The Customer Copernicus - Preview

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INTRODUCTION

WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE YOU?

There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality. Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon Letter to Shareholders, April 2017 1 Earning lifelong relationships, one customer at a time, is fundamental to achieving our vision. John Stumpf, Chairman and CEO, Wells Fargo Letter to Shareholders, February 2016 2 While the words sound the same, the realities are very different. In his April 2017 letter to shareholders, Bezos conveys a vivid picture of what being customer-led looks like and what it takes. Stumpf, in his 2016 letter, also says all the right things: ‘We are on our customer’s side.’ And, for a casual observer at the time, this might have suggested Wells Fargo was as customer-led as Amazon. Yet eight months later, in October 2016, Stumpf was forced to resign in the wake of a scandal revealing the bank had opened as many as 2 million