Disrupt or be Disrupted

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Disrupt or be Disrupted

Forward-thinking companies are moving quickly to be disruptors, reorganizing their companies around the needs of customers. American Express, Vodafone and Lloyds Bank have already taken big steps and are seeing higher satisfaction scores, stronger internal teams and operational efficiencies as a result. Other companies are frozen.

Here are three patterns we see that separate disruptors from the herd.

1. Strategy over knee-jerk reaction

All enterprises are staring down the same problem of how to surround customers with experiences termed "seamless" or "frictionless." Strategic companies work with decisive agility to ensure that customer-focused transformation touches everything from culture to goals, process and technology. They avoid the trap of the quick fix.

Knee jerk companies see the same problem, but fail to take needed steps. Ultimately, they get blindsided by a competitor and are forced into panic mode, throwing a quick-fix app or cloud solution into the market. Customers don't buy it. The company falls farther behind.

2. Empower your change agents

Evolving customer experience is becoming a mandate from corporate boards and C-Suites. Whether it's naming a formal Chief Customer Officer or assigning the role to the CMO, a customer advocate is a necessity. The new role is not enough. Empowerment is crucial because cultural change is the root of transformation. Everyone needs to own the customer experience.

3. Unite business and IT teams

The old process of creating technology solutions by writing business requirements that go into a coding black hole before a solution pops out in 12-24 months is too laborious for today's customers and markets.

Companies making the biggest gains have brought together business and IT teams to collaborate on common customer-focused goals. Both groups change years of bad habits to gain the agility at the core of Google and Amazon. These teams also use common tools to streamline software development so business needs and solutions are aligned. These tools let teams see their thinking in real time, make adjustments, and get solutions into market faster.

Our clients are in established industries and global organizations, facing the realities of entrenched culture, regulations and legacy systems. They don't have the freedom to start from a blank slate. But they can focus their talent and resources to hit or surpass the high bar set by Uber, Amazon and other digital natives to evolve their customer experiences — to become disruptors.

In Build for Change: Revolutionizing Customer Engagement through Continuous Digital Innovation, Pegasystems Founder & CEO Alan Trefler shares his insight on what organizations can do to serve the next generation of customers and survive the pending "Customerpocalypse".