In The Customer Leader, Rudy Moenaert and co-author Henry Robben share some essential thoughts on how to behave as a true customer leader. In it, they introduce The Customer Leader Canvas, consisting of four parts – a license, a proposition, the arena and resources – as a practical toolkit to get toward a great organization, a Customer Leader.
As Professors Moenaert and Robben will be presenting their book during a Minds&More-exclusive launch event on March 26th, now seems the ideal time to look inwards and reflect on how Minds&More itself puts these insights into practice to become a true customer leader. Through our daily activities as a consultancy firm, we make use of The Customer Leader Canvas and its insights – knowingly and intuitively. And there is no person better suited to explain this than our own former spearhead, Myriam Vangenechten. Enjoy the read!
A license to operate
For an organization to become a customer leader and provide the maximum amount of value for all its stakeholders, several things are very important. Firstly, it is what Rudy Moenaert and Henry Robben call ‘the license to operate’ in their book. You need to determine where to put your focus on and remain focused: what exactly is it what Minds&More offers its customers?
“This seems a simple thing, but, in fact, it is not”, begins Myriam. “It would be all too easy to repeat our mission statement when talking about our company’s focus. Minds&More started as a consultancy firm providing interim services in the domains of marketing and sales, yes. But as a company, we are ever evolving. At Minds&More, we have always guarded that focus very well, and our long-term goal has always been clear: we want to help our customers by using the best possible resources in any given situation. In order to do that, we sometimes need to adjust and finetune our direction, too. You can look at it like you’re steering a ship: the direction is clear, but you sometimes need to trim the sails so you keep on heading the right way. At Minds&More, we do the same, and as such we continue to provide the best service possible.”
A differentiating value proposition
Secondly, it is imperative that you know how you will bring that focus to your customers. An organization needs to discover where its true value-creating capacities lie, in order to create a clear value proposition to differentiate itself. According to The Customer Leader, a true customer leader embraces creating shared value by building a value proposition that suits every stakeholder’s needs.
“We often get the remark that our name is a very well-chosen one”, says Myriam. “On the one side you will find the Minds, but there’s More! Whether it is one of our partners, consultants, freelancers or recruiters, everybody goes the extra mile for our customers. We work together with our customers in an understanding, pragmatic and accessible way. By understanding their problem and making the solution easily accessible, we become winners, and more importantly, our customers too. We want to win as one.”
Minds&More as a network
In the sector of consultancy, especially, you encounter an immense number of people, organizations, and sectors. As an organization, you can’t allow yourself to become static, you need to move around in your playing field. And moving around efficiently means putting your organization’s resources – in our case, our people – to the best use.
“At Minds&More, we don’t have a network, but we are the network”, says Myriam. “It’s a very important nuance, because this allows us to remain flexible. We don’t categorize the people within our network. Of course, one partner or consultant might be specialized in, let’s say, FMCG-related cases, but we’ll always strengthen his or her knowledge with the combined intelligence of our network. As we can help that one person with different aspects, he or she will in return provide help on other occasions. Making use of our identity as a network is where our flexibility lies, and that is how we move around our playing field – the arena – in a very efficient way.”
Markets become arenas
Radical innovation. Digitalization. Disruption. These are terms that nowadays surface in almost every playing field as the trends to follow. Truth be told, you always need to move with the sign of the times to remain competitive in your respective playing field. A true Customer Leader gathers the best knowledge possible about the market he or she is playing in. The market is what Professors Moenaert and Robben call ‘the arena’ in The Customer Leader, drawing similarities with the great Roman arenas that existed a long time ago, where chances of life and death changed in a whim. In consultancy, this metaphor might hold even more truth for consultancy firms, as we play in different arenas, where the circumstances are always changing.
Everybody wants to be the innovator, wants to be ahead of the competition. In business, that seems only natural, as possessing ambition to grow is a key factor for success. However, it’s equally important to be able to take a step back and analyze the situation, for well-advised action to take place. “It is one of the strengths we possess”, states Myriam. “We always try to analyze trends, try to predict where this is going, but more importantly is that we will always try to be sure whether to dance along, or remain seated at the bar. One opportunity might seem the best moment to join the dance for one person, but for another that might mean you trip and fall. That’s why it’s key to our success that we check what’s best for both our customer and Minds&More. That way, we remain competitive in our own right, while staying true to our roots. That way, and I’ll state this again, everybody is winning as one.”
It is clear that Minds&More thoroughly reflects on how it goes about its daily activities. We stay focused on who we are and what we do, we use that focus to create value together with our customers by working as one and we meticulously keep an eye on the arena in which we are playing. Professors Moenaert and Robben state in their book: “The Customer Leader is frugal with negativity, is generous with positivity, and shows opportunity while tackling challenges head on.” This is something Minds&More lives by, and this is the Customer Leader we try to be.
