Nowa strona 1 » How to Redesign Operating Units for Speed and Customer Centricity

Introduction

In the modern business environment, organizations face increasing pressure to operate with agility, customer-centricity, and responsiveness. Traditional operating units, often structured by function or geography, may not be optimized for rapid decision-making or direct customer impact. Redesigning these units to accelerate responsiveness and improve customer experience is a critical step toward sustainable competitive advantage.

This guide provides HR leaders, OD professionals, and senior executives with an in-depth approach to redesigning operating units. It covers diagnostic tools, structural alternatives, role evolution, customer journey integration, and change management strategies. The objective is to enable organizations to shift from slow, siloed execution to fast, flexible, and front-line empowered operations.

1. Understand the Current Operating Unit Design and Its Limitations

Before embarking on any redesign, it is essential to assess how current operating units function and identify structural pain points.

Key Diagnostic Questions:

How are operating units currently structured (functionally, regionally, product-based)?
What bottlenecks exist in decision-making, customer responsiveness, or innovation?
Where do silos and duplication of work exist?
How closely aligned are operating units to customer outcomes?

Narrative: This diagnostic phase uncovers inefficiencies that may hinder responsiveness or dilute customer focus. For example, a company with regionally siloed units may struggle to maintain a unified customer experience. Likewise, functional units may lead to excessive handoffs, delaying service delivery. Data from customer feedback, process KPIs, and employee insights should inform this baseline.

2. Map the Customer Journey and Critical Value Moments

Steps:

Collaborate with customer-facing teams to map end-to-end customer journeys.
Identify critical moments of truth—touchpoints where experience and value are most influenced.
Overlay these journeys with internal workflows and accountability structures.

Narrative: Redesigning for customer centricity begins with deep empathy for the customer experience. Mapping the journey provides insight into where the organization adds or loses value. For instance, if customers consistently experience delays at the contract negotiation stage, it's worth examining whether the legal or sales units are aligned to support quick turnarounds.

3. Define New Operating Unit Objectives Aligned with Strategic Outcomes

Guidelines:

Translate strategic priorities into measurable operating unit outcomes.
Shift focus from internal efficiency to external impact (e.g., customer lifetime value, NPS, retention).
Clarify unit-level KPIs and how they ladder up to enterprise goals.

Narrative: Speed and customer centricity are strategic outcomes, not just operational improvements. Operating units must have clear mandates that drive both. For example, a product support unit might shift from "resolving tickets" to "increasing customer loyalty through proactive engagement." Clarity here lays the foundation for redesign.

4. Choose Structural Alternatives That Maximize Speed and Customer Alignment

Options to Consider:

End-to-End Value Streams: Organize teams around full customer value delivery (e.g., Quote to Cash).
Agile Tribes or Squads: Embed cross-functional teams that own customer segments or services.
Customer Segment Units: Structure by customer profile (e.g., SME, enterprise, consumer).
Product-Centric Units: Build units around flagship products or service bundles.

Narrative: There is no one-size-fits-all model. The choice depends on what your customers need, how fast your market moves, and what capabilities you must orchestrate. End-to-end models are often best for eliminating handoffs, while agile squads support rapid iteration. Use piloting and scenario planning to test new arrangements.

5. Redesign Roles, Accountabilities, and Empowerment Mechanisms

Key Actions:

Flatten hierarchies to push decisions closer to the front line.
Clarify decision rights—who owns what, and at what level?
Introduce roles such as Customer Experience Leads, Journey Owners, or Agile Coaches.
Train mid-level managers to shift from control to enablement.

Narrative: A structural redesign without role redefinition will fail. Fast-moving units require empowered individuals who can act without waiting for approvals. Redesign must address both the formal (org chart) and informal (culture, power dynamics) dimensions of work. Empowerment is enabled by trust, clear accountability, and psychological safety.

6. Digitally Enable Speed and Visibility

Considerations:

Implement real-time dashboards and metrics aligned with customer outcomes.
Adopt collaboration tools that reduce latency and increase transparency.
Automate routine processes to free up human capacity for problem-solving.

Narrative: Speed doesn't come from more meetings—it comes from better systems. Technology must be embedded in the redesign conversation. For example, using customer service platforms with AI triage capabilities can drastically reduce response time. Likewise, shared digital workspaces improve handoffs across functions.

7. Rewire Collaboration Across Units

Techniques:

Create cross-unit councils or missions focused on customer journeys.
Use service-level agreements (SLAs) to define inter-unit expectations.
Build enterprise-wide OKRs that require joint ownership.

Narrative: While redesigning single units for speed is important, it's equally critical to prevent re-siloing. Collaboration frameworks—whether formal or informal—ensure that units contribute to shared customer goals. HR can act as the broker of these new collaborative contracts.

8. Pilot, Learn, and Iterate

Steps:

Start with a single unit or region.
Run time-boxed pilots with baseline and target metrics.
Collect qualitative and quantitative feedback.
Refine operating assumptions and scale progressively.

Narrative: Redesign is not a one-and-done initiative. It’s an iterative learning process. Piloting allows organizations to test the effectiveness of new structures without massive disruption. For example, a regional sales team could be restructured into agile squads with customer success reps embedded, then evaluated against revenue growth and customer churn.

9. Align HR Processes to Support New Operating Units

Alignment Areas:

Performance Management: Shift from individual to team KPIs.
Rewards: Recognize collaboration, innovation, and customer value.
Learning & Development: Upskill leaders on agile leadership, design thinking, and customer empathy.

Narrative: The best structural design will underperform without supportive people systems. HR must play a leading role in enabling the redesign—by aligning recognition, development, and talent mobility with the new operating logic. HRBPs should be embedded in these units as design and change partners.

10. Monitor, Sustain, and Scale

Ongoing Actions:

Establish feedback loops with customers and employees.
Conduct quarterly reviews to assess unit performance.
Scale successful designs across other units or geographies.

Narrative: Redesign doesn’t stop at launch. Organizations must continue to evolve their units based on real-world results. Customer feedback, team health metrics, and unit performance must be monitored continuously. When a model proves successful, it can become a blueprint for scaling transformation across the enterprise.

Conclusion

Redesigning operating units for speed and customer centricity requires a systemic, principled, and human-centric approach. It’s about much more than shifting boxes on an org chart—it’s about fundamentally rethinking how value is created and delivered. HR leaders and OD professionals are uniquely positioned to guide this transformation, translating strategy into agile structures, empowered roles, and continuous improvement.

When done well, this redesign enables organizations to not only respond faster to market demands but to delight customers in ways that build lasting loyalty and resilience.