The document discusses banning the concept of internal customers within an organization. It argues that viewing other departments as customers leads teams to focus on internal politics rather than the actual external customer. It advocates creating a joint digital team with a single budget focused on customer and company benefit. This streamlines prioritization and allows staff to innovate freely to meet customer needs. The key takeaways are to remove internal customers, focus on the real external customer, prioritize based on customer and company value, and empower teams to innovate.

1. Why I banned the
internal customer
Antoine de Kerviler
CIO - Eurostar

2. Define “customer”
An internal customer is directly connected to an organization,
and is usually internal to the organization.
He is usually a stakeholder, an employee, or a shareholder, but
the definition can also encompass creditors and external
regulators.
Source : Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer
“A customer is the recipient of a good, service, product, or idea,
obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier for a monetary or
other valuable consideration.”

3. The customer moves to the periphery
Let’s build a web site
CCommercial
Revenue
IS / IT
Develop, operate
Development
Code
Infrastructure
Operate
Service desk
Monitor
Sales
Revenue
Marketing
Offer, product
Advertising
Make it known
Digital
Social, affiliation…
Legal
T&Cs, privacy
Finance
Payment, fraud
UX / CX
Usability
PMO
Coordination, change management
A

4. Monopolistic behaviors
One internal supplier
Some side effects
Internal customer
Soon, you’ve lost sight of the customer
He loses patience and shops around

5. Internal customer
Antoine de Kerviler
CIO - Eurostar

6. Only one customer
The customer is the person travelling…

7. Focus on the customer

8. No more “over the fence” culture
Customer asks Design Built Customer wants

9. Build an efficient web team
Revenue
Mgt
Dev OpsUI / UX
Payment
Advertising
Dev Team
Tests Architects
Social
Networks
IS Security
Service Desk
Finance Legal
Digital
sales
Distribution
systems
Contact
center

10. Digital steering group
• One budget : IS + commercial
• Co-managed by CIO and Commercial Director
• Key functions represented = 6 people
• Ad-hoc additional attendees
• Very simple and transparent prioritization
• Fully transparent

11. Very simple prioritisation system
Customer
benefit
Company
benefit
Impact Priority
Cost of doing
nothing
Projects
0 … 13 0 … 13 0 … 13 B + B - I £Description
13 3 8 8
13 + 3 - 8
£ 10k / wk
Change service for
customer
3 13 13 3
3 + 13 - 13
£ 50k / wk
Host servers on
another OS
All projects and tasks are prioritized and
decisions are made by joint team

12. Rebooking
and refunds
are processed
in a few days
Everyone has
the same info
Give your staff permission to innovate
Process can be
outsourced &
crowdsourced
Dev team built
a single purpose
app
Need to handle
huge activity peaks
Realtime info
becomes available
Contact center
builds an intranet
page
Need to inform
staff and customers
Everyone is aligned on the objectives, it’s easy to
empower people to innovate

13. Key take aways
• Get rid of the internal customer
• Focus your teams on the one & only customer
• Prioritize tasks, projects according to customer
+ company benefit
• Give your staff permission to innovate

14. I banned the internal
customer
Antoine de Kerviler
CIO - Eurostar

15. Thank you
Please check your itinerary
and move on to your next session.
Slides will be available post event.