I recently opined that no business should be customer centric. This diagram explains why.

To survive, any business must balance three interrelated objectives: desirability, profitability and longevity (the columns).

They must also consider three contextual factors: their customers, market and organization (the rows).

Since any factor can influence any goal, we get a grid of nine elements that together determine our business success. Also, since a business is an interconnected whole, changing one will affect others — cutting costs can harm adaptability for example.

Basic conclusions:

All nine boxes matter — any is potent enough to cause failure if mismanaged.

Only three directly relate to the customer — wants and needs, revenues, and the size and commitment of our customer base. If more powerful rivals can easily copy us or we run out of cash we're in trouble, however customer-focused we are.

Fixating on customer wants and needs, believing that the other boxes will take care of themselves is a dangerous fantasy.

More simply: success always comes from making astute trade-offs that balance these nine elements.

When CX teams start framing projects in terms of their impact across these nine elements, THAT's when they'll get amazing results...

See this post on LinkedIn