...and people who bear the brunt of it!
One of my friends is writing a case study on the relationship of solution providers and customers. This post is dedicated to all the stakeholders involved in such relationships. The story goes thus...
As is the case with any solutions provider and customer, things start off very brightly. The customer is extremely happy with the solution, the solution is implemented in a grand scale, the solution saves the customer a lot of time and earns a lot of profit, the solutions provider too earns a profit as he gets more projects from the customer. The customer goes to the extent of calling the provider, a partner in its IT ventures.
In the background, the stakeholders know the exact reason for this success, of both the customer and the provider. The customer completely trusts the provider and the ideas he brings forth. The provider knows that the reason for his success is a lack of an IT backbone from the customer's side. As in, the customer does not a strong IT department. The customer is completely dependent on the provider for the solution.
As time goes by, it is but natural that the customer decides on a parallel venture - hiring its own IT professionals. The motive, probably hidden to the provider, is to judge the solution that has been implemented. At this juncture, please understand that the provider can do nothing even if he realised what the motive was. He cannot back out of this one venture as there are a lot of things at stake here. One wrong move and it can be a complete loss to him. All the provider can do is sit back and watch. And hope that the end result of this is that there will be someone else apart from him to take the rap, if there ever is a necessity.
As he sees the scene at the customer change day by day, he probably will also notice changes in behavior of the customer. Bonds that earlier were something more than professional will begin to weaken. People decide to change opinions. Rather, they develop different opinions. All this could happen because of one strongly opinionated person sitting at the top overseeing the daily affairs. This one person can then bring in more such people. The idea already implanted in their brain - the solution is mostly of inferior quality and we need to improvise upon it henceforth.
Such things harm relationships more than just a contractual agreement. The employees that work together, from both the customer and the provider, can no longer be indiscreet about their opinions. Diplomacy takes over in day to day affairs. Bureaucracy, rather than efficiency, becomes the key ingredient in all the stakeholders' professional lives. There is discontentment amongst the providers's team members and the oppressive nature of the customer's folks will have nothing to stop it. It will move forward like a hurricane - without a care in the world.
All of a sudden, the partnership no longer ceases to exist and the solutions provider becomes a solutions vendor. (Non-techies: The difference between a provider and a vendor is that, a provider helps the customer come up with a solution and implements it whereas a vendor just implements a solution that the customer has come up with. Many would say, how does what you do matter as long as you earn a profit. But it is completely different. The ball lies in completely different courts.)
When you analyze the above scenario, one thing that would come to anyone's mind is, how does one decide that a solution is "inferior"? It is not like a calculus problem where you decide how efficient a solution is depending on the method used to arrive at the end result. When your solution is supporting a business and the business is quite satisfied with what they see and use (remember, no one is completely satisfied; not even the one who dates Angelina Jolie! :P), is it right to call the solution inferior? If the business is not happy with what they see, then being completely judgemental about the solution is justifiable.
This would in turn, probably decide the fate of upcoming projects (read above about the ball!). Because of the hasty (??!?) / opinionated judgement of one person. Truly maybe, you cannot be friends once you have broken up!
This is probably a very hasty ending to this post. The intention is to let you all come up with an analysis of this situation and decide whether what happened was right or wrong.
P.S: All who thought this was going to be a sentimental post about some relationship of mine that went sour, paaahaaaah *points fingers and laughs*. You should know me better than that!
One of my friends is writing a case study on the relationship of solution providers and customers. This post is dedicated to all the stakeholders involved in such relationships. The story goes thus...
As is the case with any solutions provider and customer, things start off very brightly. The customer is extremely happy with the solution, the solution is implemented in a grand scale, the solution saves the customer a lot of time and earns a lot of profit, the solutions provider too earns a profit as he gets more projects from the customer. The customer goes to the extent of calling the provider, a partner in its IT ventures.
In the background, the stakeholders know the exact reason for this success, of both the customer and the provider. The customer completely trusts the provider and the ideas he brings forth. The provider knows that the reason for his success is a lack of an IT backbone from the customer's side. As in, the customer does not a strong IT department. The customer is completely dependent on the provider for the solution.
As time goes by, it is but natural that the customer decides on a parallel venture - hiring its own IT professionals. The motive, probably hidden to the provider, is to judge the solution that has been implemented. At this juncture, please understand that the provider can do nothing even if he realised what the motive was. He cannot back out of this one venture as there are a lot of things at stake here. One wrong move and it can be a complete loss to him. All the provider can do is sit back and watch. And hope that the end result of this is that there will be someone else apart from him to take the rap, if there ever is a necessity.
As he sees the scene at the customer change day by day, he probably will also notice changes in behavior of the customer. Bonds that earlier were something more than professional will begin to weaken. People decide to change opinions. Rather, they develop different opinions. All this could happen because of one strongly opinionated person sitting at the top overseeing the daily affairs. This one person can then bring in more such people. The idea already implanted in their brain - the solution is mostly of inferior quality and we need to improvise upon it henceforth.
Such things harm relationships more than just a contractual agreement. The employees that work together, from both the customer and the provider, can no longer be indiscreet about their opinions. Diplomacy takes over in day to day affairs. Bureaucracy, rather than efficiency, becomes the key ingredient in all the stakeholders' professional lives. There is discontentment amongst the providers's team members and the oppressive nature of the customer's folks will have nothing to stop it. It will move forward like a hurricane - without a care in the world.
All of a sudden, the partnership no longer ceases to exist and the solutions provider becomes a solutions vendor. (Non-techies: The difference between a provider and a vendor is that, a provider helps the customer come up with a solution and implements it whereas a vendor just implements a solution that the customer has come up with. Many would say, how does what you do matter as long as you earn a profit. But it is completely different. The ball lies in completely different courts.)
When you analyze the above scenario, one thing that would come to anyone's mind is, how does one decide that a solution is "inferior"? It is not like a calculus problem where you decide how efficient a solution is depending on the method used to arrive at the end result. When your solution is supporting a business and the business is quite satisfied with what they see and use (remember, no one is completely satisfied; not even the one who dates Angelina Jolie! :P), is it right to call the solution inferior? If the business is not happy with what they see, then being completely judgemental about the solution is justifiable.
This would in turn, probably decide the fate of upcoming projects (read above about the ball!). Because of the hasty (??!?) / opinionated judgement of one person. Truly maybe, you cannot be friends once you have broken up!
This is probably a very hasty ending to this post. The intention is to let you all come up with an analysis of this situation and decide whether what happened was right or wrong.
P.S: All who thought this was going to be a sentimental post about some relationship of mine that went sour, paaahaaaah *points fingers and laughs*. You should know me better than that!
2 comments:
A couple of things. Firstly, i was absolutely sure this wasnt going to be anything personal. Am the fellow flag-bearer, remember? :) Secondly, When a deal goes sour, personal relationships are bound to go through a rough patch because then you suddenly become aware of the organization you represent. There is very little anyone can do about it, except of course, be really transparent all the while.
About a software being inferior, i really dont think professional companies make inferior software. But if they are not challenged by either the company's own IT prof. or another company's s/w, then there will never be a sense of competition. There are many parameters that go into choosing a s/w provider and the quality of s/w is just one of them.
There is this wonderful article about differentiators in business (based on something called Core and Competence, which is not the same as core competence) by Geoffrey Moore. Read it if you manage to find it.
I totally agree with you on the personal relationships taking a hit aspect. Being transperant in your daily activities is one thing, which is how a software professional should be, especially in the services industry. But bureacracy takes this transperancy to an unwanted level. The end result is that the business gets affected immediately and remember, the IT department is there to support the business. In the end, it is the IT department that takes a hit.
It is true that the quality of software is one of the factors that decides who the vendor should be. But, the question at hand is, what metrics does one use to decide if the solution that is being developed by the provider is inferior, especially if the solution has been implemented to about 90% of its total. The main point is not how the vendor/provider must be chosen, but how to judge the solution provided by the existing provider.
Maybe, we are seeing different sides of the same coin (or are the coins completely different???)!
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