Bharat KapoorBharat Kapoor is a consultant who thinks like an operator. He is trained to minimize waste, drive value, and deliver for his customers. He has always been drawn to operations. “At the end of the day, doing strategy is not that difficult. What is more difficult is making it stick. And that’s what we do in operations—we operationalize strategy.”

He’s on a mission to change the perception about consultants as ivory tower thinkers. “Consulting gets a bad rap—people think the only things consultants have ever done is consulting,” he says. “But that’s not true. Most of the people in Kearney’s operations practice have had skin in the game. We have been operators in past roles. I have more than 10 years of experience as an operator at Motorola, one of my colleagues was an operator at Nokia, another at P&G. We’ve run things. We know what a factory floor looks like. We were on the hook to deliver. We know how to handle demand surges, or suppliers going out of business. So when we talk to clients, it’s not very difficult for us to put ourselves in their shoes. We can empathize and we can give them very practical advice.

“If this were baseball, we wouldn’t be the ones just sitting in the stands, saying, ‘That guy should have swung.’ We’re not coaches who have never played the game. We know what happens when you swing on a curveball and get sent back to the dugout.”

He describes one way he keeps his advice grounded and achievable. Before he advises a client to take an action, he asks himself: “If I won a billion dollars in the lottery tomorrow, would I invest that money in this?” And if he would, he knows his strategy is a sound one.

Everything goes back to the product design

Bharat has learned that every snag in a company’s operations—supply chain shortages, customer returns, logistics problems—can be traced back to poor product design.

Kearney’s operations leaders created PERLab (Product Excellence and Renewal Lab) to bring product design to the forefront as an executive-level focus. “Design needs to be a problem CEOs are thinking about,” he says. “When we work directly with CEOs, and we can steer the holistic company strategy, we see much better results.” That’s because product design can completely transform a business. “If you design things well, your supply chain works like clockwork. There are no returns, customers are happy, and they buy more. It’s a virtuous cycle that starts with designing things right.”

In tech, the industry Bharat works in most frequently, “designing things right” means going beyond point solutions. Good product design incorporates modularity, futureproofing, platforming, and separating software from hardware.

Avoid the “place of no return”

For decades, the focus in operations has been decreasing costs. Bharat links that mindset all the way back to World War II, when steel was in short supply and manufacturers started looking for alternate materials. They realized the alternatives were also less expensive. But following that lower-cost approach leads you to a “place of no return,” Bharat says.

“When you cheapen the products, you’re not really focusing on the customers. It’s all about how much more you can take out, and then a time comes when it’s not good anymore. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should do it. Eventually you’ll lose the customer’s trust, and they’ll stop buying from you.”

Capture consumer sentiment

If you’ve been using the “customer wants and needs” philosophy, Bharat offers a new element for you to consider. “If you do what the customer needs, you’re creating commodities. If you do what the customer wants, you’re just catering to today’s wishes. Somebody will catch up to you. But when you create a reason for customers to care, you’ll create long-term loyalty.” He points to Apple as an example. “Apple hit a nerve with customers. People got emotionally attached and would actually stand in line for hours to buy the latest phone. They really cared.”

When you create better and better products that resonate with customers—that customers truly care about—“all of the KPIs that companies chase become an outcome. Profitability will happen if customers love you. It won’t happen if you try to sneak money from your customers.”

Bharat says it’s that focus on deeper customer care that makes Kearney’s PERLab unique in its field. “We’ve tried to connect consumer sentiment with the product design, and I think that sets us apart.” Plus, PERLab brings in innovative experts who are writing the next chapter of product design. “We’re not just applying knowledge about how someone has done it in the past. We’re pushing boundaries for the future to stay on the leading edge.”

At the end of every day, Bharat says he feels good about his work, because he knows it’s ultimately all about people. “There’s no such thing as a company. It’s a bunch of people, and they all have families. If following my advice means a company is able to add 10 jobs, or save 10 jobs, or pay people an extra bonus so they can take their kids on a good vacation, I know I’ve done good work.”

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