Project Management

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Abdulrahman Abuhayah P.M.O Director| Adaptive TechSoft Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Now and after several years of maintenance contract renewal between our company and the client, new administration has been assigned at the client side, we have now to answer the question of "why to sign this contract with you guys ? we can do this ourselves !" is rising again.
Of course the typical "we have the knowledge, the expertise, free updates...etc", but do any one have like a WOW factor that can help our case ? is there is any strong convincing idea that we can build on?
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Robert Park Senior Project Manager| CommScope Inc. Denver, Nc, United States
Your primary objective is to provide the evidence of the value proposition you bring using the great advice given by the others in this thread. However, if this individual is the key/sole decision-maker and you cannot make an overwhelming case of the value you bring then it appears the course is set.
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Nov 01, 2016 6:04 AM
Replying to Abdulrahman Abuhayah
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Thank You so much for the help.. let me give more details
We are a software development house, so, we are selling software to clients
After every Project of implementing the software is completed, and after the free maintenance is completed, clients will have to sign a maintenance contract with us for bug's solving and new requests handling.
Some times, we are providing the typical services, some other times we are proving on-site staff, it depends on the contract...
Now we are about to renew our contract with one client, we have been negotiating and everything is going fine, but this is what happened:
The manager at client side was replaced with a new one. The new guy is a legacy client of ours who stops maintenance contracts with us 10 years ago because at that time his idea was "i can do it my self" and he has been surviving since then.
Now he will want to be the superman who will save money and change things around and say to us "why do i need you guys" again !
so......
This is the client's choice to purse the contract or terminate it. As I mentioned earlier, it will all go down to the communication skills. You should meet with him and convince him with valid and solid reasons why he should use your maintenance services.
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Philippe Schuler Senior Instructor/Lecturer in Project/Program/Account PMO Management| Independant Consultant Les Choux, France
Oct 31, 2016 11:06 AM
Replying to Tim PM
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Some great replies so far- just to add why not look at the support calls they have sent you this year, and use these as a lessons learned exercise to see which they could not have fixed without you.
I agree with Tim. This is a very pragmatic approach. You can document and review the cases from the past to create a "sales material" for a presentation to your Customer's key Stakeholders. You should highlight the most complex and successfully solved cases to demonstrate the added value of your organization in managing these cases and how this added value can help your Customer in the future. Good negotiation skills may be mandatory here. Success, added-value, commitment and more ... are generally business terms Customers Management like to hear in a negotiation.
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John Herman . Us, Aa, United States
This is a type of Build versus Buy decision, and you may find some helpful checklists on Build vs. Buy on the internet.
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Rajan Hariramabadran Varada Delivery Manager| Talisma Corporation Bangalore, Karnataka, India
If Budget Cuts, Head Count Cuts is the underlying reason for the "I can do it my self" tone, then you may want to prepare detailed response explaining what you can improvise - offering various self-service packages (& booking the efforts for developing the same) that engages their team for trivial items while strategic items and enhancement items keep coming your way for regular change management. This will help both - you can create the opportunity to work on those self-service packages and get billed; while the customer can accomplish some ratio of the "i can do it myself" goal post the self-service package is implemented and everyone is happy. I was part of the response team in my earlier job where we did the same successfully for a tough customer.
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Warren Nash PM/PMO Position & SAP Architect| Freelance Pudong, Shanghai, China, Mainland
Simple .... what value creation can you give the client?
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Gianpaolo Cervo Manager| BASF Italia Spa Cesano Maderno, Italy, Italy
Unfortunately changes and cost reduction are quite normal when a new administration is nominated.
As you mention he has to demonstrate that he is the right choise.

Hard to provide you suggestion: keep the focus on partnership and professionalism.

Good Luck
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