14 DAY TRIAL // Satya Nadella officially replaced Steve Ballmer at the helm of Microsoft in February, and since then he pushed the company towards a completely new approach that’s more focused on customers and the products they receive.
Nadella talked about Microsoft’s new direction at the annual meeting of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce at the Westin Seattle Hotel, explaining that the world’s number one software company was well positioned to provide customers with the products they really needed.
Microsoft’s new CEO didn’t miss the occasion to explain that his company was becoming a consumer-shaped firm that was really listening to feedback, pointing out that the devices it built were manufactured based on ideas received from users.
“Users are at the core of everything”
Nadella explained that he joined Microsoft because the Redmond-based tech giant was the kind of company that had what it takes, including the financial power and the right ideas, to change the world with its products.
And now, with him at the helm of the company, Microsoft was heading towards a new approach that was specifically supposed to put users at the core of everything, Nadella said.
“I absolutely believe so. That is the core of what I believe Microsoft represents. We have to go in each day knowing that tomorrow the core of what it represents is going to be even more powerful. At the same time, we will have to be at our innovative best. That’s the challenge and the opportunity,” he explained.
“If there is anything central to our vision, it’s 'don’t think of the devices as the center of earth, think of the people as the center,'” he added.
Microsoft needs to be obsessed over customers
Back in February, when he took over from Ballmer, Nadella explained that Microsoft needed to become a company that was obsessed over customers, trying to make employees focus more on the people that would in the end use the product than on the product itself.
“We will obsess over our customers. Obsessing over our customers is everybody's job. I'm looking to the engineering teams to build the experiences our customers love. I'm looking to the sales and marketing organizations to showcase our unique value propositions and drive customer usage first and foremost,” Nadella said in February, in his very first letter sent to company employees.
“In order to deliver the experiences our customers need for the mobile-first and cloud-first world, we will modernize our engineering processes to be customer-obsessed, data-driven, speed-oriented and quality-focused,” he added, pushing Microsoft away from Ballmer’s devices and services approach.