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Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down Hardcover – 1 May 2010

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Vineet Nayar (Author)
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Vineet Nayar (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 24 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Harvard Business School Press (1 May 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1422139069
  • ISBN-13: 978-1422139066
  • Product Dimensions: 1.9 x 14.6 x 21.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 175,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

"modern classic" - Financial Times


"In this short, personable book, he explains EFCS's principles and how he put it to work at HCLT, turning the company's fortunes around in just five years. The good news: EFCS strategies can work at your company, too." -- "The Washington Post"
"modern classic" -- "The Financial Times"


In this short, personable book, he explains EFCS s principles and how he put it to work at HCLT, turning the company s fortunes around in just five years. The good news: EFCS strategies can work at your company, too. The Washington Post
modern classic The Financial Times
"

About the Author

Vineet Nayar is the CEO of HCL Technologies Ltd., India's leading global IT Services Company. Fortune magazine called his leadership style "The World's Most Modern Management" and the London Business School labelled him "the leader of organizational innovation." IDC recognized him as having "the most cohesive and articulate vision" in the IT services sector.

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Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsWithout unorthodox thinking, there can be no cultural transformation
By Robert Morris TOP 100 REVIEWER on 21 Sept. 2010
Format: Hardcover
As I began to read this book, I recalled again the comments of Southwest Airlines' then chairman and CEO, Herb Keller, when asked to explain his company's competitive advantage: "Our people. We take good care of them, they take good care of our customers, and our customers take good care of our shareholders." Vineet Nayar's concept of Employers First, Customers Second (EFCS) could be misunderstood to mean that an organization's customers have secondary importance. In fact, as Nayar explains, customers are the ultimate beneficiaries of EFCS. Kelleher makes the same point in the remarks quoted earlier.

Here's the challenge for C-level leaders: How to establish and then sustain am employee-centric organization? Nayar write this book in response to that question but I think he has accomplished much more than he may have originally intended. With all due respect to the importance of crating what Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba characterize as "customer evangelists" in a book that bears that title, I think Nayar is advocating an even more important role for employees' relations with customers: as co-creators. He advocates "inverting the management pyramid," beginning with front-line employees, and fulfill aspiration needs, notably the need to give everyone a sense of purpose, to address the need for what Dave and Wendy Ulrich call "gthe why of work."

I agree with Nayar that customers should be among those who are centrally involved in an inside-out transformational process by which to adopt, implement, and then strengthen an organization, guided and informed by an open business model such as the one Henry Chesbrough describes: "A business model performs two important functions: it creates value and it captures a portion of that value.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsa must for business leaders
By A. Elfaki on 12 Jun. 2010
Format: Hardcover
I have been in IT industry for reasonably long time. I never worked as a manager and I enjoy my technical role. Customers first was what we get used to. This book puts customers first in a very different and in my opinion the only right way. I ordered this book a couple of days ago and when I received it I wasn't able to put it down. Mr Vinnet style is direct and blunt and still beautiful and attractive. "Unless the company becomes obsessed with constant change for the better, gradual change for the worse usually goes unnoticed." is the core of the book. Focusing on how and not only on what gives business leaders a real life experience.
I like his classification of his employees to three groups:transformers, lost souls and fence sitters. This is true in any company I believe.
I recommend this great book for any one who is running his own business or leading or transforming a business.
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5.0 out of 5 starsexceptional case study, must read...
By Ashutosh Jhureley on 20 Jun. 2010
Format: Hardcover
Must read for leaders and managers, employers and employees.... exceptional case study about how simplicity can do magic....

The magic that Ford's "Assembly Line", Toyota's "Kanban", Dell's "Global Supply Chain" and Google's "Revenue Model" did to the manufacturing, supply chain and eCommerce, HCLT's "Employee First Customers Second" is going to do to service industry.

The book is first person narration of Vineet Nayar (CEO, HCL Technologies), through the transformation journey In HCL Technologies. Fast-paced, realistic, to the point, comprehensive, straight forward, solution oriented, bold but humble and stimulating.... may be provoking..

In the book, author narrates simple catalysts and tweaks that transformed HCL and those that are transforming HCL to be leader in IT. These can be applied to any enterprise or organisation, big or small, indeed already been or being applied in some shape or form - focus on value zone like Ford, Toyota, Dell and Google did in their businesses.

The journey is described in four stages, as mentioned in the book: looking in the mirror, creating trust through transparency, inverting the pyramid and transferring the responsibility for change to all.

Book is more like a travelogue, full of passion, excitement, celebration and achievement.

I couldn't stop reading, since I picked up and writing this review immediately completing amazing 185 pages.

-- ashutosh jhureley
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5.0 out of 5 starsA solid how-to for companies looking to enable their front line employees deliver maximum value
By AK TOP 500 REVIEWER on 7 May 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Vineet Nayar has produced a summarized account of the turnaround he helped mastermind at HCLT, a leading Indian IT company in this book. While accounts of this sort often risk turning into an advertorial for the company or the CEO, in this case I would say the author managed to successfully thread the thin line and deliver content first, with the company itself remaining more in the background.

The premise - somewhat provocatively named 'employees first, customers second' - is that often most value in companies is generated at the bottom layers of the pyramid and that it is exactly those people there that should be empowered by management, so as to deliver the maximum value to the customer. In the end, as the author repeatedly mentions, this does not mean putting the customer second as such, it just means that priorities internally should lie with enabling the employees to be as effective at solving customer issues, as possible.

Specific issues tackled are the role of management, communication channels, reorganizing support functions, blue skies strategies, etc. If you have been working in a larger company in the recent years, you will definitely recognize some of the approaches - such as ticket systems for support functions (although if the companies I have worked with in the last years are indicative of the whole, this has been sadly successfully resisted by all but IT departments), various blogs and other social media like platforms enabling employees to confront top management with inadequacies they face in their daily work lives, etc. What I find refreshing is the introduction of those as a coherent whole, with clear objectives behind and a constant development.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

a good read

Published 10 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Interesting and easy to read

Published 13 months ago by Lola
5.0 out of 5 starsBest book you'll read this year

Excellent book. I've been applying this for years. Just wish I'd written the book. It's not your typical book about management, but that's what makes it so good. Read more

Published 14 months ago by MR T.
5.0 out of 5 starsDevolving power and achieving success

Easy, engaging read delivering clear principles for participatory employment and business development. Recommended.

Published on 2 Oct. 2014 by Andy
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Very interesting points of view and principles.

Published on 24 Aug. 2014 by Mario Ortega
5.0 out of 5 starsnice and thoughtful reading,the end was sudden as I was still wanting...

I liked this book because I have a takeaway that I can apply in my company tomorrow morning.I was having excuses because this would not work in Africa but now am convinced and... Read more

Published on 28 July 2014 by Grace Munyirwa collection
5.0 out of 5 starsOpen mind reading

Excellent publication as long as it's read with an open mind as it does make.
Recommended flex your board room colleagues

Published on 6 April 2014 by Ben S
4.0 out of 5 starsIndeed, exciting book !!

I worked at company where all concept described in this book had been implemented (though, not fully and only 70% or so). Read more

Published on 12 Mar. 2014 by jackOfAll
1.0 out of 5 starsDull

I was expecting to be wowed by this book but was not impressed. Was recommended to read this but found it dull and uninspiring

Published on 29 Aug. 2013 by Deb
4.0 out of 5 starsThis book shows that traditional thinking about employees is going to...

Inspiring book about how a company called upon the creativity and genius of its employees to turn the company around and involve people and their strengths into teams, systems and... Read more

Published on 12 July 2013 by Miss Kathleen Ginn

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