Introduction
The solution is a marketing term that came to the forefront of technology and service companies in the late 90's and is still being used to this day. What have we learnt from the selling of technology solutions across various industry sectors?
Solutions
One of the learnings we gathered in the early of releasing solutions on the market, is that they assume you understand the client's problems, and that is where the first diversion of opinion between client and vendor starts. In my experience clients resent the fact that their problems have been put in a box, and not acknowledged or given due consideration. I do feel we learnt from this and listened to achieve empathy before unleashing 'the solution'.
People I have spoken to over the years believe that solutions are the making of technology companies, this is another misconception. The reality is that a technology company is looking for a vehicle to package a load of different products into one offering, and then pull through services to limit the dependence of the business on a technology portfolio, for example, move to 70% technology and 30% services. For a service, they are looking to package different service lines into one offering, and identify synergy partners with technologies that can reduce their dependency from a pure services model.
Solutions are therefore technology and services, but not one product or service line otherwise there wouldn't be the need for a solution. Managing a solution is complex as by definition multiple technologies and services are being offered for a particular purpose. As a result, customising or extending a solution is problematic and always has been. So unless the solution is a 100% fit for the client requirements, then the solution construct will get lost along the way very quickly and revert to traditional go to market models.
Solution Definition: a means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation.
So it can be deduced that the only way to execute a solution is to accept a 100% fit, this is where the project is doomed to fail.
Why?
The position is now that you have given the client confidence you can solve all their problems with your solution. Misalignment of expectations has started.
Below is a list of the potential traps;
- Even though you may not realise it the client has now unloaded their problems onto you, as you have given them the solution
- The cost limit is in place because your solution is pre-configured and you have reference clients; this one will be faster and cheaper by default.
- The client does not need to do anything else as you have taken on their problem.
Like it or not the client has now passed the Monkey to you.
What is a Monkey: Monkeys are issues/actions that people bring to you to solve. The "the monkey on your back" metaphor describes issues and the ownership of problems. Issues may be problems, tasks or other items at work that you need to resolve. They come from anywhere without warning, and you have to manage them.
Your customer has now moved their focus onto other problems so that stakeholder engagement will be a challenge. All lessons learnt from failed projects state that stakeholder commitment is a key factor for success. Many interventions can take place to seek stakeholder engagement; the misalignment deepens.
As a general rule clients will not want to engage again until you are ready to show them the results.
Solutions nearly always stumble on identifying data, followed by the quality. It is important though to keep in mind that people create data, and now you are chasing the same problem given the lack of stakeholder engagement.
Conclusion
I suggest that using 'accelerators' as a way forward addresses gaps produced by 'solutions', and is more aligned to meet the current industry challenges, including expectations on both sides
Accelerator Definition: a person or thing that causes something to happen or develop more quickly.
From my experience, today's client is reluctant to adopt technologies that have a limited or particular purpose. There is a shift towards products which can be multi-purposed across the organisation, enterprise or ecosystem. Accelerators is a means to allow a multi-purpose technology to be quickly configured to suit a particular set of use cases while maintaining the functionalities that enable adoption for other purposes.
About Terry Price
Industry & Technology Thought Leader with decades of experience across the Natural Resources Exploration and Production life cycle, including Process and Manufacturing Industries. A proven record of delivering sophisticated strategies and programs, transforming decisions into real projects with tangible business value, as well as restructuring failing programs.
