Customer-Driven Disruption

Businesses worry about new technologies, but customers are the ultimate disruptors-Suman Sarkar offers bold strategies for making sure you understand your customers and keep up with their ever-changing needs.


Disruption-the brutal roiling of markets, the decline of long-established brands and products, and the rise of new upstarts-drives business failure and success. Most people think technology causes disruption, but technology merely enables it-changing customer needs cause disruptions and too many businesses get caught unaware. The irony is your customers are constantly telling you what they want-you just have to know how to listen. This book offers five proven strategies that will enable any business to stay radically close to its customers and give them what they want: (1) win with current customers before chasing after new ones; (2) personalization is not a luxury; (3) customers won't wait; (4) good enough is no longer good enough; and, in the spirit of disruption, (5) go beyond strategies one through four.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Disruption Myth
• 1. Customers Drive Disruption
• 2. Customer-Focused Strategies Needed to Avoid Disruption
• 3. Customer-Focus Strategy 1: Win with Current Customers Before Chasing After New Ones
• 4. Customer-Focus Strategy 2: Personalization Is Not a Luxury
• 5. Customer-Focus Strategy 3: Customers Won’t Wait
• 6. Customer-Focus Strategy 4: Good Enough Is No Longer Good Enough
• 7. Customer-Focus Strategy 5: Disregard Strategies 1 Through 4
• Conclusion: Choosing and Implementing the Strategies
• Appendix: Disruption Assessment
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Author

“Suman Sarkar's Customer-Driven Disruption is not just another book preaching customer focus to business executives. Rather than restrict himself to homilies, Suman lays down five strategies that can help bring the C into business planning. He illustrates each strategy with a rationale backed by numbers and specific steps to bring it to life with examples from across industries. The book ends with a set of guiding questions that can be used by thoughtful executives either by themselves or in a team setting to develop an action plan for their organizations.”
-Milind Yedkar, General Manager, Asia Pacific & Japan, Cloud Client Computing, Dell

“There's no use building a bridge if your customers don't want to go there. This book shows you new ways to prioritize your customers. How can you engage with changing customer needs-not just push old products at new needs? How can you win by helping your customers win?”
-Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future, and author of The New Leadership Literacies

“This book disrupts disruption! It redefines what causes disruption and what you can do about it. It accomplishes this with an elegant paradigm shift that's profound and yet simple. Suman's conclusions are based on powerful insights from research, case studies of leading companies, and decades of business experience. You will never think of disruption in the same way again.”
-Praveen Madan, CEO, Kepler's Books

“Suman Sarkar does a great job discussing five effective customer focus strategies for companies to proactively navigate the increasingly disruptive business environment. The substantial cases demonstrate the power of being customer focused quite well, and this book will be a great resource for executives and managers to quickly shape strategies for disruption.”
-Dr. Richard Peng, Assistant Professor of Project and Supply Chain Management, Black School of Business, Penn State Behrend

“Suman Sarkar redirects the focus back to what made your business a business: its customers. With many case studies and concise takeaways, this book is a handy guide to shaking up your innovation strategy.”
-Crystal Kadakia, author of The Millennial Myth

“Suman Sarkar is a strategist after my own heart-like me, he believes that real change and innovation come from customers' actual needs and wants, not from researchers in lab coats. Customers will tell you how to make your business thrive and win the future-if you learn how to listen. This book explains how to open your ears.”
-Jeanne Bliss, President, CustomerBliss, and author of Chief Customer Officer 2.0

“Sarkar puts forth new, actionable definitions of customer focus, personalization, and quality along with a road map that your team can use to think creatively and be more willing to take intelligent risks.”
-John A. Goodman, Vice Chairman, Customer Care Measurement & Consulting

“This is an excellent, thought-provoking book that offers clear strategies enabling you to understand buying patterns and generational expectations. Customer-Driven Disruption will inspire you to effectively plan for and stay ahead of your competition by focusing on your customers and what they want.”
-Renee Evenson, author of nine books including Powerful Phrases for Effective Customer Service and Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Difficult People

“In Customer-Driven Disruption, Sarkar shows that technology isn't the real driver of disruption, and he unveils many more surprises that will challenge your assumptions and prepare you and your organization to stay ahead.”
-Steve Curtin, author of Delight Your Customers