Part Two of My Journey: Customer Centricity

Connecting Everything?

Sometimes in our tech-obsessed professions, we can get enamored with our own solutions and lose sight of the business and societal outcomes we are really looking to achieve. In my years working at industry-leading technology-driven companies, there have been times when the underlying technology evolved ahead of market demand. It is especially challenging when we are imagining use cases that rely on layers of technology, devices, and applications that truly don’t exist yet.

I think IoT is much like this. Many envision nearly endless opportunities – a world where everything that can be connected will be connected. But, what does that really mean? How will it impact our lives and society? Will it be creepy or compelling? How do we incorporate this new philosophy into processes rooted in older, less-connected times? How do we ensure that we are addressing meaningful problems and not just looking for problems to give our solutions a cause?

Internet of Outcomes

I have found in my engagements with partners and clients, that while it’s easy to get lost in the solution, it’s also relatively easy to stay rooted in the outcomes if we stay true to the needs of each ecosystem stakeholder. When I start a project, whether it’s a big digital process transformation or a single IoT use case, it’s essential to understand the underlying problems to be solved. We look at the technology options, devices, software, data and analysis as catalysts to solve the customer need. It helps me to have this outside-in perspective. I think about it in terms of “customer centricity”.

This philosophy is at the heart of Hitachi Social Innovation Business. As I approach my one-year anniversary with this 110-year-old company, I can truly say that I embrace and appreciate more each day our approach to problem solving. We keep focused on the outcome and understand how to leverage IoT to improves lives, business, and society.

When we look at a problem, we view it from the outside-in to get to the heart of the customer problem, to assess the impact and potential of the larger ecosystem, to identify the stakeholders and how they see the problem and to lay the foundation for co-creation. After we have mapped these perspectives, we can devise the right end-to-end co-created pathway to digital transformation – navigating each step with our customer.

We appreciate and value step-change as small steps lead to big outcomes. Small steps allow the transformation to gain steam while confidence is built, and the financial returns become real. I have seen this work in practice where we delivered value through a series of investments delivering systematic, incremental wins which helped justify and fund next steps.

Walking and Talking IoT

Another key to being outcome focused and customer centric is walking the talk. At Hitachi I have seen the power of deploying IoT solutions internally to understand outcomes, especially in manufacturing where we have a long heritage. Through these real-life experiences, we’re able to apply deep and authentic understanding of our customers’ businesses and end-to-end processes solving for the challenges that keep them up at night – because these same things keep us up!

We also “walk the talk” with our people. While our IoT foundation is built on products, platforms and software, Hitachi has the people that know how to put them to work to get the desired outcomes for our customers. We have purposely recruited and invested in subject matter experts who intimately know the industries we serve. Their knowledge of processes, regulations, customer needs, equipment, market dynamics and financial constraints are invaluable in creating credible, compelling customer outcomes.

Changing the World

With the dramatic challenges and changes we are facing globally – energy and environmental problems, food and water concerns, population growth, poverty and aging – how can we bring technology and digital transformation to bear to help society solve these monumental problems?

It has been my experience that when we think big but act small, we really do start affecting change. We may not be able to change the world on our own, but we can impact lives for the better, and working toward these foundational goals helps organizations be focused on the outcome and achieve more impactful results.

An exciting example of this is IoT in precision farming. There are many elements to precision farming, which ultimately allow farmers to better measure the number of seeds planted, the soil conditions, and the amount of fertilizer – down to a square foot radius. Some experts believe that precision farming can affect annual crop yield by as much as 15 percent. This means not only higher profits for farmers, but more people fed from the same acreage. Individual farmers can start with the basic elements of precision farming (acting small), but the big picture brings IoT into the whole food supply chain to enable greater insights and controls, providing food traceability to track any food through all stages of production, processing and distribution (thinking big).

The Future is Open to Suggestions

Social Innovation starts with an idea: one simple thought that has the power to change the world. At Hitachi we are bringing these possibilities to life with advanced information technologies and infrastructure solutions. Our tagline is “the future is open to suggestions”. So, what does it mean? At the core, it means collaboration and co-creation. Taking suggestions from anywhere, nurturing those ideas, working together with clients, partners and the larger ecosystem to overcome roadblocks and evolve our ideas until we have the right solutions. At Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles, I spoke with many of our partners and customers about examples of this collaboration. I will continue this type of dialog at: Hitachi’s NEXT in San Diego, Colorado Smart Cities, Hitachi’s Women’s Symposium in Singapore, IoT World in Barcelona and Oracle Open World in San Francisco. I look forward to talking to all of you at these events, and via LinkedIn and Twitter. #IoT #DigitalTransformation #SocialInnovation

I’d also like to try and open the virtual suggestion box! Over the next few months, I plan to tee up various problems, and carry on a Twitter (@BeverlyDRider) conversation to share ideas, experiences, and stories that explore the future of possibilities. Join in and submit your thoughts. #FutureisOpen