When this is pursued relentlessly over decades, as at Amazon, it leads to the creation of new businesses and new sets of customers, or what I have called, “ strategic agility.” As Rossman explains:Īmazon’s sophisticated logistics expertise did not come from wanting to be a supply chain company. It means a drive for continuing to improve the customer experience. To go from good to great, to ‘see around the corner’ for your customer, or to change an internal culture, obsession will deliver different insights.”Ĭustomer obsession at Amazon goes beyond customer satisfaction. … Know the details of the customer experience and what causes friction for customers.Īlthough there are 14 leadership principles at Amazon, Leadership Principle 1 is ‘Customer Obsession,’ and it is the first among equals of Amazon’s leadership principles….

It’s everyone’s job to know and have empathy and passion for the customer. CEO Jeff Bezos announced this in his 1997 letter to shareholders and Amazon has relentlessly stuck to that obsession ever since. Everyone is expected to be obsessed with knowing about and enhancing the impact of what they do for the customer. Customer obsession is not just for top management, sales and marketing. He was inspired to write the book as he had seen first-hand the impact of Amazon’s approach and wants others to apply it to organization building, culture building, thinking through strategy, driving for operational improvement.Īs in all examples of genuine Agile management, life at Amazon is characterized by a pervasive customer-obsessed mindset.

He launched and scaled the Marketplace business, and then ran the Enterprise Services business, which provided e-commerce infrastructure for other large retailers. He worked at Amazon for about four years and ran two of their businesses. Think Like Amazon shows how Amazon created an environment with very different values and behaviors.

Amazon business smile