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People and OrganizationPeople and OrganizationOverviewNeil Woodcock, Michael Starkey and Merlin Stone The correlation between People and Organization and overall business performance is the highest for the whole of the CMAT model. This section continues to score well (see Table 8.1) and companies are clearly maintaining a focus on the role of people and organization in managing customers. Interestingly, there are signs that high scores in this area are correlated with low scores in the systems and process areas. Does this show that good people work hard to make up for deficiencies in processes and systems? Arguably, perhaps people with a strong customer management (CM) orientation - whether managers or customer-facing staff - enjoy a situation in which they are able to use their own skills and knowledge to manage customers, rather than relying on the more formal approach likely to be dictated by systems and processes. The corollary is that, perhaps, over-systemizing customer service has a negative effect on staff and reduces the quality of customer interaction and service.
Interestingly, the area where most value is being destroyed is in a section we call 'Creating the organization'. A fall in creating value can be attributed to falling organizational support for implementing customer strategies, customer management ownership and, most alarmingly, a lack of senior management leadership. We believe this is primarily a reflection of cautionary or recession-based management. In this cautious business environment, companies appear to entrench into familiar strategies, become less flexible to change and 'leadership' moves from encouraging customer orientation to encouraging a cost driven productivity orientation. The reduction in CMAT scores could also be due, in part, to companies seeking to do more complex things in the area of CM, and this challenges their organizational structure. Although organizations talk about how important employees are in delivering service, they do not appear to back this up with actions. For instance, recognition and reward structures rarely encourage staff to manage customers better. Training rarely covers CM competencies, except for those staff whose job is 100 per cent CM, for example, in call centres. Recruitment suffers from the same problem of a lack of competency recognition (knowledge, skill and attitude). Performance in managing suppliers has increased. As organizations focus on their core competencies, partner with third parties, or outsource services, more third-party suppliers have become involved in CM. The scores show that companies have improved competencies in the way these suppliers are managed. 117
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