{"id":13014,"date":"2016-03-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/post\/cincinnati-digital-pioneer-end-to-end-process\/"},"modified":"2022-03-24T13:00:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T17:00:54","slug":"cincinnati-digital-pioneer-end-to-end-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/cincinnati-digital-pioneer-end-to-end-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning From Edison: a Digital Pioneer who Considered End-to-End Processes"},"content":{"rendered":"

When trying to connect digitally with your customers, are you thinking of the lightbulb or the end-to-end process?<\/h2>\n

Today\u2019s business world is going through a massive \u201cdigital transformation.\u201d Every organization you read about, or talk to, is trying to figure out how to innovate, digitally connect with customers and improve their overall customer experience.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a parallel that can be drawn between this transformation and the electricity introduction\/transformation that Thomas Edison was leading in the late 1800s.<\/p>\n

More Than Just a Lightbulb<\/h2>\n
\"the<\/a>

Illuminating a light bulb takes work that occurs \u201cbeneath the surface.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

At the time, Edison was working to transform the way the world was illuminated at night, and there is a direct application of what Edison accomplished to what we are experiencing today.<\/p>\n

What many people don\u2019t realize is that, as he was developing the incandescent light bulb, Edison was also focused on the \u201cend-to-end process.\u201d Challenged with transforming the customer experience of seeing at night in a better, cheaper and safer manner, Edison worked on building the physical end-to-end process of generating and delivering the power necessary to illuminate the bulb he had developed.<\/p>\n

The world only saw the \u201cend customer experience\u201d of the illuminated bulb \u2013 and how it would change the world. But not many people realized that this couldn\u2019t have happened without Edison\u2019s focus on the end-to-end process: How the bulb would get illuminated.<\/p>\n

A Lesson for Today<\/h2>\n

This parallel is crucial when thinking about today\u2019s digital transformation. Too often, organizations are focused on the end customer experience, i.e., the light bulb. As long as the \u2018light bulb\u2019 looks good, responds well, is intuitive and has the features we want, then the organization considers their efforts a success. Unfortunately, organizations that only focus on this aspect ultimately do not achieve the full transformation they are hoping to achieve.<\/p>\n

Learning from Edison, it\u2019s necessary to make sure a successful digital customer experience is tied to an efficient, integrated, end-to-end business process. The process needs to be able to execute the customer request quickly\/efficiently, effectively manage exceptions and ultimately achieve what the customer is trying to do with no interruption.<\/p>\n

Compare this to digital experiences with which you interact every day; notice \u2018light bulbs\u2019 that are tied to incomplete or inefficient supporting physical processes.<\/p>\n

Some examples:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • When requesting an internal transfer of funds between two bank accounts via a mobile app. Many of these are not instantaneous, impacting the overall customer experience.<\/li>\n
  • When sending an online email via a website to the bank\u2019s customer service department with a question, and the response is days later \u2013 or never!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    A Question of Focus<\/h2>\n

    As you think about your own digital transformation, be sure to ask yourself:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Are we taking into consideration the end-to-end business process?<\/li>\n
    • Is the final customer experience going to be what the customer expects? How do you know?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Or are you just focusing on the light bulb?<\/p>\n

      Bottom line: Only focusing on the light bulb misses the mark, and the value of digital transformation falls short of its potential \u2013 or worse, becoming just an interesting experiment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      When trying to connect digitally with your customers, are you thinking of the lightbulb, or the end-to-end process?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":20647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[15590],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-07-22 00:56:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13014"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}