SVR #2

Hello, all my dark minions in the consulting industry!!! Have you ever low-bid a contract, knowing that once you got deep into it, the client would be as professionally invested in the success of the project as you, and would carry the can back to management for more funding? Come on, chums, you can be honest with me, didn’t we row together at Oxford?

Sadly, our old mates at Oracle got their hands caught in the cookie jar recently. They thought they were building a strategic vendor relationship with Montclair State University. Everyone was friends, all pulling together for success, and then some loser decided to knife them in the back instead of being chums!

“When issues arose during the course of the project, it became clear that MSU’s leadership did not adequately understand the technology and the steps necessary to complete the project,” [Oracle] stated. “Instead of cooperating with Oracle and resolving issues through discussions and collaboration, MSU’s project leadership, motivated by their own agenda and fearful of being blamed for delays, escalated manageable differences into major disputes.”

Right ho! Instead of “cooperating” and “resolving through discussions and collaboration” (oh! and an extra $15M!) they created a major dispute. Bollocks! It’s this kind of unfriendliness and lack of trust that can turn a super strategic friendship and awesome partnership relationship into a garden variety contractual business arrangement, and who wants one of those?!?

And, to add to the betrayal, I guess someone at MSU used to work in the consulting industry (zounds!)

“This is a textbook example of how to file a legal action against a vendor for failure to deliver,” said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research, who reviewed the updated complaint on Wednesday.

MSU made some smart moves to protect itself, such as documenting all conversations and interactions with Oracle, and working out an escalation procedure in the event the project ran into problems. It also was wise to use real-life use cases for the demonstrations, Wang added.

I’m glad I live in a jurisdiction where clients and vendors know how to get along.