The Electronic Document & Me

When a Solution Isn’t

What you’re about to read is true. Names have been omitted to save the participants (individual and corporate) from a profound sense of embarrassment.

There was a time not too long ago when ‘solution selling’ became all the rage. Sales people were told not to sell ‘products’ but to sell ‘solutions’. And companies – regardless of their reality – began billing themselves as ‘solution providers’. While there was (and still is) considerable validity to this approach many companies and consequently their employees, only paid lip service to the concept without taking it to heart. Corporate cultures and individual behavior largely remained unchanged and ‘solutions’ didn’t always deliver benefits.

For example, I once had dinner with a mid-level manager who worked for a large provider of cutsheet laser printing technology. He proudly told me, “I have 27 solutions in my portfolio”.

Since he had invited me to dinner and was clearly picking up the tab, I behaved myself and didn’t point out that what he really had was 27 products each of which might be a solution if it indeed solved a customer’s problem.

This of course would depend on the provider and customer recognizing the problem and agreeing on the solution.

Which brings me to my story.

As I related in my last post, I was involved in early attempts at addressing the problems of error printing (missing pages, duplicates, bad sets, etc.) in the production speed laser printing environment (see ‘The Discovery of the ‘Oh Shit!’ Phenomenon’).

In the early ‘90s I was approached by a large Massachusetts-based insurer who had some interest in the Johnson & Quin JQ/d2. I met with their VP of Operations. During our discussion I asked if they had identified any specific problems. He wasn’t sure so I explained the issues frequently encountered by users of the same type of printing systems he had.

Again, he wasn’t sure they had those problems but was interested in finding out. So we agreed that I would visit their print center to observe and see if there were ways in which J&Q could help. He said if I could prove our solution would save them time and money he would be willing to move ahead.

I was mostly interested in observing their MICR operations since that was where I knew the problems if any, would be most obvious and where a solution would deliver the greatest value. It turned out that they only printed checks between 2 AM and 6 AM. Accordingly a few weeks later I spent the wee hours of a weekday morning watching his team output checks and EOBs.

After a long run they went through their reconciliation process to ensure they had printed the correct number of checks and EOBs. I’ve forgotten the specifics of their process but suffice it to say it wasn’t exactly scientific. I think it depended on weighing the output and comparing it to some sort of page counter their vendor had rigged up for them.

It turned out the job was literally ‘out of balance’ by a few pages. They couldn’t identify exactly what the problem was so they put everything – I think it was around 30,000 pages – on a flat cart, rolled it over to a shredder and began shredding the whole thing!

I know some of you right now are thinking I’m making this up. But others – those old enough to remember those days – know I’m not kidding.

I asked them how often this happened. The shift manager said something to the effect of, “Oh not much – only maybe 3 or 4 times a week”. Let’s not forget that secure check stock was not only quite costly it was available from only a few forms vendors. Johnson & Quin was one of them. I had my cost justification.

A few days later I called the VP of Operations to set up a time for a visit during which I’d lay out my findings, the cost of our solution and the savings and productivity improvements it would deliver. A week or so after that I was in his office again. We went through my proposal after which he said, “Scott this is great. Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you”.

“What’s that?” I said.

“I’ve resigned my position here and in fact my last day is the end of this week so I won’t be able to move ahead with this”.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve decided to follow my dream. I’m moving to Florida to start a career playing guitar and singing in nightclubs”.

“Interesting. Who’s taking your place?” I was trying to not fall out of my chair.

“They’re not sure yet. But I’ll be sure to leave your proposal with my team so maybe they can move ahead”.

And that was it. Strangely, not much later I changed jobs too. I left J&Q to accept a position selling an electronic forms system for what was then the world’s largest forms printer. I heard that the shift manager contacted J&Q again to ask about the cost of the JQ/d2. I suspect he had encountered the ‘Oh Shit!’ phenomenon. After telling him the cost they never heard from him again.

* * *

Moving forward, around 18 months later I became involved with that same large insurance company. This time I was invited to meet with them by the major account rep who covered them for a leading print technology vendor. The big forms printing company I was working for had a partnership with that printer vendor based on our software’s ability to automate forms printing on their newest platform.

A week or so before the planned meeting I got a call from my employer’s rep who was responsible for selling forms to the insurance company. Somehow, he’d gotten wind of the planned meeting and called to ask me if he could attend. I knew his participation might be disruptive so I told him I couldn’t invite him since the meeting really belonged to the print vendor rep. I suggested he call him.

I immediately called the print vendor rep, told him to expect a call from our forms rep and to refuse to invite him. I explained my reasons and he agreed it would be best if the forms rep didn’t attend.

Let me pause here to observe that some readers who know me are thinking, “I never knew Scott could be so devious” while others are thinking, “I always knew Scott was a devious bastard”. Some of you are partially right and some are partially wrong. I’ll leave it to you to figure it out.

After his rejection the forms rep called again. I promised to meet with him after the meeting with the insurer and fill him in.

After the meeting I kept my promise and went to his office. After relating the parts of the meeting I thought he should know we got to talking about the industry in general. We’d never met before and he was curious about my background. He’d been with the forms printer for his entire career.

In the process of telling him about my history I related the story I told you before – how the insurance company in question wasted so much time and money by shredding check stock because of printing errors.

His comment was, “I’m sure glad it turned out the way it did and you didn’t sell them a solution”.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Do have any idea how much money I make selling them check stock?”

As the old saying goes, ‘One man’s pie is another man’s poison.’