Managing External Customers: Reality or Pipedream?
Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.
Henry Ford famously said of the Model T: “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black.” He had a product that was revolutionizing people’s lives, and they would buy whatever he gave them. Those days are clearly gone, and that’s probably a good thing…but have we now gone to the other extreme? Are customers now calling all of the shots?
Many will say yes: In these tough economic times, customer satisfaction may be the only thing that is keeping your company going. And in a buyer’s market, customers know that they have suppliers over a barrel. As a project manager, how then do you balance keeping your customers happy with the need to complete the project profitably?
Setting--and understanding--the ground rules
The popular belief among many companies is that customers are “out to get them”--they’re going to push for more functionality in less time for the same price while delivering late on all of their commitments. In reality, that really isn’t the case, but it’s important to recognize that the customer’s goals are different from yours. You want to deliver the project on time, scope, budget and quality. That’s important to the customer, of course, but what they want is the business benefit that your successful delivery is going to give them. They’re not done …
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