jeff bezos | Project Success

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“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.” – Jeff Bezos

Have you heard this Leadership Quote from Jeff Bezos?

Jeff Bezos is an American internet entrepreneur best known as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. He is famous for obsessing over customers, reducing friction in the user experience, and operational excellence.

Leadership quote Jeff Bezos customer first

Three Big Ideas

Jeff Bezos’ three big ideas may seem simple, but many have tried to pull them off and failed. In fact, most companies end up purely putting lip-service to the “put your customers first” line, instead of truly doing everything they can to improve the customer experience.

Why would you want to put your customers first?

Because customers pay your bills and your wages, by buying your product or service, that’s why.

This is something that most middle managers, even many CEOs unfortunately forget. But even when you have put the customer at the center of your universe, the next challenge is to invent the things that solve their problems instead of having someone else do it.

In fact Toys ‘R’ Us famously used Amazon in the early 2000s to sell toys online, through their merchant marketplace. However by doing so, Toys ‘R’ Us were giving away their data and their power over the customer transaction – data that Amazon willingly used to improve their service for other toy offerings and become even larger. Eventually Toys ‘R’ Us dissolved their partnership with Amazon to start their own online store, but by then the writing was already on the wall. Toys ‘R’ Us ended up filing for bankruptcy just fifteen years later.

Customer first. Invent. And have patience while you perform the small, incremental improvements every day.

– David McLachlan

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This is a powerful definition of Operational Excellence, how it relates to Customer Obsession and has a huge impact on revenue, profit and employee engagement. You can download a PDF version for yourself, free. Enjoy!

A Framework For Operational Excellence and Customer Obsession

Operational Excellence. It’s a term most of us have heard, maybe even used, but when it comes down to it few people know what it really, truly means. Operational Excellence certainly sounds like something we should want – after all, everyone would say they want their business or team to operate well, and we want it to be excellent rather than average, right?

We need Operational Excellence

Operational Excellence is important enough for Jeff Bezos (the richest man in the world and the CEO of Amazon.com) to mention repeatedly in his shareholder letters, so there has to be some value in it. And let me ruin the ending for you here – because when it comes to well defined operational excellence there is massive value indeed.

It’s a strategy that has helped Amazon become the most feared (and revered) business of the century so far – sending whole industries running for cover at the slightest mention of working there. It’s a strategy that helped Toyota thrive for over 100 years in one of the toughest industries on earth. It’s a strategy that took McDonald’s from one store to over 36,000 stores worldwide, and it’s a strategy that enabled Uber to grow to more than 2,000,000 drivers worldwide. Bezos says:

Congratulations and thank you to the now over 560,000 Amazonians who come to work every day with unrelenting customer obsession, ingenuity, and commitment to operational excellence.

The thing is, when Jeff Bezos talks about customer obsession, he’s not talking about meeting a customer at a cash register and giving them a smile. He’s talking about reducing any friction a customer might have in doing business with Amazon.com, and making it ridiculously easy for them to buy (and continue to buy) from them.

Which gives us some good news. When it comes to Customer Obsession and Operational Excellence, those two things are 100% related.

Continue reading A Framework For Operational Excellence and Customer Obsession →