At the height of the Industrial Age we
didn’t have to do the right things, we just needed to do things. Commercial
success resulted for many who were able to organize a business and produce
goods.
As the Industrial Age gave way in the
1960’s to the Information Age competition started increasing. It was no longer
good enough to do things, we had to do things right. This was the genesis of
the management approaches (Industrial Engineering, TQM, Porter’s Value Chain, Management
by Objective, Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard, Lean, etc.) in wide practice
today.
However you won’t find these approaches at
the heart of most successful companies in the 21st Century because we’ve now moved
past these inside-out management techniques.
We are now in a Customer-Driven Economy and the only way to excel here is through outside-in techniques that lead with the customer. Succeeding in the Customer-Driven Economy comes from doing the right things, and those right things are in fact Successful Customer Outcomes.
