How to prepare your organization for Big Deals ?

How to prepare your organization for Big Deals ?

Organizations want to Grow Fast. Really Fast!! Start Ups are hungry for recognition in the market and want to Go All Out to Woo Customers. Large Organizations want to stay in the fray and have huge expenses to manage; they know that if they do not acquire large deals they will perish under their own weight.

Few things to notice while you are preparing to acquire large deals:

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   Effort vs. Return: I have personally seen that organizations take huge risks to pick some large deals. It sometimes chokes your resources and you do not have enough bandwidth to manage rest of the customers. It is not advisable that you ignore your small customers to support one large customer / deal. Pick the deal only when you have enough bandwidth to support existing and new customers.

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    Profitability: Is the deal profitable? You may pick a large deal thinking it will add lot of brand value, get you more customers, reach, acceptability etc. This may not always hold true. Unless the deal is very strategic do not pick the deal if it is not adding to the bottom line.

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    Learning: Is the deal providing you exposure to new technologies, new markets, product improvements, new service levels or skill enhancement? Large deals should not only be large by size of implementation, BOM, value etc. It must be a platform for achieving new milestones.

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   Respect: Did you win this deal due to low price or customer wanted Only You to deliver? Deals won Only on Price do more harm than good. Your market reputation goes for a toss as everybody sees you as aggressive player but without much focus on value add.

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   Penalty: Check out the Penalty clauses carefully. Large deals often come with stringent clauses for not meeting deadlines. Sometimes you have negotiated the deal properly but gone aggressive on timelines. Is your customer flexible enough to accommodate you?

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   Skill set / Infrastructure: Does your team have the skill set to deliver the large deal? Do you need to create extra capacities to deliver? If yes, what is cost and time to acquire theses?

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   Payment terms: Customer may ask you to pick the deal at zero or negligible advance money, ask you for long credit periods or keep a hefty sum as performance guaranty. Pick the deal only if customer is reasonable enough and you have finances enough to deliver the order.