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.
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Transformation & Change
How to Avoid Customer Journey Mapping Armageddon
Most journey maps end up as wall art. Steve explains the common traps that turn mapping into theatre, and the Outside-In discipline that makes the work actually drive measurable change in service, cost and revenue.
Read on LinkedInPerspectives & Case Studies
Five Best Customer Experience Books You Must Read
A curated reading list for CX leaders who want substance over slogans. Steve picks five books that have shaped Outside-In thinking and explains what each one adds to a practitioner's toolkit.
Read on LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
Why Customer Experience Professionals Need a New Approach
The traditional CX playbook is running out of road. Steve makes the case for a new professional stance — one grounded in Outside-In thinking, commercial accountability, and the mechanics of the Triple Crown.
Read on LinkedInMetrics & Measurement
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 LinkedInTransformation & Change
When 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 LinkedInOutside-In & CEMMethod
Chronicles 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 LinkedInTransformation & Change
The 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 LinkedInAI & Future of CX
CX: 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 LinkedInTransformation & Change
Top 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 LinkedInTransformation & Change
Unlock 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 LinkedInOutside-In & CEMMethod
The 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 LinkedInOutside-In & CEMMethod
CEMMethod: 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 LinkedInOutside-In & CEMMethod
Embedding 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 LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
Why 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 LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
Chief 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 LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
Introduction 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 LinkedInPerspectives & Case Studies
Amazon 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 LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
Customer 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 LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
5 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 LinkedInPerspectives & Case Studies
Mastering 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 LinkedInTransformation & Change
Transformation 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 LinkedInAI & Future of CX
New 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 LinkedInTransformation & Change
True 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 LinkedInAI & Future of CX
The Future of Customer Experience — Trends to Watch in 2025
A curated look at the customer experience trends that will actually matter in 2025 — stripped of vendor hype and framed for leaders who need to act on them.
Read on LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
CX Executives — The Root Problem and the Solution
Why most CX executive roles are set up to fail, the root cause Steve sees across industries, and the structural fix that actually gives CX leaders a chance.
Read on LinkedInPerspectives & Case Studies
How to Remember Anything, Anywhere, All the Time
A practical note on the memory, attention, and recall practices that high-performing leaders rely on — and why they matter more as information overload accelerates.
Read on LinkedInMetrics & Measurement
Why CX Measurement Is Important — and Critical to Your Success
Measurement is the place most CX programmes quietly die. Steve sets out what to measure, why it matters, and the common measurement traps that hollow out customer-led strategy.
Read on LinkedInAI & Future of CX
GenAI and Experience Management
Where generative AI genuinely changes experience management, where it flatters to deceive, and how to pick the few use cases worth governing at board level.
Read on LinkedInAI & Future of CX
AI-Powered Insurance Transformation — Boosting Client Outcomes
A sector-specific read on how AI is actually reshaping insurance — underwriting, claims, and client outcomes — and the governance required to keep the customer in frame.
Read on LinkedInPerspectives & Case Studies
All Aboard — The Horse-Drawn History of American Railroads
A short, unexpected history lesson on early American railroads and the Outside-In moral it hands to today's transformation leaders.
Read on LinkedInOutside-In & CEMMethod
Combatting Bank Fraud Using the CEMMethod
How the CEMMethod applies directly to fraud prevention in banking — customer-first framing, process intelligence, and the governance shifts that move the numbers.
Read on LinkedInPerspectives & Case Studies
Jargon Monoxide — Clearing the Air in Your Workplace
Jargon slowly suffocates organisations. Steve names the worst offenders in CX and transformation, and offers a simple cleanup that sharpens decisions.
Read on LinkedInStrategy & Leadership
Twenty Rules to Become the CX Leader Every Company Needs
Twenty hard-won rules for CX leaders who want to be taken seriously by the board and trusted by the customer. Short, direct, and unsentimental.
Read on LinkedInMetrics & Measurement
CX Killer Number 1 — Part 2: Malicious Measures
Part 2 of the CX Killers series. Steve names the measures that quietly destroy customer outcomes from inside the organisation, and how to detect them before they do the damage.
Read on LinkedInMetrics & Measurement
CX Killer Number 1 — Out-of-Date Metrics
The opening piece in the CX Killers series. Why most CX scoreboards are already out of date the day they are published, and the move leaders can make this quarter to fix it.
Read on LinkedInPerspectives & Case Studies
CX Conferences 2024 — What Was Worth the Flight
Steve's honest read on the 2024 CX conference circuit — what advanced the conversation, what stayed stuck, and where to invest your time next year.
Read on LinkedInOutside-In & CEMMethod
Outside-In Customer Centricity — Ten Principles
Ten principles that distinguish real Outside-In customer centricity from the branded version most organisations settle for. A useful checklist for leadership teams.
Read on LinkedInMetrics & Measurement
How to Win the Customer Experience Debate — The Latest Stats
The latest statistics that actually move the CX debate forward in the boardroom — curated for leaders who need evidence, not anecdote.
Read on LinkedInAI & Future of CX
The Future of Customer Experience — How AI Is Shaping It
A grounded view on how AI is genuinely reshaping customer experience — distinguishing durable shifts from short-lived hype, with implications for leaders.
Read on LinkedInAI & Future of CX
AI and Customer Experience — The Inside Track
An inside-track read on AI in customer experience — what's working for practitioners now, what's being oversold, and the patterns serious operators are already using.
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.