How to drive successful customer-centric change

Customer expectations are higher than ever. Brad Stead, consulting director at Project One, explains the steps organisations can take to master customer-centric change.

With the proliferation of digital tools and platforms, customers now expect seamless, personalised, and meaningful experiences across every touchpoint, but the CX is only as good as the execution of this change by the organisation and its people. This shift is driving organisations to place customers at the heart of their operations. 

Several factors contribute to this trend: 

1. Cultural Shifts: Employees and stakeholders increasingly expect businesses to be purpose-driven and customer-focused. 
2. Competitive Pressures: Companies that fail to prioritise the customer often lose out to competitors who excel at it. 
3. Digital Disruption: Technologies such as AI, cloud computing, and big data enable organisations to gather and analyse customer insights at scale. 
4. Regulatory Drivers: Data protection and consumer rights regulations, like GDPR, have made customer-centricity a compliance imperative as well as a strategic one. 

Customer-centric transformation goes beyond improving customer satisfaction metrics—it drives loyalty, reduces churn, and boosts long-term profitability. For organisations to reap these benefits, they need robust frameworks for embedding customer needs into every aspect of change and transformation which can be adopted and deployed by their workforce. 

Looking back, organisations have attempted customer-centric transformations in various ways. While some succeeded, others fell short due to common pitfalls, including: 

• Resistance to Change: Employee pushback often hinders transformation efforts, particularly when the shift challenges entrenched ways of working and need to adopt new technologies. 
• Siloed Operations: Many organisations still struggle with internal silos, leading to fragmented customer experiences. 
• Short-Term Focus: Companies that prioritise immediate ROI over long-term customer engagement often fail to sustain their initiatives. 

Going into 2025, customer-centricity will continue to evolve in three key areas: technology, organisational culture, and strategy execution.

1. Embedding Customer-Centricity in Culture

Organisational culture will need to embrace the change required to align with customer-centric values and enabling technologies: 

• Empowerment: Employees across all levels must be empowered to prioritise customer outcomes over rigid processes. 
• Training: Comprehensive training programmes will equip teams with the skills to understand, adapt and respond to evolving customer needs. 
• Leadership Commitment: Leaders must champion customer-centric transformation and model desired behaviours.

2. Leveraging Advanced Technologies

The role of technology in understanding and serving customers will deepen: 

• AI and Machine Learning: Predictive analytics will enable hyper-personalisation, allowing organisations to anticipate customer needs and deliver tailored solutions in real time. 
• Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): Unified data platforms will provide a single source of truth, eliminating silos and fostering seamless customer journeys. 
• Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR): These tools will enhance customer experiences in retail, training, and support environments. 

3. Executing with Excellence

Execution will remain a key differentiator. This is where programme management, change management, and the PMO will play pivotal roles. 

Executing Customer-Centric Change Well: Get your transformation fundamentals right! Programme Management 

Effective programme management is essential for orchestrating complex customer-centric transformations. Key practices include: 

1. Shape: Creating a compelling case for change, defining a future operating model and developing a realistic roadmap. 
2. Mobilise: Ensuring your change is properly set up for success, avoiding unnecessary costs later on ,to drive the programme forward smoothly and at pace. 
3. Deliver: Leading and orchestrating delivery across all parties, proactively removing delivery blockers and effectively managing stakeholders to ensure efficient execution. 
4. Assure: Establishing the facts and provide foresight to ensure your critical change is successful.  

For example, a global airline realised the benefits of merging two large inter-dependent customer focused programmes into one. Using expert programme leadership capabilities, the organisation shaped and delivered a global customer services and call centre transformation into a multi-site, multi-outcome business and technology CX change programme. 

Change Management  

Change management ensures that employees and stakeholders are ready to and will embrace new ways of working. Key strategies include: 

1. End-to-End Change Management: Aligning your vision, values and people to achieve your North Star and supporting them at each stage of the journey 
2. Change Leadership: Equipping leaders with the change skills, mindset, and tools needed to effectively guide your organisation through its transformation agenda. 
3. Change Capability Uplift: Assessing your organisation’s needs and build enduring Change Capability by developing internal skills and fostering resilience through the delivery of real work. 

Another example here comes from building a clear ‘Digital First’ strategy for Telenet. The project blended two brands into one single platform, while empowering people, simplifying processes with effective change management.

Programme Management Office

Programme Management Office (PMO) encompasses a range of key responsibilities in a business. These include project governance, defining and implementing project management standards, policies and procedures; stakeholder management, ensuring that there is excellent communication and collaboration across the project, stakeholders and wider impacted community; and risk and issue management, helping to identify, analyse and mitigate risks associated with the project, and to devise risk management strategies and plans.

The PMO serves as the backbone of transformation initiatives, ensuring alignment, governance, continuous improvement and strategic decision-making. Key contributions include: 

1. Definition and Maturity: Defining the services, skills, controls and approach necessary to embed an enduring capability. 
2. Implementation: Mobilising the appropriate PMO services and implement the prioritised Maturity Assessment recommendations. 
3. Leadership and Run: Leading the PMO service with the execution of day-to-day activities and implementation of a continuous improvement approach. 

A leading wellness organisation needed a refresh of its existing PMO processes, toolsets and ways of working with the business and inflight transformation programmes to ensure that the services and capabilities provided were fit for purpose and relevant to enable for digital projects in areas such as governance, reporting and programme cadence.

Best practices for success 

To ensure customer-centric transformation is successful, organisations should adopt the following best practices: 

1. Start with the Customer: Conduct thorough research to understand customer pain points, needs, and expectations and ensure this is front of mind throughout 
2. Break Down Silos: Foster cross-functional collaboration to  improve innovation, productivity and execution whilst helping to  avoid duplication with other projects and teams looking to deliver the same objectives. 
3. Measure What Matters: Focus on metrics that reflect and impact customer value, such as satisfaction, loyalty, and lifetime value and are aligned to the business vision 
4. Be Agile: Embrace flexibility and pivot as the landscape evolves. Things will change in a dynamic customer environment. 
5. Celebrate Wins: Recognise and reward teams for milestones to build momentum and confidence, In both the team and with leadership.

Customer-centric transformation is no longer optional—it is a business imperative. From lessons-learnt, leveraging new technologies, and executing with precision, organisations can position themselves for success in 2025 and beyond. Programme management, change management, and PMOs will be instrumental in delivering these transformations.

They ensure alignment, foster employee engagement, and maintain focus on delivering exceptional customer outcomes. For organisations willing to embrace the challenge, customer-centric transformation offers a powerful pathway to competitive advantage, sustained growth, and, most importantly, happier customers.