Life of Your Customers Francis J. Gouillart

¶ … Life of Your Customers

Francis J. Gouillart and Frederick D. Sturdivant's Harvard Business Review article, "Spend a Day in the Life of Your Customers" focuses on the crucial aspect of successful enterprise, which is sensing the market. Being able to successfully read the market, Gouillart and Sturdivant note, is not merely dependent on facts and figured, but in being able to empathize with and gain insights from customers. It is noted that in order to succeed in enterprise, the customer comes first, and the authors make it a point to acknowledge several businessmen including Bill Gates, who were smart enough to employ this belief from the beginning.

Gouillart and Sturdivant note that in today's advanced business world filled with technology and a lack of personal connection, the customer is often overlooked as is the market itself. More of a focus tends to be placed on technology, production, and industry defining the customer as an entity rather than individuals who, as a group, have the ability to significantly affect the market and therefore businesses and business-owners directly. Gouillart and Sturdivant note that in a world so focused on turning a quick profit, product turnaround is often expedient and streamlined, which may seem ideal in terms of keeping production costs down, but completely limits the individuality that every successful business must have to begin with.

In understanding this concept it is clear to see how businesses that choose to ignore the market and customers lose sight of what these businesses had at their onset. No business can succeed without being distinct from its competitors; however, in streamlining in order to cut costs, businesses and managers are not only cutting costs but cutting out the factors which set their businesses apart from the rest. Gouillart and Sturdivant note that when this happens, managers tend to start concluding that there is truly no difference between their company and their competitors, so why waste the extra effort?

Gouillart and Sturdivant use the example of Woodbridge Papers to illustrate their point. Woodbridge, a specialty paper in New Hampshire, focused its productions on manufacturing colored packaging paper used within the food industry. Woodbridge focused on its customers, made them happy, and therefore took significant leads in the market surpassing competitors Hyde Park Papers and Mountain View Papers. For Woodbridge, the customer was always top priority, and in catering to the needs of this group, the company held the market for its product in the palm of its hand.

Gouillart and Sturdivant note that Woodbridge began to become aware of different strategies and tactics for market gains being used by its competitors -- competitors who until this point in time had always fallen below the Woodbridge standard in terms of success. Woodbridge scared of possible gains from these outside companies began to modify its own business model, streamlining its product line, reducing manufacturing to delivery turnaround -- essentially turning away from the customer and market-based tactics that had made them successful in the past in order to conform to the new norm being set within the industry. The shift to focus on data, production and technology pushed Woodbridge ahead for a period of time, until the success fizzled out leaving the company at the same level as its two closest competitors. In giving up focus on what set the company apart, Woodbridge was essentially now the same as Hyde Park Papers and Mountain View Papers, forced back in to the drawing room to discover ways to set itself apart from competitors that it had had significant advantage over for years before conforming.

Gouillart and Sturdivant are successful in depicting the stress of the business-world, with owners, managers and employees desperate to set themselves apart in a world of competitors. However, the stress of this example is somewhat alleviated with the authors' introduction of a set of four simple rules that help managers practice successful market-focused management. The most important of these rules is the realization that the term "customer" refers to much more than the entity to which a product is passed on. Next is the notion that customers should be valued for the information they can offer; a customer can describe their experience and needs, but the business itself must discover how to interpret that information into a plan of action. Next is the idea that small shifts can mean significant improvements. It is far easier to pinpoint smaller areas for improvement and make changes gradually to improve matters significantly rather than assuming that only grand gestures and shifts make for success. Finally, Gouillart and Sturdivant suggest involving the entirety of an organization -- not only the higher-ups -- in the drive to become market-focused. Gouillart and Sturdivant note that this type of company involvement provides for a ground-up operation that will not only be fully understood by the entirety of the company, but more likely to succeed in the long-run.