“Customer is king” was (and is) the refrain one often heard as being the ultimate guiding principle, especially in service-oriented businesses. My experience at HCL Tech and translating Vineet Nayar’s philosophy of “Employees First Customer Second” into action was a new paradigm shift in the early to mid-2000s. Subsequently, we have heard many industry stalwarts including Richard Branson talking about putting employees first (especially in service industries) as the customer experience is really created at the employee-customer interface and if a ‘wow’ factor has to be created for customers, one would have to keep employees at the centre.
