the most underutilized resource in any organization is its customers
Welcome to Jokull. For brands, teams and people who want to drive success and competitive advantage by becoming uniquely better at serving their customers.
From data and insights to strategy and execution, from competencies to operations. Discovering new perspectives and differentiation the customer cares about.
It’s called Business Design
Business Design combines the best of the customer with the best of business.
An introduction to the three parts of Business Design.
1: Strategy-to-execution
Supporting the organization to include the customer in the strategy, building a bridge between strategy and execution.
Creating a measurable line-of-sight from strategy to execution to customer and business outcomes.
2. Operations & Competencies
With a customer driven strategy the team needs the competencies to take them there.
Business Design supports the organization in prioritizing and building the right competencies to serve the customer-centric enterprise through a customer transformation.
3. Way-of-working
A customer centric team asks new questions, uses new insights, creates new experiences and measures the value of their work differently.
They need a new way-of-working to support their new needs.
How Business Designers Work on Customer-2-business outcomes
A Business Designer approaches an opportunity through the lens of both the business and the customer.
1. First mapping the ecosystem surrounding the opportunity understanding how the market works and what leads to more or less of what we want (red dot).
2. Secondly using the map to place the known desired business outcomes and then finding the desired customer outcomes aligned to (leading to) the business outcomes (blue dot).
3. Identifying the competencies in the organization which can be combined into what unique offer influencing the customer behavior leading to the desired outcomes for them and the organization (green dots).
4. Making the calculations ensuring profitability and measurability (orange dots)
firn
Foundational to all decisions and actions is the experience, expertise and knowledge we need to make them.
There is a data gap in our organizations today where the data we use is not the data we need to get us where we want.
With firn we want to fix this. It’s a specifically data centric approach to decision making and AI-competencies.
Visit our site to learn more.
“What we want our organizations to become is different from what we put into them to get there”
Helge Tennø
How we did it / work:
We’ve had the opportunity to work with tons of exceptional talents and teams over the years. This is some of the work we have done together.
Upskilling 5000 marketers on the customer
The big insight in all of this is that the focus needs to be on the outcome of the work, not the name of the tool. And that having an outsized influence sometimes means stepping back and listening to what the customer/marketer needs, not what you want.
Making learning part of the work not an addition
We treat learning as external to the work instead of part of the work. This makes learning less efficient and comes at a cost to the learning and the worker. How can we fix this?
Finding the music in the noise
Researching, mapping and visualizing how an organization delivers value.
Business><customer strategy
A key part of business design is discovering, prototyping, testing and improving the business opportunity that aligns with opportunities for the customer leading to a mutual exchange of value.
A new way-of-working
How we work and what we get done are two sides of the same coin. Changing the former can be the most effective way to improve the latter.
Prioritization: don’t overthink it
Prioritization is important to almost every business decision. But in my experience we have a tendency to overthink it. Making the process much simpler might make it better.
Uncovering opportunities
A system map is a simple way to discover new perspectives helping the organization take advantage of new opportunities in new ways.
The Customer Transformation
A customer transformation is where the Company changes its methods, processes and outcomes responding to demand from its customers and employees — it’s people.
Keep reading more about our experience and thinking:
#1. Strategy
Creating the line-of-sight from the customer to the business including the customer in the strategy. Giving guidance to the execution.
A clear line-of-sight from work to value
I’ve interviewed hundreds of employees .. each person sees their role as contributing value to their customers benefiting the business.
The Outcome Economy
The Outcome Economy was one of those great “flying car” moments where the future kept its promise and delivered something of significant value to companies and their customers .. but then it all but disappeared.
#2. Transformation
Digital transformations are failing everywhere. It’s time to move on from the ‘what’ they include to the ‘why’ we are doing them and create a demand for them in the organization. Which means applying a human and organizational understanding and lens.
Your digital transformation should be a customer transformation
Why are so many transformations failing? Because they are focused on what people are doing instead of why they are doing it.
The Customer Centric Transformation
Becoming customer centric means identifying the parts influencing our specific organization’s ability to focus on the customer and then set the strategy for the transformation ahead.
Technology failed — now let’s get to work to make it work
As with every other transformation it’s time to take of the technology sunglasses and get to work solving real issues that matter. Which means applying a human and organizational understanding and lens.
#3. Data & Insights bias
Asking the wrong questions will produce the wrong data and insights having little to no impact on the decisions they are supposed to serve. Closing the customer-data-gap becomes essential.
The customer-data-gap
I assume there is a BIG customer data gap in most organizations: who are collecting sales / product data and skinny behavioral / channel data expecting these are helpful to understanding their customers.
Why AI’s lack of direction is perfect for CX’s loss of direction
Artificial Intelligence doesn’t know what it wants, and it might be exactly what Customer Experience needs.
Design for better data
We make the best decisions we can based on the information in front of us. But how do we determine if the data we have is the data we need to make the decisions we want?
#4. An aligned organization with the customer at the center
Serving the customer is a cross-functional effort, but many organizations are siloed and not designed for work across domains. The customer is what everyone has is common and with shared language, data and measures has the ability to drive connection and alignment across the organization.
“If one issue has the potential to unite the c-suite to act in concert, establishing trust based relationships with customers stands at the top.”
- IBM C-Suite Study
Designing a customer way of working
Designing a customer way of working means subtle shifts within the organization leading to radical changes in outcomes. It’s not a disruptive exercise. It only requires using key levers to motivate the company to want to change.
The factory floor model
Does the organization produce outputs or outcomes? Does it describe itself as a factory floor or through its engagements with its customers? One way to find out is to simply ask colleagues: what does success look like to them?
#5. Customer demand & competitive advantage
Organizations are solving too many problems that don’t exist. Because we are not including the customer properly in our work we are too often focusing on our own problems instead of their opportunities.
What is “customer-centric”?
Companies derive value not from selling, but from their customers purchasing. A purchase is driven by motivation. And that motivation is based on the situation surrounding and shaping the need and desired outcome of their customers.
Differentiation doesn’t matter
Customers don’t care that we’re different, only we do.
Your greatest cost cutter is the customer
The customer can be your most important asset when figuring out what to stop doing.
Speaker engagement or internal upskilling sessions / program
Speaker
Experienced speaker at both conference and internal events.
Speaks on topics related to strategy, the customer, technology and transformations.
Upskilling / training
20 years of experience training and upskilling people in remote or live environment, mindset sessions, skillset training or toolset project work.
Tailored approach to learning made sure to fit the environment, maturity and need of your organization.
Contact:
Email: ht@jokull.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helgetenno/
Latest articles:
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Your digital transformation should be a customer transformation
Why are so many transformations failing? Because they are focused on what people are doing instead of why they are doing it.
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The Customer Centric Transformation
Everything is connected. From what we think our job is, to how we measure it, how our technologies and data support us or our culture shapes us. Becoming customer centric means identifying the parts influencing our specific organization’s ability to focus on the customer and then set the strategy for the transformation ahead.
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What are the seven biggest paint points for Customer Experience (survey)?
I recently ran a short survey looking for the key pain points for Customer Experience (CX). It was not a statistically significant survey, but hoped the results would be a valuable addition to the conversation about the future of CX.
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How we did it: Upskilling 5000 marketers on the customer .. without telling them
When I joined the Customer Experience team in 2019 our dream was to increase the customer literacy across the company by bringing a Customer Experience (CX) expert to every market. But this wouldn’t work. So we had to pivot to be succesful.
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How do you get to better strategy?
It is easy to think that improving something means making changes to the thing itself.
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Is ‘the customer’ ripe for disruption?
Is the ‘customer framework’-industry overshooting client usefulness and needs?
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I get it: business is much simpler without customers
At no time in recent history has it been more important to be really good at our customers. But is the opposite happening? Are companies turning away from their customers and back towards their products and internal operations?
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![illustration of street houses and a stop sign]()
Your greatest cost cutter is the customer
The customer can be your most important asset when figuring out what to stop doing.
About:
Helge Tennø is an experienced business strategist and digital innovation expert, dedicated to helping organizations drive growth through customer-centric solutions. With a strong focus on emerging technologies, he supports companies in aligning strategy with market needs, fostering innovation, and enhancing customer experience.
With over a decade of experience working with leading brands, Helge brings a unique blend of strategic thinking, actionable insights, and a deep understanding of digital transformation. His passion lies in guiding businesses to adapt and thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape.