Last year, as a part of delivering the Strategic Marketing course at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Hawke’s Bay I used a well known N.Z. medical franchise to illustrate the difference in customer experience between a “quantity” (throughput) focused medical practice versus that which concentrates more on resolving the client’s health situation than pushing through as many patients per hour as they can.
The best outcomes obtainable are always those that stem from an organisation focusing on generating quality relevant solutions to meet customer needs; versus organisations that are productivity-geared. Why is this so ? Because productivity-orientated mindsets are “production-driven” mindsets…as opposed to being “marketing-led”. Consequently, the former is more about the provider of products/ services concentrating on “their own” needs/ aspirations (e.g. profit maximisation objectives) versus those of the target market that they aim to meet the needs of.
Until very recent times, even government organisations seemed to be more concerned with the volume/ number of client engagements than the outcomes generated as a result of such engagements.
If you want to build a sustainable business, then focus the gearing of resource requirements and setting of objectives on achieving best outcomes possible; and not on maximising quantity/ volume of output. In short, put “quality” and “relevancy” of inputs and outputs first and foremost – irrespective of whether you’re operating a product-based business or a service-based business.
By setting objectives and introducing resources that are orientated towards achieving “relevant quality” outcomes, this will improve the likelihood that target customer needs will actually be met. From an overall societal perspective, this translates into more issues/ problems actually being resolved – versus remaining unresolved, and therefore recurring.