Contact with customers is continuous. Executive responsibility includes interaction with peers at customer organizations. Lessons learned from these interactions are shared at the executive levels and communicated to everyone. Planning and designing include customers. All organizational components converge and participate.
Customers are part of the team, as are suppliers.
A matured organization is customer-driven. Because it is customer driven, it is organized to discharge the processes that meet customer requirements. All the questioning is in the context of satisfying the customer. In the matured organization the basics of improvement remain constant regardless of issue, regardless of participants. Service emanates from the intertwined activity of customers, employees, and suppliers.