Leadership: the art of possibility

Sense and Respond: The Journey to Customer Purpose
Written by Stephen Parry, Susan Barlow and Mike Faulkner. (Palgrave MacMillan 2005).
To buy the book, please click here.

We argue that Lean Service should be driven by the desire to achieve optimal customer service by sensing and responding to the customer. The customer is at the centre of the process. The book is based upon substantial research and practice and heralds a paradigm shift in thinking on these issues.

Lean Service when applied in this unique way, can actually dictate the design of services and products and provide new principles upon which to design, build, operate and lead organisations in an 'on-demand' world, while creating a workforce that continually drives innovation and creativity by gathering customer intelligence. All of this heralds the birth of the 'intelligence worker'.

Creating an enterprise focused on customers is the key to corporate success going forward. While many organisations may recognise this fact, very few are able to move fast enough because of the limiting principles behind the current design. Our Sense and Respond approach assists them in overcoming these problems and releases businesses from the shackles of standard practices and existing thinking.

Praise for Sense and Respond.

Roger Camrass, Director, Business Transformation Group. Fujitsu. Senior Associate, Judge Institute, Cambridge University.
"A dramatic shift in thinking that could revolutionise services… Congratulations for this brilliant contribution - we will all benefit immeasurably."

Gary Fisher, MA, CIPD, Innovation Fellow, The Business Partnership Unit, Aston University.
"The authors provide a pathway to creating highly responsive organisations."

Gary Crates, Head of Commercial. DHL, South-East Europe and North Africa.
“The journey to customer purpose' is a strategy which re-positions customer value services at the heart of the business."

Philip Forrest, ACII, FCIM, Chartered Marketer. Chairman of Judges at the National Business Awards.
'This book is required reading for all who recognise the imperative of commercially-focused customer satisfaction.'

Sir John Banham, Chairman, Whitbread Plc. Former Chairman of the CBI.
''The Journey to Customer Purpose' should be required reading for everyone interested in achieving sustainable returns.'

Book Reviews

5 out of 5 stars Lean Management In a Service Economy, July 11, 2009
This is an honest assessment challenging the concept of customer value and customer purpose as it relates to Lean Management in service industries. The book fills the gap between Lean for manufacturing and Lean for services by introducing the philosophy of "Sense & Respond". Whether embarking on a total Lean transformation, or even if you are working/managing a service environment, this book will challenge your notions and ask penetrating questions.


Once considered the domain of manufacturing and the auto industry, the authors describe how Lean management thinking can be deployed in a service based economy. Even more so that manufacturing, Lean in a service economy requires a balance of a both humanistic/personnel management and the scientific method. The authors also acknowledge the challenges and hurdles facing such transformational change and propose countermeasures for those beginning their Lean transformation.


From the onset, the authors ask a deceptively simple question: What is your customer's purpose? Having personally going through this exercise with my own organization the results were fascinating. The authors propose that most companies believe they generate value for their customers measured by the amount of "work" that they do (i.e., number of problem tickets processed or phone calls handled in an IT environment). However after applying the Sense & Respond thought process organizations may quickly realize that the work they do is actually wasteful, and performed under the assumption that they understand their customer's purpose - when in fact they are only restoring lost value (fixing things) rather than actually generating new value (removing the source of what is breaking things and refocusing efforts on truly added-value services).


Although the authors briefly describe the core concepts and various tool sets of Lean Management and is written in a casual and non-scientific manner, this book is not for the uninitiated and requires some type of familiarity with the basics of Lean Management. The book also is not a "primer" or "blueprint" on how to actually deploy such a transformation - rather the intent is to stimulate new ideas and possibilities before such the journey begins. Overall the approach is described quite well with the perfect mix of academic/scientific knowledge combined with practical/real-world case studies and examples.
  

5 out of 5 stars Intelligent approach about customer value and thinking systems, December 10, 2009
An absolutely intelligent book about customer value and creating thinking systems!


Through these very difficult economic times, many organizations are throwing around buzz words of being "lean" or adopting "lean" methods. Assumptions are made if you offshore your "waste" you are saving costs. This is absolutely wrong headed thinking. Off shoring waste is not cost savings.


The questions to start to ask are; why do you have the waste in the first place? Who is your customer? What do your customers want? Why do customers want what they want? Why is it important to know the need behind your customer's demand?


The book "Sense and Respond - The Journey to Customer Purpose" can provide the insight to those questions. This book is an absolute must have for any organization which is serious about being a sustainable, relevant, and valued organization in the 21st century, and which can potentially become a leader in transforming an industry.


If your organization is serious about saving money, saving talent, unlocking the potential within the talent and most importantly holding onto and growing your customer relationships towards developing customer partnerships. It's absolutely necessary to understand that "lean" is not about tools, laying off employees or off-shoring. It is about respecting people.


Sense and Respond is based upon "Lean Principles". If you are looking for lean tools, this is not your book. This book's approach starts with the thinking. The underlying theme throughout the book is that Sense and Respond is about designing thinking systems, not systems thinking.


This book will provide the insight of powerful connection of being customer-centric and designing thinking systems, and how this can lead your organization to become a transformational leader of any given industry.


Businesses unto themselves are not successful, it's what makes them successful is the only thing that matters. What make organizations successful are customers. It is the customers who are at the heart of every organization.


The Sense and Respond approach will lay out a very compelling perspective why it is no longer sustainable for organizations to focus on internal functional goals and siloed business units. It explains why customer-centric end to end delivery works.


This book is also about showing that everyone in the organization can be a leader of transformation. Transformation is what makes an organization innovative not just in terms of "technology" but also in terms of problem solving, and becoming the trusted advisor your customer has been wanting.


This book is very deep in terms of content. There are no wasted words. Every sentence is significant and stimulates your thinking on how your organization can realistically change its approach.


On a lighter note, I have adopted the approach to put colored tabs on passages which are significant. I realized this approach does not work with this book, because every passage is significant. I am not one who highlights the entire book in fact, was my friends wanted to buy the textbooks I used, because I only highlighted the important points.


There are three different case studies which provide the evidence supporting the Sense and Respond does work.


The purpose of this review is not to convince you, but to let you find out for yourself.