- Beer - 25 years ago there were only a handle of breweries. Now there are more than 2,500 in the U.S. alone.
- Fast food - McDonalds used to have just a few items on their menu. Now there are nearly 150 choices.
- Coffee - Remember when it was just black or with cream and sugar? Now Starbucks boasts 86,000 drink combinations.
It's not that complexity is bad. In fact, complexity leads to innovation and growth. It's just become more difficult for customers to handle all the complexity and companies don't seem to be doing a good job of guiding them through an endless maze of process, procedures, and choices.
Companies are recognizing the problem but are struggling to fix it. In our firm's recent study, The Value of Making it Easy we found that 80% of B-to-B organizations have some sort of initiative in place to improve the ease of doing business. However, only 57% of those same respondents say those initiatives are effective. What's more, Less then 40% of the customers surveyed describe common interactions with companies as "easy."
So how can you make it easier to become easy? A good place to start is with a journey mapping exercise. It can help you diagnose the trouble spots and get people on board so the ease of doing business will pay off!
Patrick Gibbons
Principal/SVP
Walker
P.S. We're hosting a webcast on this topic -- June 19 at 1:00 pm Eastern Time. Join us!
