Make no mistake; we're in a paradigm shift right now. This is the dawning of a new era. And yes, it's revolutionary, which some may find uncomfortable, but here's the thing … we're moving away from the importance of product and price and running headlong into the ethereal realms of the customer experience. Often referred to as CX, it is the new king (and queen) of the business castle. It's such a hot topic it's glowing white!

Thomas Kuhn popularized the phrase "paradigm shift" in 1962 to describe the nature of scientific revolutions. He argued, "scientific advancement was not evolutionary," but rather a "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions", and in those revolutions "one conceptual world view is replaced by another." In a recent post on superoffice.com (via Linkedin of course) Toma Kulbytė defined CX as the perceptions of how a company treats its customers. These perceptions affect their behaviours and build memories and feelings … in other words if they like you and continue to like you, they are going to do business with you and recommend you to others." It makes perfect sense. Treat people right and good things happen. Make doing business a memorable, maybe even pleasurable experience, and good things happen. Ensure perceptions are realized and, yes, you've guessed it, good things happen. And that's exactly what Indonesia's President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo is doing, except his company is the world's largest archipelago and has over 250 million employees and almost unlimited business potential! He's not shy in letting people know about it either. He's redefining customer perceptions and acting on initiatives so investor expectations are met by opening up even more sectors to foreign investment. Reuters is calling it the "most significant liberalization in a decade." We think it's the most ambitious CX exercise ever! 

Jokowi and his team have been in the USA this past week and it's no coincidence that the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley; the likes of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Google's Sundar Pichai have all been lining up to be seen with him. He's listening to what they need, understanding why their past experiences have not lived up to expectations and in so doing he's filling the gaps in the customer journey that have been neglected and sounded the death knell of many an entrepreneurial venture over the years. Jokowi is creating new perceptions about doing business in Indonesia. He's taking the bull by the horns and ignoring the monotone negative platitudes of those that say Indonesia is a bad place to be, a terrible place to do business. Haters gonna hate, no matter what; they're going to complain about it being too hot when it doesn't rain and then moan about the rain when it does.

Ignore them because Jokowi's on the cutting edge of an intellectually violent revolution and changing the world-view of this amazing country.

Rome wasn't built in a day and nobody is under the delusion that Indonesia will become Southeast Asia's strong man overnight. There will be issues to address and changes in course, as there should be. Flexibility and adapting to situations is key if the customer journey is to be a successful one, and it has to start somewhere.

These are the first steps in the long march of Indonesia's paradigm shift. Jokowi, it seems agrees. At the recent ASEAN trade conference in San Francisco he reset the rules for a positive customer journey. "I'm not satisfied," he said. "Please understand that we are still only at the beginning. We will still continue to simplify, continue to open up, continue to modernize our rules and regulations … there are still many excessive permits, licenses and restrictions to which we will say, 'Hasta la vista, baby.'"

How refreshing!

This is the termination of an archaic and selfish cycle. What we're witnessing here is the rise of a new Indonesia.