Lack of customer access syndrome

Both leaders in headquarters and global centers argue that lack of direct customer access is the key inhibitor to transform a global technology center to an innovation hub. This is true for companies where majority of their revenue comes from developed markets. There is some truth to this as without direct customer access, the engineering teams lacks context and are also not able to develop deep customer empathy to ensure their prioritise their time on the right set of customer problems. However, it is possible to address this with some deliberate efforts from both HQ and global teams. Here are a few key best practices that will help

1. Buyer vs User difference: The buyer of the product or service is different from the user of the product. Even though the buyer might be in HQ location, the users might be spread across the global and many times at close proximity to engineering teams
2. Volunteer at Sales conferences: Sales team are constantly at trade shows. Engineering teams from global locations should volunteer to support with trade shows to get direct access to customers
3. Active in customer user groups: With digitisation, most customers are active online. Intending listening to the forums and contributing will help the engineering teams see into the mind of the user
4. Rotate talent between engineering, support and operations: Talent rotation when applicable can help build empathy for the users and other product roles
5. Create global product management roles: Even though it is tough to perform product management roles from global locations as it requires constant travel and working in different time zones, this will immensely help in the maturity and providing the right context to the engineering teams
6. Customer experience center at global center: Most corporate technology buyers including CIO, CMO, CDO are constantly on road and probably visit a location like Bangalore, Shanghai once a year. Having a mechanism to host them at the global technology centers will be provide the engineering teams much needed customer access
7. Customer bubbles: With digitisation and using technologies such as VR/AR, it is possible to create immersive customer environments.
8. Imagination: Humans have Infinite capacity to imagine. The right work environment can help the engineers understand the customer context in spite of the location they live in
9. Global sensitisation: Global engineering is a given and the entire organisation including marketing, sales, corporate development, legal and finance has to be sensitised to support the global teams. It should not be left alone to HR and product teams to make it happen.
10. Hard work: Hard work is gone out of fashion replaced by “Work-Life balance”. The fact that someone is farther from the head quarters is a challenge. But this can be overcome by some old fashioned hard knuckling effort.