I recently visited a customer...

...that is a major regional mass-transit operator. Its executives told me their new system is really humming, thanks to us. And they said that having the right people in the right place, at the right time, was key to making progress on this project. In the months prior to this, however, we had a lot of learning to do. Because right at the tart, we quite simply underestimated the complexity of this ambitious ICT project. As a result, we failed to identify technical issues until it was almost too late, and put our delivery promises at risk unnecessarily.

Of course, when you’re implementing innovative solutions, you can never expect to encounter no technical issues whatsoever. That would be unrealistic. The same pinciple applies whether we’re developing totally new software, or integrating a complex end-to-end system that needs to be put in place with a minimum of disruption.

But in today’s fiercely competitive environment, winning a deal also means receiving a large amount of trust from that customer. And the customer expects to receive a high level of quality in return. We have given our approach to governance a makeover. Because a project’s success does not depend simply on reliability in developing and migrating solutions and going live on schedule. Should the unexpected occur in the course of a project, the customer needs to be confident at all times that the service provider, as its trusted advisor, will overcome any problems. And creating this kind of confidence – perfect assurance that the provider will “take care of things” – depends on our managers giving the project their full attention from start to finish.

Only by remaining faithful to our “best people – best processes – best governance” principles can we put our business relationships and our processes on a rock-solid footing, and meet the high standards of quality that we set ourselves.

Best regards,
Dr. Ferri Abolhassan