Integrity does matter

 

In my shared journeys to grow clientele, a delivery team has always played a vital role in winning a deal.

It was a peculiar case where it took 3 long years for a client to consider to us aboard. Every time it felt that we are winning and lost at the very nearing last round. I always believed that one day, we’ll win. I had this confidence as I always responded with right proposals on time and received equally positive response until, we lost at the end.

 In this first year, I sought support from one of our technology team who had both domain expertise and technical know-how. On the D-day when we were to qualify the technical round, we had the presentation ready. As the delivery person accompanying me was a veteran, he even had 2-3 copies of ppt slides printed in case external device or presentations are not allowed in client’s premise. Our faces fell together when post presentation, the client asked doubt on a specific business case. My learned colleague didn’t have an answer. We continued to discuss further with a promise to get back. I couldn’t get back as it was on least priority for the delivery personnel from another team. I believed we are all one if we work for the same organization.

In the second year, yet another hope, yet another large RFP to address. This time, with more caution, a detailed proposal was outlined. We cleared the tech round with flying colours given our credentials. Now, it was time for commercials. I was very happy to get through and rechecked everything if it was budgeted appropriately. All this gleam diminished the moment I saw perspiration on the concerned technical director’s face. I was very sure that the proposal was accurate and vetted. Finally, the director spoke en route to client’s office in car. He demanded why his confirmation wasn’t taken when his team was to support the project. My colleague jumped in with slice of butter stating that he also advocated the same. Wherein this colleague was the person who opined to take only the business unit director’s confirmation. I was nonplussed.

The commercial discussion began with an introductory note. The moment it went on commercials, the first thing that the technical director began with was an apology that he wants to rework on the commercials as we being his team have done a blunder to quote so slow. I never expected him to be so blunt. I wished, he stood by us and requested for a higher budget. Surprise was all smitten over the purchaser’s face. He mused and said even if that’s low for you, that’s the highest we have received among the top 3 qualified vendors. He further gave us a target to match upon. With this he left the room for us to discuss and come up with a number. We did all permutation and combination to droop down way low from the quoted budget to near the set target. He smiled and entered in wishing us good luck for resubmitting the proposal. I knew we lost it and we did.

When we were alone, I asked my colleague why did he lie? He was the person to who was my senior and I did ask umpteen times if tech director's approval is also required. He was the person who guided to get our reporting manager's approval alone as it might delay our response if we considered too many stakeholders. His answer left me baffled. He said that to calm the tech director, he had to say something that would appeal to him. I was angry. To appeal someone, I couldn’t lose and get escalated at the same time. The loss was for all of us. To my rescue, our reporting manager took the ownership to get his counterparts opinion as well prior finalizing the details.

The last time when we won and continued to win. I moved to a different team wherein we created a mini company within the company comprising a team that can handle every angle of account management. Be it delivery, resource performance, resource engagement, client engagement, finance, governance – name it, we had it as a team with clear delegation of responsibilities. May not seem a good idea at the outset. But it worked quite well and was indeed successful as we stood for each other in good or bad. We stepped into each other’s shoes in a person’s absence. We did meet the SLAs most of the time and had valid reasons when we did not.

Finally, it was a win-win for everyone.

- Saranya