Customer Moments and the End-to-End Journey to Simplicity: CX Acceleration

 

Simplicity attracts customers. Help me shop and sign up for coverage. Help me help myself. Help me manage my health and find the right care. This is essence of what consumers want.  It’s the same needs when they reach out to public and private exchanges searching for healthcare. Why is it then, that we’re not able to give them this simple service? The answer is simplicity.

  • Leonardo da Vinci summarized this well when he said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” (originally in Italian “La semplicità è l’ultima sofisticazione”).

 

  • Christine Romans, CNN’s chief business correspondent wrote a book called “Smart Is the New Rich,” and she wrote “The ultimate luxury is simplicity.”

 

  • Richard Austin Freeman from the book “The Eye of Osiris” has more flare when he wrote: “simplicity is the soul of efficiency.”

 

Solution: Help your organization find simplicity.

 

Businesses today are focused on assets.  If we’re talking about health exchanges the focus is on call centers, operations, finance and technology. If we’re in manufacturing we’re talking about suppliers, producers, source material and buyers. If we’re talking about banking the focus is on margin, head office (HQ or corporate), regional branches, financial risk and investments. In each of these examples the big picture is missed.  Yes, the executives and the leaders that run your company have gotten lost in details (most of which should be delegated).

 

Solution: Build your strategy on the big picture.

 

Building a consumer experience (CX) is about the journey.  It’s about cross functional engagement and stepping back to gain a broader perspective you’d otherwise not have the benefit of realizing. Understanding the customer, throughout the lifecycle of value (in short designing for value).  Value based operating models, tilts asset management conventionally done by silos, toward insights that drive strategy and move toward design-to-value.

 

Solution: Leverage journey maps to transform the consumer experience: don’t drive through functions.

 

We say we want our teams to innovate, but do we actually?  We say we are looking for advances in product, service and monetization models.  The actions and behavior of leaders need to reflect this design-to-value desire.  As our processes mature we become more efficient (not effective, more efficient). Efficiency removes variability.  Variability removes innovation. By our very quest to be efficient we are eroding our organizational agility to be innovative.  Don’t steer your teams, let them flow.  Simply – guide your organizations.

 

Solution: Don’t depend on steerage, let the process flow.

 

References

Abbott, S. (2006). Customer Crossroads: Complexity versus Simplicity: It’s Time for Simplicity (online image). Retrieved June 17, 2015, from http://arc.typepad.com/customercrossroads/2006/03/its_time_for_si.html

 

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Peter is a technology executive with over 20 years of experience, dedicated to driving innovation, digital transformation, leadership, and data in business. He helps organizations connect strategy to execution to maximize company performance. He has been recognized for Digital Innovation by CIO 100, MIT Sloan, Computerworld, and the Project Management Institute. As Managing Director at OROCA Innovations, Peter leads the CXO advisory services practice, driving digital strategies. Peter was honored as an MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award Finalist in 2015 and is a regular contributor to CIO.com on innovation. Peter has led businesses through complex changes, including the adoption of data-first approaches for portfolio management, lean six sigma for operational excellence, departmental transformations, process improvements, maximizing team performance, designing new IT operating models, digitizing platforms, leading large-scale mission-critical technology deployments, product management, agile methodologies, and building high-performance teams. As Chief Information Officer, Peter was responsible for Connecticut’s Health Insurance Exchange’s (HIX) industry-leading digital platform transforming consumerism and retail-oriented services for the health insurance industry. Peter championed the Connecticut marketplace digital implementation with a transformational cloud-based SaaS platform and mobile application recognized as a 2014 PMI Project of the Year Award finalist, CIO 100, and awards for best digital services, API, and platform. He also received a lifetime achievement award for leadership and digital transformation, honored as a 2016 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leader. Peter is the author of Learning Intelligence: Expand Thinking. Absorb Alternative. Unlock Possibilities (2017), which Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times No. 1 bestseller Triggers, calls "a must-read for any leader wanting to compete in the innovation-powered landscape of today." Peter also authored The Power of Blockchain for Healthcare: How Blockchain Will Ignite The Future of Healthcare (2017), the first book to explore the vast opportunities for blockchain to transform the patient experience. Peter has a B.S. in C.I.S from Bentley University and an MBA from Quinnipiac University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He earned his PMP® in 2001 and is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Masters in Business Relationship Management (MBRM) and Certified Scrum Master. As a Commercial Rated Aviation Pilot and Master Scuba Diver, Peter understands first hand, how to anticipate change and lead boldly.