It’s Chaotic on the Inside, but We’re Dedicated to Our Customers

Is your workplace chaotic?  Is everybody running in reactive mode?  Does everyone acknowledge that it’s hectic, and then excuse it by saying, ‘We’re responding to our customers’.  Yet, everyone knows that a hectic organization is a costly one, because rushing creates errors.  Nothing drives up costs like an error prone business.

So, is it ok to rush around, and run up your costs, because it makes your customers happy in the short term?  Listen to yourself.  Does running a high cost company really make your customers happy?  I think not.  It’s a sugar high.

Your customers are going to have to pay for your high costs eventually.  And, if the truth were known, your customers may not be as happy as you think, even in the short term.

Your best bet is to streamline your practices and drive the errors out of your business process.  Easy for me to write, but difficult to put into practice.  On the other hand, being a high cost supplier is a ticket to the unemployment line.

How to resolve this dilemma?  Well, it takes a lot of work, but the payoff can be amazing.  In this post I’m going to relate a true story that illustrates the relationship between the inside and the outside of a product. 

Next time I’ll use an example from Process Validation to show how your internal processes invariably impact your customers.

First, the product:  When Steve Jobs was a boy he helped his father build a fence around the back yard.  When it came time to paint the fence, his dad insisted that both sides of the fence needed to be painted, despite the fact that no-one would ever see the other side.  “Why?” Steve asked his father.  “No-one will ever know.”

“You’ll know,” his dad said.

Later, while developing the Macintosh, the first commercially successful computer with a graphical user interface, Jobs insisted that the inside of the computer be designed as beautifully as the outside.  Again, no-one understood why.  After all, the case was sealed at the factory.  It was never supposed to be opened.  The inside of the Macintosh was never meant to be seen. 

“Why?” the engineers said.  “No-one will ever know.”

“You’ll know,” said Jobs.  He created the most valuable company on earth.  Maybe we should pay attention.  What do you think Jobs was trying to say? 

I was relating the same concept in my post "When I Go Slow, I Go Fast".  The drywall contractors had a very streamlined business process and it was clearly visible in their ability to low-bid jobs and still make a profit.

I believe I feel the same phenomenon when I buy retail.  I’ve always said that that I can tell how the employees of a company get treated by the way the customers are treated.  A company’s culture cannot be hidden.  It invariably shows to the outside.

GMP compliance is a big part of a company's cost structure.  Done right, it can make a manufacturing process reliable, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction; done wrong, it can drive costs and schedules through the roof. 

You don’t need me to tell you this.  When a company can’t get GMPs right, everybody knows that something is wrong, both inside and outside the company.  But it can't be done with a strictly top-down approach.  You have to create a strong compliance culture.

What's your experience.  Please comment below.