Case Analysis 2o6s27

Delivering Customer Centricity Group 2 • Ashish Mittal • Avnie Saxena • Aniket Sharma • Deepanjali Khurana • Jatin Rai • Kamalika Poddar • Kaustav Dutta

EMC2 • EMC2 is an IT firm dealing in data storage, data security and cloud computing • Found in the year 1979 by Richard Egan and Roger Marino • Started by selling memory boards to firms to store more data on their computers • Company went public in 1986 and expanded into newer markets and product lines • The company turned in a revenue of $127 million in 1987

The Traditional Approach • Traditionally EMC2 was an aggressive sales driven firm • They sold office furniture to get in touch with the buyers and subsequently pitched them their solutions • There was a brass bell in the centre of the room from where sales team operated, which was rung every time an order of $10,000 was closed • From the team of 5000, one out of ten left the company each year with half of them being fired • There was a predominant culture of “only the strong survive” • Though the company was doing good, there was a major issue with quality, and company shipped replacement drives to pained customers • Sales teams even shipped defective disks to customers to complete targets, knowing that the replacement drives would eventually be sent out

The New Way: Customer Centricity

• There was severe backlash from the customers due to aggressive mindless selling that the stock prices dropped from $29 to $7 per share • Company decided to take a customer centric approach and offered customers replacement IBM models for failed products • Because of this company recorded losses of $8 million in the year 1988 • EMC2 started working as a solutions provider while working on its product quality • It raised its prices by 5-15% but offered customer centric solutions and too pains to see that the need of the customer was fulfilled • Total Customer Experience program was initiated to understand what customers valued the most and find most efficient and cost effective ways to deliver it

Listening to the VOC • Customer inputs were taken from both structured market research and Unstructured conversations • Quarterly customer loyalty surveys were floated to see that customers were satisfied with the company • The company was constantly on the lookout to see what more EMC could do to improve the relationship with customers • EMC started holding customer councils to collaborate with the customers and understand their needs and design products accordingly • Company started moving from Hard Sell to Consultative Sell • Customers also started looking at EMC as a reliable partner rather than a product seller

• Employees were encouraged to embed into the lives of the customers and assist them right from the sale through the product installation to customer service • 18% of the workforce made up dedicated service employees • Considering the criticality of their products EMC invested deeply into their products and built in features and service procedures to ensure that any product problems are identified and fixed quickly • A team of customer service, technical, and field personnel was available for throughout the world • Because of all these initiatives, customers treated EMC not as a vendor but a partner in their process

Taking Responsibility

Transforming the Product Portfolio

VAR Sales Model

High Touch vs. High Tech

The Way Ahead