How I survived after a supplier failed to come through

Did you even find out what the trouble was?

They simply didn’t have the money to install what they said they were going to install. They sold us something they couldn’t deliver on because they just didn’t have the funds, and instead of running a significant fibre job they just ran into too many troubles.

Once we were getting close to the deadline and nothing was happening, panic started to set in. We had everything in writing and then, all of a sudden, we hear excuses like the council wouldn’t allow them to do something, or so on. That’s manageable, but from then on the excuses start to get a little stranger.

Once you say my dog ate my homework three times in a row, things start to look really bad.

How do you respond to a situation like that?

You also have a company relying on that service to run a business, so we had to dance around that quite extensively. We got substitute and surrogate services in there for the short term, but it wasn’t at the level they required until we got the originally intended service in there.

So how do you fix it?

Staying close to the customer and the supplier, at the same time.

Constant communication, really: You need to go into problem solving mode for the customer. We were providing internet bandwidth, the building was populated, so we had to figure out how much staff needed to be serviced. We needed to understand their business, understand their problems, and then make sure they were getting at least some sort of service.

When the project had finally finished, what did you do?

We approached the supplier, and although we didn’t sue them, we had our lawyers asking what happened, whether they were viable, if they had gone under, etc. We quickly became their number one customer, but after we stopped, there just wasn’t anything there for them.

It shaped what we are as a company a fair bit, because from then on we’ve tried to be a very good supplier to our own customers as well. We always want to know what’s going on with every aspect of the business at all times, and we have a real customer-focus which is always good.

We don’t have that supplier as a supplier anymore, and we drew the line right then and there. We have this mantra of dealing with people who are like us, and they weren’t. It showed us that we need to be a good customer and a good supplier as well.

So for other SMEs in the same situation, what would you recommend they do?

It’s definitely the good relationship required with the supplier. You need good customer relationships with key suppliers, and you just need to be close to them to make sure everything’s under control when this stuff happens.

You need to stay in relationship with your customers on a personal level. It’s a key thing to stay on top of, and should really be at the focus of any business.