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Conference 7.286::digital

Title:The Digital way of working
Moderator:QUARK::LIONELON
Created:Fri Feb 14 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5321
Total number of notes:139771

3588.0. "$100,000 question" by MIMS::BEKELE_D (When indoubt THINK!) Sun Dec 18 1994 22:19

    
    Let me first admit that I only have the cutomer's side of what
    I am about to report and ponder:  How and why on earth do we wait 
    for almost eight years to bill a customer?
    
    I was at a customer's site last weekend to deliver a software
    service where the customer was too eager (to put it mildly) to 
    mention that they are being asked to pay $100,000.00 for which
    they have no document to trace back ("it is upto Digital to bill 
    us on time but once we signed the PO and close out the project 
    from the budget the money won't be there when Digital sends a bill 
    seven years latter") to for service delivered back in '87-'88.  
    
    Aparently, this amount was part of a $12M P/O that customer approved 
    in '87 and is not too happy that we expect them to keep their books
    open "forever."  
    
    Dan (whose_stupid_look_on_his_face_may_still_need_wiping_out)
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
3588.1Curiousity gets the best of me! Is this client ...ODIXIE::SEDVM2::COLEParadigm: A 50 cent word downsized 60%Mon Dec 19 1994 10:372
	... a large wood/paper products company based in a pink skyscraper in
downtown Atlanta?
3588.2Not surprised at all...POBOX::CORSONHigher, and a bit more to the rightMon Dec 19 1994 12:0916
    
    	Unfortunately, I am not the least bit surprised, or even shocked
    and amazed.
    	Last month a brand new VAR (and a long time H-P bigot) we recruited
    ordered the full documentation for OSF/1 for their brand new Alpha
    machine. We not only sent them V2.0 documentation (their CDROM, of
    course, is V3.0), but invoiced them three different times with three
    different DEC numbers with three different documentation sets. And
    then we get into a BIG hassle trying to return the material for the
    right documentation. Today over one month later, they have decided
    dealing with Digital "takes too much time and effort", and are
    returning EVERYTHING, and staying with "our current partners even
    though they maybe behind on the power curve".
    	I say we better wake up and smell the coffee.
    
    			the Greyhawk
3588.3the way things areSWAM1::MEUSE_DAMon Dec 19 1994 12:487
    
    A daily occurance for me. 
    
    Complain, escalate. But it does no good.
3588.4me, tooDPDMAI::EYSTERFluoride&Prozac/NoCavities/No prob!Mon Dec 19 1994 14:1511
    re -.2
    
    Yep.  Now throw in our Channels partners.  The director of MIS at the
    last site I installed told me point blank...
    
    	      "I buy Digital products in SPITE of Digital."
    
    And he's serious.  And I think he's right.  Hopefully, he'll remain
    successful.
    
    								Tex
3588.5MIMS::BEKELE_DWhen indoubt THINK!Mon Dec 19 1994 17:126
    Re: .1
    
    Nop, a BIG gov't authority in NY/NJ :^)  A trip to Maine will follow
    shortly on behalf of the people in the pink skyscraper.  Hopefully (?),
    all I will hear over there will be about an endangered owl rather than
    an endangered computer company.
3588.6We're surrounded!DPDMAI::HARDMANSucker for what the cowgirls do...Tue Dec 20 1994 19:3629
    Unfortunately, this kind of crapola pervades this corporation. For
    example, last Thursday I went to visit a customer that's having
    problems with a 120 mb hard drive in a PC. This is a 'per call', pay
    for labor by-the-hour and for parts type of customer. They have an open
    PO with Digital for onsite service.

    I show up onsite with a Digital 120 mb IDE drive, then the customer
    asks me if I could install a new 1 gig IDE drive instead. "Sure!" says
    I, I'll get a price and call you back. The order was placed _last_
    Thursday. I'm assured that it will arrive on Wednesday, some 6 days
    later (after being told "tomorrow" for several days already...)

    So far, I *know* of at least SIX people at Digital that have been
    involved in purchasing this one $425 part. Meanwhile, the customer has
    no part and damn-near every computer parts store in here in Houston has
    the very part I need sitting right on their shelves!!! 

    Oh, we can only purchase from "approved vendors" says the bureaucracy.
    If Digital truly wants to be a player in the Multi-Vendor (read PC)
    business, then we need to take some serious lessons from the small
    companies that eat our lunch on these kinds of deals. They simply drop
    by the local parts store on the way to the customer site, buy the part
    and make a customer happy. Today. Too simple, eh? :-(

    Digital, on the other hand, has to build a paper trail like we're
    tracing nuclear bombs or something....

    Harry the frustrated field engineer