Terms of Trade · Edition 4: The AI pitch, and Barking Cat’s own terms
Outside-in and inside-out
Definition
The two directions Barking Cat walks a business, each starting at a granular entry point rather than with the answer it expects to find. Outside-in starts with the customer: the brand, the product, the service and the website, experienced in the order a real customer meets them and recorded as what that customer can reasonably infer about the business. Inside-out starts with one function or process and follows it through every stage until the operating reality is visible from the detail up. Both replace the top-down “holistic” view a leadership team believes it holds with what is actually true. The Review walks outside-in; the AI Diagnostic walks inside-out.
Field note
Outside-in is the harsh reality from your customer: they are just not that into you. Inside-out is the walk after which you do not blame them.
Board question
When did anyone on this board last buy something from the business as a customer, and when did anyone last sit in the service team for a day?
Applied through
The Review, outside-in, eleven commercial lenses resolving to one binding constraint; the AI Diagnostic, inside-out, five foundations resolving to the same.
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