Bulldozer00's Blog

To become and maintain a successful business, a company must both acquire and efficiently execute ongoing chunks of business. When top management values both of these critical work activities equally, then all is well. When they value one over the other, and in my business domain it’s always business acquisition that’s shown preferential treatment, then mediocrity reigns.

How do you know when top management is one sided? It’s easy, just look around. Who gets the single offices and single cubes? Who gets the bigger salaries? Who do the executives give way more face time to?

Business acquisition is glamorous and difficult, but in comparison, business execution is dirty, messy, and down right hard. When an acquisition team submits a proposal to a customer after a long and arduous courting period, it’s party time, and rightfully so. However, and this is key, the proposal doesn’t “have to work”. Products “have to work”, or else….

If a proposal is rejected and fails to acquire a chunk of business, then it’s usually because a competitor has offered up a similar or superior product for a lower price and/or a faster delivery time. The loser washes his hands clean and then just moves on to the next opportunity. It’s done and over with, kaput.

When a big, complex, and software-intensive product repeatedly and frequently fails in a customer’s day to day use of it, then continuous stress and pressure is placed on the execution team for what could be quite a long and sustained period of time. Until the execution team, usually through heroic acts of team sacrifice, makes the product behavior and performance “acceptable” to the customer, the two step chain of events is as follows: the customer pressures top management, and top management pressures the execution team. The loop of misery has been ignited. Notice that the acquisition team does not participate in the fun. In the worst case, the acquisition team merges with the top management team to apply greater pressure on the execution team.

Don’t be a stupid arse like me. If you’re given the choice between participating on an acquisition team or an execution team, choose the acquisition team 🙂