Organising for Digital

The traditional organisation is, in theory, optimised to operate as efficiently as possible - to do what it does with the least amount of effort. These structures were originally driven by the desire of the organisation to manage costs. If, in your new digital world, the customer really is the most important element in your business then this model is out of date. A traditional hierarchy can easily confuse a customer and make any but their most basic interaction less efficient from their perspective. If you are to be a Digital Organisation, then the customer's perspective needs to trump all others.

Imagine an organisation that, through acquisition and the simple passage of time, has multiple marketing departments. Each of them addressing overlapping segments of the customer base and using their own technology solutions and data sets. It wouldn't be hard to see a situation where one poor individual is contacted 18 times in a 2 week period - that's only 3 contacts per marketing group. The chances are that as many as half of these contacts will relate to subjects outside of their area of interest, they could be addressed multiple different ways, each of the mails could have a different look and feel and some of the messages will therefore inevitably be contradictory. Add to this the related customer service departments, multiple products and finance groups and you quickly have the sort of customer experience that hits social networks and severely damages reputations.

This seems like an extreme example but in my experience is surprisingly common across organisations of all sizes, ages and industries. We have all seen delivered products presenting a different image to marketing collateral, Customer Service not able to actually service a customer because "That's in a different system" and Finance chasing bad debts whilst owing refunds to the same customer.

The root-cause of these tragic customer experiences is the old fashioned, hierarchical, siloed organisation chart.

Organisation Inversion

Organisations need to be turned inside out. If the customer really is at the heart of an organisation, then the organisation structure needs to reflect this. I have attempted to model what this might look like in the chart below.

The inner-most ring, closest to the customer, is a part of the organisation that I call Customer Ambassadors. This very small and select group is effectively the voice of the customer. They should spend considerable time talking to customers to understand their needs and what they do and don't like about current products. They are then responsible for ensuring that product strategies are coordinated and focussed on these customer insights.

The next level are the Solution Delivery Squads. These dedicated, cross functional teams are made up of every individual and role required to deliver a defined set of products or services. The example here shows a few Digital Product squads with the technical resources required working alongside marketing professionals, data analysts, operations and anyone else required to make that team as self-contained as possible. They are led by a Product Manager who is responsible for prioritising their work and a Technical Lead who ensures that it is delivered in a sustainable way.

As an illustration of squads that are not necessarily delivering a product, I have included a Customer Services squad, with technology, data analysts and user experience people embedded in the same team as the customer service agents. In this case the Product Manager should be seen as managing a service rather than a product. A similar approach could also be followed to support internal business operations with a Business Technology squad.

These squads are surrounded by the Support & Governance layer of the organisation. This layer ensures that the squads are doing the right thing in the right way and that each squad are continually looking for better ways to operate and service the customer.

We must recognise that individuals need structure within their own specialisms; that people's growth and development need to be supported. A Technical Lead is not the right person to help manage a Marketing professional's career and a Product Manager is not the right person to do this for a QA Engineer. The Support and Governance layer therefore includes Community of Practice heads who are there to ensure that each individual has someone to help them manage their career. These individuals are also responsible for setting community of practice specific strategies and best practices, to be applied across all of the squads.

The penultimate ring is the Enterprise Support Services layer. These are the teams that make every organisation actually operate, Finance, Legal, HR, etc. I have included the Sales function in this layer as product specific sales groups are liable to confuse the customer when overlaps occur - which they will.

Finally, the outermost ring is Executive Management. They are there to oversee the whole organisation, monitor performance, set strategy and identify new customer segments and markets.

Effectiveness Wins Over Efficiency

This is a model, and no model will ever cover all eventualities, but I feel it illustrates how an organisation can be customer-centric and still perform with an acceptable level of efficiency. If an organisation truly wants to deliver the value that Digital promises, the old inward facing hierarchies should be put out to pasture in favour of a new ring structure. Hopefully we can all agree that any perceived reduction in efficiency is more than compensated for by a step change in effectiveness and a much better experience for the customer.