Book Review: (Re)Organize for Resilience by Ranjay Gulati
by Paul Catiang

The term customer centricity has been repeated enough times to the point that it is met with cynicism. According to Ranjay Gulati, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book (Re)Organize for Resilience, the problem does not lie in being aware of the need to focus on the customer, but rather in taking the necessary steps towards solving the customers' problems.

One of his favorite examples is bagged salad, a product which costs, in US prices, an average of six times more than the raw ingredients combined. And yet the product sells because of one realization: that customers would rather buy a salad without the hassle of preparation. Professor Gulati posits that such a realization would be impossible if the produce section people merely asked, "How do you like my lettuce?" Such questions, according to Gulati, look at the customer through the lens of the product. Real insight can only be found by looking at the marketplace through the lens of the customer, or in this case, asking how the consumption of salad influences what they buy. Today, bagged salad is a $2.5-billion-a-year industry.

But customer centricity goes beyond asking these questions; it is not a repackaging. In some cases, it requires a complete redefinition of an organization's objectives—an almost existential shift in the process of realigning its strategy around a specific group of customers, and about solving problems for them. Gulati says, "I want to own this problem space. I want to solve these problems for these customers. My job is to figure out how I can best do those."

Shifting to a customer-centric approach has become more urgent in the face of two developments. One, technology and products have matured to an extent that any improvements they undergo is more incremental than exponential—this makes the products and services in the marketplace more similar than before. Two, customers now have access to a lot of information on these products, and more often than not, will decide based on price.

Shifting to a customer-centric approach has become more urgent in the face of two developments. One, technology and products have matured to an extent that any improvements they undergo is more incremental than exponential—this makes the products and services in the marketplace more similar than before. Two, customers now have access to a lot of information on these products, and more often than not, will decide based on price.

To address this, Gulati recommends the following: "If you're going to succeed in this kind of context, you need to shift the conversation away from your narrow product and service to finding some way of delivering something of value to the customer, something they actually care about that is important in their lives."

He introduces the concept of outside-in thinking as opposed to inside-out. The latter involves creating a product first, then finding a market for it. The former looks at the marketplace for problems it can solve for customers, and develops a product accordingly. Gulati reasons that companies that solve problems for a specific set of customers are more likely to survive recessions, as they will be classed with the customers' needs rather than with their wants.

There are, of course, several barriers to achieving a customer-centric approach. At the top of this list are organizational silos, departments within companies that have very different objectives, especially when working in a product-centric environment. Solving customers' problems requires that these silos be bridged, or in some cases, busted. Gulati discusses several such cases in his book, including companies like Jones Lang Lasalle, Cisco Systems, GE Healthcare, and other organizations he has followed over the ten years it took to write (Re)Organize for Resilience.

One of the key takeaways this book has is that it doesn't offer new, trendy ideas on how to approach perennial issues. It takes a good look at the basic assumptions an organization has about its own operations and how it relates to its customers, and from there, works on redefining its products towards creating something meaningful for the customers. It advocates humility, a letting go of the processes that actually inhibit an organization from seeing the customers' perspectives on the marketplace.

(Re)Organize for Resilience takes a decade's worth of research and observation and distills it into a few key insights, the first of which is that a company that looks after its customers is sure to survive the next economic downturn.

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Professor Gulati discussed his new book and several Harvard Business Publishing case studies he himself wrote at The Senior Leaders' Program, a John Clements workshop specifically designed for upper management executives. The book was also launched at the end of the program. (Re)Organize for Resilience is available at all National Book Store branches.

Further insights and information are available at Professor Gulati's website (http://ranjaygulati.com/rg/) and the book's website (http://www.reorganizeforresilience.com/).