Aligning the employee & customer experience (President of Panasonic Connect North America, M. Faisal Pandit)

“We have been shifting our business focus from selling hardware to becoming an ecosystem provider that encompasses software and services to bring more value to our customers. The conversation is no longer around the devices but a broader set of needs and customer pain points, and it requires much deeper engagement and an emphasis on the long-term relationship. 

To make this transformation, we needed to first put more of an emphasis on employees and customers: I believe you must align the customer experience with the employee experience — because you can’t have one without the other. 

To do this we need to build capabilities holistically with a deeper engagement with customers. For example, if the company doesn’t have a culture of collaboration across functions, it’s almost impossible to expect people to have collaborative conversations with customers. 

One approach we have taken is to establish a common set of objectives across business functions and set some goals that overlap with the rest of the organization. To break down silos, we needed to set a common vision, one of achieving a 70/30 split in revenue across hardware, software and professional services. We must explain what we’re about, what we’re trying to accomplish, and why it’s achievable. Once the foundation is laid, things flow from there, but it requires constant communication, accountability, empathy, and most importantly, team autonomy. 

Through this internal transformation we set out to become more consultative in our interaction with customers. The kind of customer engagement we strive for is understanding pain points and finding ways to solve those through our knowledge and expansive ecosystems of partners. It’s about listening and telling stories, it’s far more gratifying to own a story than to make a sale.” 

About M. Faisal Pandit:  

Faisal is an Executive Officer of Panasonic Connect and President of Panasonic Connect North America. Before becoming president, he held senior management roles in the company’s security solutions and factory solutions businesses. Faisal holds an MBA in finance and strategy from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management; and an MS in computer science from Illinois Institute of Technology.