Two Steps

I often wonder as to what an aspiring practice within an organization should do first. Create a sales storm or be ready with the delivery confidence. This is especially true when you are trying to consider delivering value over a long haul.

With little experience that I have I must confess that in a service industry, especially in the IT industry, the delivery capabilities must be two steps ahead of the sales pipeline. It’s quite challenging to argue this point in an organization that tends to think of improving top-line and bottom-line quarter over quarter. The long term fiber of the organization is always sacrificed to achieve short term victory. This causes an unending struggle of forming a solid delivery organization to cater to any sales forecast.

While it’s important for the sales engine to crank to create the buzz in the market it’s doubly important to have a robust delivery organization to meet the heightened expectations. Most of the times this means an explicit investment in people and process and demonstrated ability to carry this investment for a certain period of time. My two (steps) cents - May be that’s the difference between a successful organizations and the rest.