Legacy thinking is stifling the contribution of customer-focused initiatives.
McKinsey suggests that the majority of companies realize less than one-third of their expected impact from digital investments.
My mind continues to go back to Moneyball, one line from the garage scene in particular: “There’s an epidemic failure in the game to understand what is really happening. This leads people who run major league baseball teams to misjudge their players, and to mismanage their teams.”
Insert your favorite business operation into the team’s situation: a finite budget, a foundational challenge, a data-rich operation, and decades of ‘experience’ on the case (experience = legacy, bordering on ‘know it all’ thinking).
It took a wildly open-minded leader—back against the wall, who knew the business and recognized that legacy thinking was a barrier to progress—working together with a creative analyst to break the mold.
They didn’t introduce wildly new concepts; they reframed the question and connected long-standing dots in altogether new ways.
They simplified and unified their objective around a single ‘North Star’: winning. They rethought and laddered KPIs and analytics to align to their objective. They didn’t invest based on historically glorified KPIs (home runs, batting average, RBIs, etc.). They redefined the ‘R’ in ROI and drove historically unachievable success from a finite budget.
There’s much to learn here. Virtually every baseball team has since adopted this approach, and most sports have taken a page out of this book.
Every business with whom I’ve worked also wrestles with this challenge: siloed metrics, KPIs, analytics, and goals across functions, a win and ROI-destroying disconnect between the short and non-short-term, all without a unified compass. I believe momentum and legacy thinking drives this situation, not a lack of data and analytic horsepower, and it’s destroying value for customers, businesses and shareholders.
While customer-centric strategies and a focus on data-driven decision-making have put companies on the right track, legacy thinking remains an anchor.
Please keep an open mind and shed preconceptions, as I assert there is a game-changing opportunity for companies to reorient how they think about customer value.
The concept of customer value has the power to unify thinking and level the playing field across divisions, functions, and time. It applies to all customer journey stages, to prospects and to existing customers. It applies to the aggregate customer base, to segments, and to individuals. It can serve as both a current-state measure and an informed future target. It can provide data, analytics, and AI with a desperately needed compass. It has the power to align thinking, decision-making, and investments across strategy, finance, and the front line.
Unfortunately, this concept is widely misunderstood and heavily burdened by legacy perceptions.
Keep an open mind—it might just change the game.
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