AP Technologies was a global technology services company with $800 million in annual sales. They aimed to increase repeat business from existing customers from 50% to 80% to boost profits. One of AP's project managers, Balaji, found that a project was delayed by two months. When informing the client, the client was unhappy with the delay and excuses given. The client demanded to speak with senior executives to discuss solving AP's problems before their own. Balaji informed his VP, prompting a meeting to discuss corrective actions.

1. AP TECHNOLOGIES
Rajarajeswari Jagatheesan
HR ManagerAirCrews Aviation Pvt Ltd
www.aircrewsaviation.comrajarajeswari.aircrews@gmail.com
+91 9944026685
Vcard:- http://rajarajeswari.vcardinfo.com

2. OVERVIEW OF THE COMPANY
• AP technologies was a global technology services company with over 15 years of
experience in the information
• technology. The company delivered seamless solutions that gave tangible value to
the customers.
• The sales revenue of the company for the year 2004-05 was $800 million with net
profits of $ 70 million. The had company over 400 clients out of which about 30
per cent were Fortune 500 companies. The company secured 50 per cent sales
through repeat business from existing customers.
• The chairman and managing director (CMD) of the company informed the
employees, in one of the internal review meetings that if the repeat business
from existing customers could be increased from 50 per cent to 80 per cent, the
profitability of the company would go up substantially.

3. SERVICE LINES OFFERED
Business intelligence and data warehousing
System integration
Customer relationship
management (CRM)
Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
Supply chain management (SCM)
Enterprise security
Web security
Application development and maintenance

4. CUSTOMER FOCUSED MARKET
SEGMENTS
The company had developed the domain expertise in the following market segments
Customer focused
market segments
Manufacturing
Retailing
Energy and
Utilities
Insurance Banking
Travel and
Transportation
Telecommunication

5. Selling process & Project Execution
process
• Selling process
• The first call on a prospective customer was made by a
business development executive in one of the 20 sales
offices located in the main business centers all over
the world.
• Depending on the customer's requirement of the
services, the business development executive would
take the assistance from solutions expert (one of the
horizontals), and if need be, the domain expert (one of
the verticals), for further discussions (presales service)
with the customer, to understand clearly the customer
needs and to prepare a proposal.
• The proposal or the offer given to the customer would
include the cost, broad outline of the solution, the
scope of work, the delivery schedule, and the payment
schedule.
• The customer would have received the proposals from
other suppliers also, and hence, negotiations might
take place subsequently with all the suppliers.
• The company which won the contract after
negotiations would first get the letter of intent to start
the work, and subsequently the purchase order. After
the receipt of the order, the project was assigned to
one of the project managers for execution.
• Project execution process
• The company had a project execution process to help
the project manager and his team to deliver the
commitments to the customer. In the project process
the project plan document was created through the
ERRP system.
• The project plan was then approved by a senior
executive and given to the project manager, Balaji,for
regular monitoring and reporting the progress once a
month.
• The project plan included all the activities that were
required for the project execution. Some of the
important activities that were included in the
projectplan were management of people,
requirements, quality, schedule, and risk.
• Balaji thought that if he followed the project execution
process, nothing could go wrong

6. Case summary
However, after six months of the project execution, Balaji found to his utter
dismay the delay in the completion of the project. He, therefore, called a
meeting of his project team member on July 18, 2005, to discuss the
reasons for the delay in the completion of the project, revised delivery
schedules, and how to communicate the same to the client without affecting
the client relationship. He informed the team members about the
dissatisfaction of the management about the delay in completing the project
and worked out the revised delivery schedule ror conveying to the client. He
also wanted to know from his team members the reasons for
the delay in delivery, as the management had called a meeting of
allconcerned executives on August 8, 2005, for taking appropriate corrective
actions.
When the client was informed about the delay of the project by about two
months, the reaction was, "Why didn't you inform us earlier this bad news?
You have upset our schedules, which depended on completion of
your schedules". Balaji had to give some excuses like changes in the client
specifications, resignation of a key team member, and over-optimistic
approach of the company executives who accepted almost impossible
delivery schedules. The client got more annoyed with Balaji's explanation of
the delays and said ""we don't appreciate your reasons. You solve your
problem first, before claiming to solve our problems. We would like
your senior executives to talk to us". Balaji immediately conveyed the
conversation to his vice president, who decided to call a meeting of all
the project managers and business development managers to discuss and
decide corrective steps.

7. Questions:
1. If you were Balaji, how would you convey the delay in delivery to the
client?
Answer: If I am in that situation I request her by explaining the situation by
conversation I convey otherwise I give so discounted to particular purchase to
solve that delay problem. But only I give discounted with the permission on
my higher authority.

8. Questions:
2. What corrective steps would you suggest to improve the customer delivery
service substantially?
• Strengthen your customer service skills
• Look at every touchpoint
• Improve your customer interactions.
• Enhance your customer service strategy
• Make sure your reps are engaged.
• Give your customers a way to provide feedback.
•