The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers by Keith R. Mcfarland

Author:Keith R. Mcfarland [Mcfarland, Keith R.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Crown Business
Published: 2008-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

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Breakthrough companies eventually transition from “save the customer” organizational heroics to robust systems designed to constantly monitor and enhance the value they are providing their customers.

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ADTRAN also added to its competitive advantage by eliminating the barriers between its engineers and the customers. From its very beginning, the company relied on the direct interaction between its design engineers and the end users to ensure that it was incorporating the customer’s most highly valued feature requests. And where most growing companies begin to insert layers of management, sales, and support team to insulate its engineers, ADTRAN vigilantly kept to its flat structure so that when a customer like Verizon came calling, “I would encourage them to talk to our design engineers directly,” CEO Tom Stanton told us. ADTRAN also tries to partner with customers whenever possible rather than trying to build products basically on spec, hoping customers will buy them. “When you have a customer with a vested interest in the development of a product, they will pare back their wish lists because they want you to succeed as much as you do,” Stanton told us.22

ADTRAN’s culture of ownership among its engineers also contributed heavily in its focus on customers. Rather than getting bored six generations into a product, engineers are motivated to keep improving their designs through customer input until they own 100 percent of the market. Clint Coleman told us that engineers to this day still come in on weekends to meet their deadlines because they take pride in seeing their work help ADTRAN gain market share. “It’s more than just the stock options,” Coleman told us. “Our customers are our partners, and at the end of the day, there is a real sense of accomplishment in building the best possible product that makes them happy because that means we will be successful.”23

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