Ranjay Gulati, HBS, has written Rorganize for Resilience — Putting Customers at the Centre of Your Business. There are two approaches –inside-out and outside-in . The inside-out perspective is fundamentally one where you say I know what the market wants. The job of the company is to produce, distribute and sell. There is some idea of what the customers want, but the organization is not sure. In the outside-in perspective, the business is not defined by products, but by the markets to be served. Apple’s  iPhone is 90 per cent outsourced, and only 10 per cent made in. There are almost a lac of applications for iPhone, but not even a single one is made by Apple. Inside-out is closed architecture, where everything is made in. The outside-in model has mastered the ability to understand where the markets are moving. Customer-centricity does not mean blindly  listening to the customer. The customers do not design the iPhone.  Apple just understood the right trade offs between ease of use and other things. Everyone claims they are customer-centric. Either it is a matter of luck or some design. Progressively, companies get disengaged from customers. The myopic view and the arrogance of knowing better come in the way. The companies are not organized around customers. Outside-in starts the reverse way — the mission for which the company is established. A hospital can be managed with a crew of specialists. But it can serve the younger people with isolated problems, but not the ageing population with several inter-related problems. The configuration of delivery system could be inside-out and not out side in. Al Ries is of the opinion that customers do not know what they want till they are given a real world choice. The companies should do what they do best, and outsource the rest. The companies should not confuse between core and critical. Core things give a unique edge in the market place. Critical things are necessary to do business, but do not necessarily give an advantage. Power is needed to run an industry, but that does not mean that you need to own a power plant. The idea is shrink the core. Bharati considered coverage a core factor. Today it is a hygiene factor, taken for granted. At one point of time, owing towers was the differentiator. The tower must have electricity. The diesel to generate electricity was bought by Bharati. It was the second largest buyer of diesel after the Indian Railways. Bharati then hived off the towers into a separate company. It is not worried about diesel anymore.It now focuses its energy on marketing and new business development, and service innovation. The idea of shrinking the core means how I can do less and less myself.