Kaushik Roy on Customer Centricity

The starting point is to acknowledge and appreciate that the customer is an important STAKEHOLDER.

Kaushik Roy

Customer Centricity

Kaushik Roy is Managing Director of PCBL Limited and a Member of the Management Board of RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. Kaushik Roy is widely acclaimed for bringing in a new era of leadership at PCBL. He has been instrumental in introducing a customer centric approach to PCBL’s vision and strategy. He took on the challenge of realigning the business with strong focus on new technology, innovation, systems and process reengineering and expansion of scale. He has also introduced newer human resource practices that have brought in a vibrant work culture at PCBL.

You have brought in a very well-defined customer focus in PCBL which has given huge success to the company. What are the few things that are absolutely necessary to bring about customer centricity in a company?

The four essential steps to bring about customer centricity in a company are –

A. ACKNOWLEDGE - The starting point of bringing about customer centricity in a company is to acknowledge and appreciate the fact that the customer is an important STAKEHOLDER of our success in business.

B. UNDERSTAND - One needs to understand the customer’s needs and expectations and how and what can be done to fulfil those expectations and delight the customer

C. DEVELOP A PHILOSOPHY - Develop a ‘BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY’ based on ‘CUSTOMER CENTRICITY’ and align the entire organisation to this philosophy

D. IMPLEMENT - Finally, one needs to identify and implement the actionable items / areas that are based on the customer’s needs and expectations, and are driven by the company’s customer-centric business philosophy.

Being customer-focused is more of a mindset and attitude. How as a leader do you bring in this attitude in the people who work in your organisation - both for internal and external customers?

Once an organisation has its ‘Business Philosophy’ in place, the leadership team of the organisation has to continuously communicate the ‘Philosophy.’ The approach should be top-driven, and the entire leadership team must demonstrate the ‘Philosophy’ through their actions so that it percolates through the entire organisation and gradually people can imbibe it.

The organisation must also identify and act on the various needs and expectations of the customer. In order to create ‘Customer Delight’ the entire organisation must be aligned with what the customer wants.

For example, at PCBL, we undertook an extensive ‘envisioning exercise’ involving people across the organisation to envision the company that we would like to build for the future. The large vision was broken into small manageable pieces of action - which encompassed all business functions, systems, processes as well as people. We put focus on being customer-centric and agile, by engaging with the customers across domestic and international business, understanding their needs, expanding our product portfolio and helping them to make better and more informed choices.

We set in processes to communicate with the customers regularly, seek feedback from them about our products and services, and partner with them to give them the kind of products and services they require.

With time, practice and regular communication, ‘customer centricity’ has been integrated with the very DNA of our organisation, and has altered the way the entire organisation thinks and behaves.

What are some of your personality traits that have helped you understand the pulse of the customers well?

The traits that helped me are -

a) The humility to appreciate the customer as an important stakeholder.

b) The ability to connect with the customers to understand their vision & needs and finding ways to make them feel delighted.