Organisational purpose reimagined

In essence, all businesses exist because they solve problems for their customers. They flourish if they either solve problems better than the customers themselves or do it better or cheaper than the alternatives already available on the market.

However, few big businesses think of themselves as problem-solvers. As start-ups mature into unicorns and big businesses, the language and concepts used internally tend to shift towards talking about ‘bringing superior products and services to market’ and ‘the unique competitive advantages of the business model’ applied. Strategic thinking becomes about selling more, selling across, selling up and selling new to maximise the lifetime value of target customers. It is a very different vocabulary if you think carefully about it. Gone are the humble days of solving customer problems. Now it is all about pushing products to customers using brilliant marketing and sales tactics. Companies have gravitated towards ‘inside-out thinking’.

Perhaps this description is a little black and white? Fortunately, big businesses often encounter a moment of truth when they recognise they need to reconnect with their entrepreneurial past. Their ‘outside-in’ starting point, if you will. This is often seen in the form of corporate-wide customer centricity programmes or user-driven innovation efforts launched to really understand the needs of the customer. Perhaps even before the customer itself understands.

Questioning the purpose of customer centricity

In recent years, customer centricity has become something of a science, involving armies of marketers, design thinkers and even sophisticated anthropologists, tasked with understanding what the customer really wants. Or even ‘getting under the skin’ to uncover unarticulated latent needs that the customer itself has yet to become aware of. Getting closer to customers brings the business back to its starting point as a trusted problem-solver for its customers. And solving newly discovered significant customer problems offers the potential to unleash new growth.

But the science of getting back to one’s roots might have a severely overlooked flipside, as the methodologies to return to being customer-centric largely ignore the qualities and characteristics of the problems found. The methodologies seemingly say that if many customers have the same problem and exhibit a strong willingness to pay for a solution, then a company should grasp the opportunity. But as businesses turn their attention to a more nuanced theory of stakeholder value creation, mindless fulfilment of big customer needs seems highly questionable (read more about. Perhaps the marginal utility of yet another product or service becomes negative? Even the basis and fundamental purpose of the organisation might be questionable.