Thought Leadership
Steve's Takeaway
The LinkedIn newsletter from Steve Towers, Founder and CEO of BP Group. Short, deliberate takes on Outside-In customer experience, CX governance, the CEMMethod®, and the Triple Crown, written for the executives actually accountable for the outcome.
All editions
37 published
Most CX teams are not short of metrics
CX functions are drowning in measurement but starving for signal. The issue is not volume of metrics, it is the absence of metrics that connect to customer successful outcomes and the decisions leaders actually need to make.
Read on LinkedInWhen Lean Sigma crashes and burns
Lean Six Sigma optimises the wrong thing when the starting point is internal efficiency. Steve explains why Outside-In redesign succeeds where traditional Lean programmes stall, and what to do when your transformation has already hit the wall.
Read on LinkedInChronicles From The Future: CX Is The Operating System
A near-future view where customer experience stops being a department and becomes the organisation's operating system. The governance, process, and measurement implications for boards and C-suites.
Read on LinkedInThe True Value of Accreditation in Customer Experience and Process Management
Why structured accreditation, properly designed, raises both the floor and the ceiling of CX and process capability. A candid look at what good looks like, and the common traps in certification programmes.
Read on LinkedInCX: The Early Warning System for AI Disruption
Customer experience is the first place AI exposes weak processes, weak governance, and weak decisions. Treat CX as your organisation's early warning system, not as a downstream consequence.
Read on LinkedInTop 5 Customer Journey Management Challenges and How to Fix Them
The five most common breakdowns in end-to-end customer journey management, and the practical moves that fix them. A field guide for leaders who have tried journey mapping and want the journey actually governed.
Read on LinkedInOutside-In: The Three Rules That Change Everything
The simple framework that separates organisations who talk customer-centricity from those who run on it. Three rules, a single lens, and the operational changes that follow when leaders actually apply them.
Read on LinkedInUnlock Transformation That Matters
Most transformation programmes optimise internal machinery and stop short of changing outcomes. Steve sets out the shift from activity-led to outcome-led transformation, and the governance it requires.
Read on LinkedInWhy Your NPS Score Is Lying To You
NPS without context is a vanity metric. A closer look at what executives should be asking behind the headline number, and the three diagnostic questions that tell you whether your score is signal or noise.
Read on LinkedInThe Outside-In Method Delivers The Triple Crown
How Outside-In thinking consistently delivers the Triple Crown — grow revenue, improve service, and cut cost simultaneously — and why organisations anchored to internal efficiency keep missing it.
Read on LinkedInThe Triple Crown: Revenue, Service, Cost — All At Once
For thirty years, organisations have treated improving service, lifting revenue, and reducing cost as trade-offs. The Triple Crown explains why Outside-In organisations consistently achieve all three, and what that demands of leaders.
Read on LinkedInCEMMethod: The Proven Path to Triple Crown — Grow Revenue, Improve Service, Cut Cost
The CEMMethod as an executable path to the Triple Crown. What the method actually prescribes, what it measures, and the evidence from practitioners deploying it at scale.
Read on LinkedInProcess Is Not The Problem
The process you optimised last year is not the reason customers leave. Steve unpacks where traditional BPM goes wrong, and what the CEMMethod does differently at the point of customer interaction.
Read on LinkedInEmbedding Outside-In Thinking in Practice Across Organizations
Outside-In is easy to admire and hard to embed. A practical look at the org structures, decision rights, and measurement moves that make the shift stick beyond the workshop.
Read on LinkedInFrom Journey Maps To Journey Governance
Journey maps without governance are wall art. The move from mapping to running the customer journey as a governed asset with clear owners, signals, and decisions.
Read on LinkedInWhy Your Customer-Centric Strategy Isn't Working
Customer-centric aspirations are everywhere; results are not. A candid diagnosis of why the label rarely translates into outcomes, and the Outside-In corrections that make the difference.
Read on LinkedInThe CX Operating Model Nobody Is Talking About
A view of CX as an operating discipline, not a brand function. What belongs where, which roles actually move the needle, and where most org designs quietly fail.
Read on LinkedInChief Inspiration Officer — The CX World Needs One
The CX world doesn't need another operating officer. It needs a Chief Inspiration Officer. Steve makes the case for the role that keeps customer experience aspirational and executable at the same time.
Read on LinkedInExecutives Do Not Want More Dashboards
What boards actually want from CX leaders, and why the board deck version of NPS almost always underwhelms. A better shape for the executive conversation.
Read on LinkedInIntroduction to the Customer Experience Imperative
Why customer experience has moved from differentiator to imperative, and what that means for how leaders allocate attention, investment, and organisational design.
Read on LinkedInCustomer Successful Outcomes: The Missing Anchor
The single anchor every CX strategy needs and almost none have. Why CSOs beat KPIs as a design primitive, and how to write them without turning them into corporate wallpaper.
Read on LinkedInAmazon Did Kill the Retail Industry — A Lesson in Customer Obsession
Amazon's rise wasn't retail disruption, it was customer obsession executed with discipline. The lessons every non-retail industry still refuses to learn.
Read on LinkedInWhy CX Transformation Programmes Stall At Month 9
The predictable point where most CX transformations run out of energy, the three root causes, and the governance move that gets them moving again.
Read on LinkedInCustomer Experience Needs a Revival — Practical, Common-Sense Moves
CX has become noisy and fragmented. A short, practical case for a revival grounded in Outside-In common sense and the basics that most programmes have quietly dropped.
Read on LinkedInLean, Agile, Six Sigma: The Outside-In Remix
Your existing improvement toolkit is not the enemy. The trick is reframing it around customer successful outcomes instead of internal efficiency. A practical remix.
Read on LinkedIn5 Traits of Exceptional CX CEOs Rarely Voiced
Five traits that separate genuinely customer-led CEOs from the ones who just say the words. Observed across hundreds of executive engagements, rarely named out loud.
Read on LinkedInThe Board-Level CX Conversation
Five questions every board should be asking its CX leader, and how to answer them without the usual metrics deck. A short playbook for the C-suite.
Read on LinkedInMastering Enlightened Hospitality — Transforming the Guest Experience
What hospitality leaders still do better than most industries, why it works, and the specific moves other sectors can copy without pretending to be restaurants.
Read on LinkedInCX And AI: Where The Real Value Lives
Most AI-in-CX projects optimise the visible layer. The larger prize is in governed workflows and decision points. A candid take on where to invest first.
Read on LinkedInTransformation Command Center (TCC) — Your Mission Control
Why serious transformation programmes need a Command Center, what it actually does beyond a PMO, and the operating rhythm that keeps it useful rather than theatrical.
Read on LinkedInStop Fixing Touchpoints. Start Fixing Decisions.
Touchpoint thinking has peaked. The next wave is decision-point thinking, and it changes what CX teams measure, design, and govern.
Read on LinkedInNew and Emerging Customer Experience and Digital Trends
A working view of the CX and digital trends that will actually matter to leaders in the next 18 months — filtered for substance, not hype.
Read on LinkedInThe Shape Of A Modern CX Function
Headcount, remit, reporting line, and the three capabilities every CX function needs by 2027. A blueprint, not an aspiration.
Read on LinkedInTrue Change — From Tadpoles to Frogs
A short, sharp take on the difference between surface change and genuine transformation, and the organisational metamorphosis most programmes refuse to actually complete.
Read on LinkedInWhy Voice Of Customer Programmes Fail Quietly
VoC programmes rarely fail loudly. They die of irrelevance. How to tell the difference between a programme that produces insight and one that produces slides.
Read on LinkedInThe Accreditation Question
Why CX professional certification has become a leadership question, not an HR question, and what good looks like in 2026.
Read on LinkedInCustomer Experience Is A Governance Problem
When CX underperforms, the fault is almost always in governance, not execution. A short diagnosis for executives who feel the churn but cannot find the cause.
Read on LinkedIn
Want the thinking, operationalised?
The ideas in Steve's Takeaway are grounded in the CEMMethod® and the ACX certification pathway used by 145,000+ practitioners in 140+ countries. Explore how BP Group helps organisations turn Outside-In thinking into governable, commercially accountable CX.