I was recently invited to write an article for The Customer Edge. Here it is, presented in it’s entirety:

In today’s business world where the customer reigns supreme, we hear lots of talk about the importance of becoming customer-centric organizations. But many companies struggle to bring this to fruition. And for good reason. Responding adeptly to each unique customer journey is no small feat. Yet it’s nonnegotiable for companies that want to effectively attract, engage, and retain customers – and rise to the top of their industry.

At SAP, we are so convinced of the value and power of customer centricity that we partnered with the CMO Council to expose the gap between the vision and the reality. The outcome is a 72-page report that summarizes our survey of 319 marketing executives across B2C and B2B brands. In it, we reveal why organizations are struggling to achieve adaptive customer engagements.

For a summary of the biggest hurdles facing marketers, check out “Why Aren’t Marketers Accomplishing Customer Centricity?” If you want a deep understanding of those challenges, give the full report a read.

Here at SAP, we truly get how hard it is to pull all this together. We see our customers grapple with these challenges. And we take those challenges head-on in our own organization. While we can never claim that we’ve fully mastered customer engagements, we have made amazing headway in a relatively short time. And we’ve done that by embracing the three key attributes of a customer-centric organization:

• Executive support

• Alignment across the organization

• Customer-centered corporate culture

Senior management centered on the customer

Bill McDermott, our CEO, believes in putting the customer first. As our leader, Bill understands the imperative to tell our story through our customers’ eyes. He’s also committed to helping every company, including SAP, to Run Simple. As a result, our customers are doing amazing things on a more frequent basis.

It’s obvious that Bill embraces the customer-first principle because he has dedicated resources to transforming this idea into a formal initiative and program. While there are literally dozens of examples, the one nearest and dearest to me was his creation of the position of “chief storyteller.” By doing this, he gave me the job of shining a light on our customers’ successes – and on their customers’ successes. That’s a far more interesting and powerful way to demonstrate the true value of what SAP brings to the table than beating our chests and declaring our supremacy.

Cross-functional alignment around the customer

While the fact that Bill is spearheading a customer-first approach is critical, it’s equally important that the rest of the company’s leadership and their teams climb on board. We all know a leader can set the tone, but it’s the everyday workers who execute on the vision. Bill has done great work rallying his leadership team. And what could be a better illustration of that than the fact that our marketing and sales teams have partnered in telling our customer stories? Yes, we’ve helped close the great sales and marketing gap to take a cross-functional approach to delivering and speaking to the customer experience.

I’m not trying to sugarcoat this and claim that it’s been a breeze. But if you believe you’re part of One Team, you have to trust your teammates. So we have developed cooperation and trust between sales and marketing. Sales has bought into marketing’s going forward with customer-centric stories and experiences, and we in marketing are committed to delivering on that as our part of the bargain. In turn, we trust sales to hold up its end of the bargain by keeping the focus on the customer instead of on SAP.

Customer-first corporate culture

Bill’s leadership and the marketing-sales alignment are both signals that SAP is walking the walk, that SAP is building a customer-centric culture. But I can share even more examples. Our corporate portfolio marketing team has developed the corporate story, which we weave into all our external events, our thought leadership efforts, and our sound bites. And the “red thread” throughout the storyline all comes back to the needs, successes, and experiences of our customers.

We are also relaunching some amazing SAP Executive Briefing Centers around the globe. Again, marketing is working hand in hand with sales to create something truly experiential for our customers. Instead of customers sitting in the briefing center watching a PowerPoint presentation, we are designating our briefing centers to be more immersive, interactive – and fun. Interactive touch-screen walls allow participants to immerse themselves in the experiences of our customers using SAP technologies to better serve their customers.

For example, in our London experience center, customers enter a glass room with an authentic Formula 1 racing car backed by an interactive screen. In essence, we show how the McLaren Formula 1 team uses the SAP HANA platform to evaluate billions of data points in real time. As a result, the pit crew can make the optimal decisions to help get their team’s race car to the finish line first. But that’s not all – we then let our customers “race” to see how they stack up against a professional McLaren race car driver. This lets them see what’s possible in a fun way. But it’s not all fun and games – we find that these immersive, interactive environments open our customers’ minds to what is possible. And they drive deeper conversations and collaboration.

We’ve also built a design thinking room featuring iPads and walls of interactive touch screens. Here, our customers can draw on the iPad and, with the touch of a button, share their drawings on the interactive screen. They can then move elements around on the walls. This lets our customers get creative in the way that works best for them and creates a co-innovation environment where we work to craft customized solutions. Participants find this stimulating and inspiring, allowing them to do what was traditionally done in a design thinking session in a more experiential fashion.

What is your organization doing to become customer-centric? Where are you succeeding, and where are you falling short?