The complexity of the new networked, interdependent economy creates an ambiguous, uncertain, competitive landscape. Companies must be flexible enough to rapidly respond to changes in their environments, or risk extinction.

Service quality is the difference between that purpose (what customers expect) and your performance (what they get).

Customers not only compare your service to what you have done in the past, but they also compare it to their other alternatives, or even similar experiences in entirely different domains.

Our companies have all been optimized for a perfect one-way stream, the line of production, and these pesky customers are mucking about in our operations, and we have now a completely different problem to solve. We need to optimize not for the line of production but for the line of interaction, the front line — the edge of the organization — where

There’s little doubt that a fundamental economic restructuring is underway. There will be winners and there will be losers.

A company can’t create value on its own: value is only created through exchange. The customer must participate in defining and determining that value.

What made customers happy a few years ago won’t necessarily make them happy today. In other words, if you’re not learning and evolving, you’re falling behind.

To win in a Red Queen race, organizations will have to detect, respond, and adapt on many fronts simultaneously, something most of today’s organizations are not designed to do. Some companies will find ways to do this. Those that can’t will not survive.

When in doubt, don’t look inside your company for answers. Turn around and face the market. Get back in touch with your customers.