An often heard phrase is “change is inevitable”, it’s only a question of speed. In organizational life, as in personal lives, people react to change very differently from one another. Many embrace change with enthusiasm and delight in it. Others resist change to the extent of digging in their heels and refusing to do anything differently than they have done for years. “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?”

In an era of tightening budgets and doing more with less, organizations continually seek ways to improve processes and make them as efficient as possible. When this is done at the department level, efficiencies in one area can often have a negative impact on others. Gaining efficiencies in business processes are most frequently an inward looking effort and not only does it ignore other areas of the business but often is blind to the impact on the customer.

Customer satisfaction is a leading indicator of profits. In other words, satisfy your customer today and you will likely see repeat and increased orders in the future. It is a given that for the vast majority of businesses there is far greater potential in growing the top line (revenue) than in reducing expenses. Trying to become more efficient is doing things better and in cost reduction environments, that usually means reducing expenses. However, doing things better may not mean doing the right things. If growing revenue is more important than reducing costs, then the focus should be on removing obstacles to customers placing orders. If it’s easier and more pleasant to buy from company A than company B, most purchasers will choose to do business with company A.

Company A people focus their attention on the processes that will encourage more purchases and when looking at cost reduction, they measure the impact on customers. Company A staff develop relationships with their customers, beyond the immediate sale, address concerns as they arise and make the changes needed to satisfy their clientele.

Making a change is not easy. Aside from out of pockets costs, there is often retraining required, and a learning curve to overcome. The greatest obstacle to change is often staff resistance. There are many strategies for overcoming resistance to change, but that is a subject for another time.