(Insight Column for The Jakarta Post 09 August 2006)
“Culture change needs to be rooted in objective awareness. Awareness that the operating environment has changed, that there are new entrants showing more vigor and innovation, that customers’ tastes are evolving, traditional delivery channels are not working and so on.
The leadership of the company is responsible for spreading this awareness and undertaking a frank assessment of the tidak bisa problems afflicting the business – bureaucracy, lack of empowerment, aversion to risk, morale issues, underestimation of competitors, slow pace of innovation, etc.
Then comes the difficult long haul. Culture change will not take place overnight, it is often painful, met with stubbornness and resistance and invariably involve investment to upgrade outdated processes. But the most important upgrade relates to a reorientation of the customer focus.
To start planning, thinking, feeling and behaving like the customers. Only when credit card managers call their own call centres and realize how clients are tied up in answering machine loops or airline managers experience long queues at Soekarno-Hatta Airport in front of inadequate check-in counters or hotel managers realize how old and boring their menus have become, will they understand what is driving their customers to other preferred choices”.
” With timely culture change a new energy is released and felt – one in which employees are seen to be striving, trying, experimenting, achieving and winning. Customers are often quick to sense this energy. Indeed they are increasingly seeking organizations that can demonstrate this energy.
For the pasti bisa mind-set conveys to the customer that the organization sincerely cares and its business model is really customer-centric. Tunggu sebentar, or please wait, is no longer an option – while businesses wait, their customers move on”.
