One of the challenges of starting a new business is signing clients and supporting new clients while you are out seeking new business.
Ongoing requests from your current customers, if not managed effectively, can bring work to support new clients to a halt.
It is also possible to have a situation where the business has signed up an unbelievable amount of new client work, that if you are to achieve the goals, makes it impossible to support your current client base.
The needs of sales versus the needs of client services (team supporting current clients) is always at odds. It is not supposed to be at odds. In the ideal state they are totally synchronized. But they never will be.
To sales, you can never work hard enough to attract new clients. To client services, you can never do enough to satisfy your current client base.
What to do from an IT standpoint?
The most effective method of managing your Systems Development Team is to break them into groups:
– Grow the Business
this team will be comprised of one or two developers who are focused on investigating new technologies, responding to RFPs and supporting the sales team
– Build the Business this team is made up of 40% of the team and is focused on requests from existing clients and new client work
– Run the Business – this team is made up of 60% of the team and is focused on application support and ensuring the systems are functioning properly.
Recent Comments