Business System Consultation Center - Our Business System ColumnVol.153 2024.07.01 Takahashi Minoru

You should never assign underperforming employees as in-house SEs

Thank you for your interest and continued support.
This is Takahashi from the Marketing Plan Research Laboratory.


Our firm is an IT vendor specializing in the maintenance of Access systems.
System maintenance work involves
We receive notifications from customers when various issues arise,
and we resolve them on a case-by-case basis.


Given the nature of these situations,
it is naturally important to restore the system as quickly as possible; however,
when providing maintenance services,
that is not the only aspect we prioritize.


When we consider the situation from the customer’s perspective,
system issues are, once resolved, merely temporary problems.
To be honest,
I believe there are many company presidents who simply wish,
I believe many company presidents have wishes that are this simple.
I agree with this sentiment.


To ensure that the wish “as long as it works tomorrow, that’s good enough” doesn’t cause any anxiety,
we pay close attention to the following three points when performing maintenance:
① Did we provide an easy-to-understand explanation? Were the rationale and our reasoning conveyed correctly?
② If the cause is unknown, were we able to honestly communicate that fact?
③ Overall, did we provide a response that met the customer’s expectations?


System maintenance is not just about the results of the work itself,
but also the process—including the exchange of explanations and reasoning—
.
In addition to performing troubleshooting tasks,
only when points ① through ③ above are met
can the president say with peace of mind, “As long as it works tomorrow, that’s good enough.”


When outsourcing system maintenance,
I recommend that you also consider whether the vendor is capable of properly carrying out the communication described in points ①–③
as a key criterion for evaluation.


That's all, Thank you for reading.

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