Repeatability

R EPEATA BILI T Y

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difficult to enforce. It may be “all about customer service,” but

leaders don’t want to communicate this because it might alienate

other parts of the organization, especially non-customer-facing

functions. Loss of an ability to set sharp, focused priorities can

erode the core of a once successful repeatable model.

Take, for example, the damage caused by many of the

“customer excellence” programs over the last ten years. These

programs were originally intended to revive a company’s cus-

tomer focus. But as we’ve seen with many of the companies we

meet with as coheads of Bain’s Global Strategy Practice, these

programs were applied to all functions, regardless of whether

the functions were actually customer facing. ...