Developing a Cuostemers-Oriented Organization
- While we tend to be engrossed in our own
thinking, it is important not to lose perspective on how we receive goods and
services as customers and how we also provide these as suppliers. Our society
is composed of networks of customer-supplier relationships.
- The recent trends both in international
events and the business environment indicate a shift in the power base from the
traditional one to that based on people taking more ownership.
- Customer-supplier relationships exist in
our own organization as well. Whether it is processing information or
materials, as in the case of processing end users' voices to design to manufacturing,
etc., or processing parts from operation A to B to C, etc., every person in the
organization needs to satisfy his or her customer(s) to make the system work.
- To share this point, it is advisable to
develop a customer- supplier relationship chart for each unit of the organization.
If everybody is customer-oriented, we can develop a total goal- oriented
organization as opposed to locally focused (i.e., self- centered) organization.
- Centralized control may be ineffective in
decision making and in utilizing people's capabilities today, especially when
people's abilities have increased.
- As we develop a customer-oriented
approach, we will find a more developed and refined flow of work in addressing
the needs of customers, but not necessarily with the lines of authority found
in traditional organizations.
- Understanding the customers' minds, clarifying
their needs, establishing the flow of work accordingly, and doing these better
continuously, we can break the cumbersome organizational barriers and shift
towards a more progressive organization.
- For this to happen, every person in the
organization needs to focus on satisfying his or her customers, internal and
external. As everybody does this, they also benefit since the customer-
supplier relationship is a closed loop system.