Crisis management in a toxic project: Do you need an expert to solve specific problems at short notice?
Problem description:
The client has a toxic project on board for which there is an urgent, multidimensional need for action:
- The project is significantly behind schedule
- The order for the new production equipment is overdue and the customer SOP date is massively jeopardized
- The manufacturability of the product is questionable
- The technical product & customer requirements can at best be met through complex, additional work steps and considerable additional costs
- The profitability calculations for the project and the new investments show considerable accumulated losses over the entire product life cycle
- The situation may get even worse if the content of the customer order and the offer differ, because the order check was not carried out with due care due to overlapping competencies, vacation replacement or similar, and the four-eyes principle was ignored
Options:
Acceptance of long-term significant losses and a high level of resource allocation in series production; or returning the project to the customer, which is legally problematic, among other factors; or find a compromise solution with the customer. With the last two options, I can support you as an interim manager and a proven crisis manager.
Solution:
Any solution finding is based on an in-depth analysis of the project, the history and the causes, which has a strong influence on the alternative courses of action and negotiation strategy with the customer. Often there were mistakes on both sides beforehand. Other typical causes are, for example, insufficient use of resources in the acquisition and start-up phase, inadequate inquiries and feasibility checks, a lack of internal coordination and processes, undetected differences between offer and order through vacation replacement or overlapping responsibilities, etc. I will help you with my interdisciplinary professional experience, my analytical skills and my negotiating strength in uncovering and solving the problem, in negotiating with the customer and in adapting the processes in order to avoid such problems in the future. In the course of my career I was known for always realizing the most profitable projects. For this you have to be prepared to go the extra-mile more than others and not only scratch the surface, but also going into the deep. In addition it needs is a conservative approach in the quote preparation and project planning, an anticipation of stumbling blocks as well as maximum attention, reliability and precision in implementation.