Case Study: SPC Products Company – Project Pops Software Development
SPC Products Company Case Study – Custom Net Control
In my estimation, SPC was not the right customer for Lakshmi’s growth plans. Both companies seem to work at completely different paces, and, their standards of quality and acceptable margin of error are not similar. While SPC expects perfect, bug free coding, Lakshmi delivers code with a defect ratio of around 0.1 per thousand lines of code. SPC’s software developers tend to work much faster also, completing a job in about 1/2 the man hours that it takes Lakshmi. This is not good for Lakshmi, as they are now forced to work as quickly as possible – 1/2 the time of SPC – to reach the same profit margin. The fact that they must work so much faster, while still delivering flawless parallel programming, makes it almost impossible to meet all of SPC’s standards. SPC also seems to sanction Lakshmi when they do not meet all deadlines with a specific amount of quality. I think that this partnership was very bad for Lankshmi’s growth, and, might have hindered them more than it helped.
I believe that IPT hampered Lakshmi’s growth within SPC. IPT was not very consistent in their efforts, and things seemed to fall apart many times throughout their project. First, IPT made an issue about Lakshmi’s role, and asked that they work under the Japanese subcontractor model rather than as a partner (in the conventional sense). Following this, IPC tried to use its weight to request additional man power. They followed this up by making it clear to SPC that that specification for 45 functions must come by the end of June, and the remainder by mid July. They also indicated that if they did not accept the software development project as offered, no future products would be allotted to them. Following this, Lakshmi suggested a development of sample functions to check the environment and complexity of the project in order to validate the estimate. IPT did not seem to agree with the notion. They were pulling from so many places at one time, that it almost seemed like they expected Lackshmi to be cluster computing their requests.
By mid-June, IPT still could not confirm the scope and schedule of this project, and, the original programming specifications were now going to be altered. To me, a division like IPT appears to be “wishy washy,” and not overly focused on the task at hand. Their inability to extend valid estimates and finish the job in a timely fashion speaks a lot to their character as a company. Their efforts did not appear to help Lakshmi at all, and rather, their disorganized approach seems to have created additional costs and hinder the relationship. IPT did not do much to help Lakshmi’s growth.
From the customer relationship standpoint, Lakshmi should have put their foot down. Rather than sitting back and allowing their partners to control all aspects of business, they should have come to the table with strict guidelines. These software coding guidelines should have been set in stone, and time and financial estimates should have been calibrated and tested prior to project commencement. Before the start of the IPT programming project, Lakshmi should not have been asking about the details, skill sets, custom net control, and numbers required, in my opinion. Doing so, opened everything up for IPT to take control, and they took advantage of the situation. If Lakshmi had done more to delegate and demand, rather than ask and except what came to them, I think that their situation would have ended a lot better.
Also, from a customer relationship standpoint, Lakshmi should have worked with a CRM software solution and implemented a custom net control. A web based CRM would be great for keeping their contacts organized, and, making the proper sales and service calls when necessary. It is difficult to have a good relationship with a large company when you don’t have all of their contacts. CRM software would handle this for them, creating a database of contact names, email addresses, phone numbers, and call logs. Call and meeting logs, perhaps, are the most important feature – they rehash and summarize all past interaction between two or more parties. A SaaS type of CRM solution would probably work best. Learn more about the benefits of a web based CRM.
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