Suppliers - working with large companies

Restaurant technology- Why can't suppliers get it right?

Through working on this area for a number of years, I have seen many changes in technology. Over the last few years, technology solutions are driven by one major need - data; collecting and sharing as much data as possible. However, I am seeing a big problem with the suppliers of new solutions. And that problem is the lack of "customisation" that these suppliers allow for larger companies.

It seems that suppliers create a product and sell it as "off the shelf" product as it is. However, the suppliers of technology need to understand that in order to get big business they must accommodate requests for customisation and configuration as per customer requirements. Your solution might work perfectly for a small business that does not have complicated infrastructures in place; therefore, it is literally "plug & play", but this will not work for larger corporations.

One perfect example where all suppliers keep failing so far, with the customers I have been working over the last few years, is technology that requires internet connectivity or "cloud" access. These suppliers must understand that large companies will have strict rules, configurations, setups, which will, for example, focus on security. Therefore internet access will be restricted and controlled. It then seems that when we present these controls to the suppliers, they refuse to adapt, and force or demand that the customers make changes to their infrastructures, instead of being the supplier adapting to the customer's request.

That approach is not good and will cause their customers to either have second thoughts about the solution being sold to them and will either delay any roll out or even drop the whole solution entirely.

If you are a supplier you must think of the larger customers where the real business is, and the real requirements are, and be ready to adapt your solution to the customer needs rather than the other way around. You have to realise that your "off the shelf" solution does not work in large corporations.