Some clients demand a lot for what they pay and we have seen some examples where the employer to balance the clients' demands end up overworking their employees, because retaining the clients ensures financial survival of the company. So even if the company may feel humane, the thought of losing their clients to the competition creates a problem.
From India, Bengaluru
61From India, Bengaluru
Dear Mr Nelson Thomas,
You have given the challenges arising out of the client retention. However, how exactly it is impacting the life of the employees at the work? Are they required to overwork?
For the services that you provide to the client, you must be making a contract with the client. Based on the contract requirement, you must be preparing the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). You may have a brainstorming session on how to reduce the workload of the employees. Secondly, explore the possibility of automating the processes. This will reduce the workload of the employees.
By the way, competitiveness of the market increases the client's expectations forever. Your competitors provide more at the same price or with the reduced price. To stay in the competition, you need to follow the suit. But then this has been happening in all the industries and yours is no exception. Ask anyone who is 45 and above and they will tell you that the lift was comfortable when they had joined job market. You will get this reply from the people from across the spectrum of the industries. Therefore, challenge of meeting over-expectations of the client is fait accompli of the 21st century. One has to live with it. There is no alternative per se.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
You have given the challenges arising out of the client retention. However, how exactly it is impacting the life of the employees at the work? Are they required to overwork?
For the services that you provide to the client, you must be making a contract with the client. Based on the contract requirement, you must be preparing the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). You may have a brainstorming session on how to reduce the workload of the employees. Secondly, explore the possibility of automating the processes. This will reduce the workload of the employees.
By the way, competitiveness of the market increases the client's expectations forever. Your competitors provide more at the same price or with the reduced price. To stay in the competition, you need to follow the suit. But then this has been happening in all the industries and yours is no exception. Ask anyone who is 45 and above and they will tell you that the lift was comfortable when they had joined job market. You will get this reply from the people from across the spectrum of the industries. Therefore, challenge of meeting over-expectations of the client is fait accompli of the 21st century. One has to live with it. There is no alternative per se.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore
Thank you Dinesh on the inputs provided, these have been really informative,
It is true that we have a case of overworking of employees from an account with different projects. This account deals with mainly hardware infrastructure and most of the clients in the client profile we checked for the account were of the types that were extremely cost conscious. In short they needed more work within a lower cost margin.
Thinking of the additional business opportunities that could be taken from each client, though with a small profit margin individually, the company had been overworking the employees and at the same time cutting on costs to maintain the profit margin.
The clients on the other hand finding the skill-set, common in the industry kept on bargaining and threatening to hand over the project to the competition. So, to retain them each supplier company had to oblige accordingly putting the final burden on the employees.
We tried suggesting training on latest technical skills and importing of domain knowledge from outside. But then, there was a budget issue considering the minimal profit margin the project account was getting from each client. At the same time, with the existing employee skill set common in the industry, there was no unique demand and so no incentive for funding from external sources.
In short, it seemed both the employees and the employer and the clients were trapped in, with each other, not allowing the situation to change.
From India, Bengaluru
It is true that we have a case of overworking of employees from an account with different projects. This account deals with mainly hardware infrastructure and most of the clients in the client profile we checked for the account were of the types that were extremely cost conscious. In short they needed more work within a lower cost margin.
Thinking of the additional business opportunities that could be taken from each client, though with a small profit margin individually, the company had been overworking the employees and at the same time cutting on costs to maintain the profit margin.
The clients on the other hand finding the skill-set, common in the industry kept on bargaining and threatening to hand over the project to the competition. So, to retain them each supplier company had to oblige accordingly putting the final burden on the employees.
We tried suggesting training on latest technical skills and importing of domain knowledge from outside. But then, there was a budget issue considering the minimal profit margin the project account was getting from each client. At the same time, with the existing employee skill set common in the industry, there was no unique demand and so no incentive for funding from external sources.
In short, it seemed both the employees and the employer and the clients were trapped in, with each other, not allowing the situation to change.
From India, Bengaluru
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