you.”

For a customer looking for a solution to their problem, there are no answers more frustrating than these.

Indeed, many organizations preach the mantra of being a “customer-centric” company, but then – after designing flawless processes on paper – they go through ten different handoffs between functions before delivering value to the customer.

Those who have embraced Lean – or even the Scrum framework – know that to be fast in this mission, you need to build cross-functional teams of employees, all aligned toward serving the customer. Teams of extraordinary specialists who stand between value and the customer with their functional rigidity are of little use.

In this article, we want to explain how to achieve reorganization by truly putting the customer at the center. And for those of us who associate the word “reorganization” with “layoffs,” we want to emphasize above all that this is an opportunity to reshape teams and support functions, rather than asking every manager for a “linear budget cut.”

Let’s look at an example: a patient in pain walks into a hospital admissions desk. What is their priority, the value they are seeking? A cure, of course.

But at the desk, they start explaining that their data will be written down on a form, then passed from the front desk to the triage IT system, where the relevant department (which we know is understaffed) will pick up their ticket and give the green light to prepare a stretcher. The medical staff on duty will then be alerted, and once they give their approval, the front desk will be notified to call their name so someone can go and collect them.

Needless to say, the patient couldn’t care less about how the hospital is organized. They just care about being treated and getting back into perfect shape.

In other words, organizational roles – and the processes they trigger – must guarantee value for the customer, regardless of the path and resources used to achieve it.

We must avoid finding ourselves in a situation where the operation was a success, but the patient died: an excellent process, we might say in that case, but with no value delivered to the customer.

So, how do you successfully reorganize your company by putting the customer at the center? The approach used by Lenovys consists of the 5 steps of Value Stream Re-Organization (VSrO).
The company (or the single department) is guided to:

• First, define the value to be achieved, translating it into clear medium- to long-term goals
• List the main macro-processes through which this value will be pursued
• Break down the customer value into a specific statement of excellence for each macro-process (or Value Stream)
• Implement the activities that characterize the flow, clearly assigning them to actors and functions in synergy with their objectives (organizational structure, roles, duties, KPIs, and skills). This starts with the statements mentioned above, which capture the ideal process, the asymptote that will probably never be reached
• Verify the consistency of the system, which must demonstrate maximum alignment and synergy between role, department, and business objectives.

With the approach outlined here, we achieve a lean and “tight” structure, with roles and duties tailored to the customer’s needs (rather than based on available people, an approach that leads to forced adjustments that are never effective or sustainable).

Any examples? If the value for my customer is walking into a store and finding the products they need on the shelves, ready for purchase in individual sections (lighting, upholstery, hardware, plumbing, gardening…), my organization must reflect this need in a matrix structure based on the product sector.

This is exactly what happens in some large-scale retail companies (GDO), where the departments we visit in-store are perfectly mirrored in the organizational structure of the Buying Headquarters. There is no standard Marketing, Logistics, Purchasing, or Sales department… instead, there is a “Fresh Product” department, a “Carpentry” department, and so on. The team working together is made up of all the key players needed to deliver that specific value to the customer (from the dedicated “cheese” buyer to the marketing specialist and the supply chain planner). And their reporting manager is not the head of a function (marketing, logistics, purchasing…), but the “Head of the Fresh Products Department.”

Similarly, if my business involves creating pharmaceutical formulas for major brands, designed and developed so my clients can quickly launch them on the market, excellence must lie in providing potential clients with reliable feasibility confirmations and price quotes within guaranteed timeframes. This is why Labomar, a contract manufacturer in the dietary supplement sector, rewrote its organization and fostered a tight synergy between R&D and Sales. The working group established precise organizational routines which, combined with tailor-made roles and responsibilities, allow information to flow smoothly without exposing the development staff to the disruption of constant market demands (which are instead buffered by the sales team).

In this article, we have examined the pivotal elements of a reorganization designed to support either market growth or a drastic market downturn.
It is essential to start by defining customer value and designing the excellent organization required to pursue this result.

By doing so, you will easily leave behind the sequential logic typical of siloed organizations (often perceived as standalone compartments that can be expanded or compressed at will). Instead, you will transition to organic logic where success is achieved by rallying around a single goal, anticipating and resolving any obstacles that prevent value from flowing smoothly to the customer.