I admit it. To this day I am baffled by the fact that
otherwise responsible/intelligent people, even in higher levels of management,
often forget to tell you key information that determines how well you can
service their fleet/equipment needs.
In fleet management I often found out after the fact that the
company was actively on-boarding new personnel. Those additional positions of
course required vehicles to enable them to be productive. Or occasionally operations
unilaterally moved equipment to another location without notifying us; this
resulted in a lot of confusion when my service vendor couldn't find the vehicle
where it was supposed to be. I am forever grateful for GPS systems.
More recently a (hopefully) temporary career segue has put
me back into the supplier side of the equation. I am managing production on a
contract basis for a company that upfits new trucks with aftermarket equipment.
This same company also represents a major snowplow
manufacturer. Not incidentally the forecast for this weekend called for snow.
Note I said “forecast”, IE: over 1 week ago the weather-folks were doing the
happy-dance excitedly explaining that this system would be approaching. While we
were not even open for retail business over the weekend, I believe we received
over 80 calls and had 12-14 drive in customers. Some we could help, some we
couldn’t. You can’t conjure-up parts out of thin air.
All this isn't to bash these people, well most of this isn’t
to bash these people; but rather to say that whatever the circumstance, it is
really to your advantage to remain flexible.
The point is that no matter how well prepared one of your customers thinks they are, they have probably overlooked something. It doesn't really seem to matter if they are an internal or external customer. The reason we do what we do is to service their need. And as we are their experts, we have the responsibility to think around corners, down dark alleys, across vast expanse and into the realm of 6-8 months down the road.
The point is that no matter how well prepared one of your customers thinks they are, they have probably overlooked something. It doesn't really seem to matter if they are an internal or external customer. The reason we do what we do is to service their need. And as we are their experts, we have the responsibility to think around corners, down dark alleys, across vast expanse and into the realm of 6-8 months down the road.
That’s why we make the big-bucks!
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