I had a reminder this morning about how important this when a lawyer friend of mine was talking about a client who simply accepted the terms and conditions of a big contract and when it became completely unworkable, they ended up first in receivership then bankruptcy losing their business and also their family home. What a tragic mistake! And it happens so often. Large companies would be very concerned if you do not read the contract carefully and make sure that you are able to deliver on the contract. The larger business letting the contract actually has real concerns about a small business that has not read and understood all the conditions because it indicates inexperience and a lack of ability to supply relaibly. This is one of the big things you will learn about when you do a quality management system ISO 9001. Early in my business life I learned this lesson when my husband and I owned a computer shop in the the late 1980s. This was the prompt to me to study quality assurance. The side benefit was all the other unexpected business improvements that the system came with. My husband really was overjoyed. He had a contract to sell 100 computers to WorkCover. YOIKS! I told him in no uncertain terms that I would not accept this contract without renegotiation. So I contacted the company next day and negotiated. We changed the contract to five lots of twenty with short payment terms so that they paid for one set of twenty computers before we delivered the next. Even then I had to negotiate hard with the bank to get a huge short term overdraft. What was he thinking? The cash flow issues involved in purchasing all the components together with the space required to assemble, test and pack all those computers stretched us to our limit. Then there was the space to package them all so that the courier could easily pick them up, then there were cart notes and invoices. And we did it five times. Yes we did make money but not as much as he thought that we would once we included the overdraft fees and the extra labour needed. Was it worth it? Yes in retrospect because we grew in experience but financially it was marginal. That was definitely one of the triggers for me learn about quality systems and he learned not to accept large contracts without thinking it through and running it past me first so we could work out the full implications. The people at WorkCover we very prepared to renogotiate. They did expect us to review the contract and would have found that all 100 computers arriving on the same day a great inconvenience. You will learn more about how to approach contract review and customer satisfaction when you do an ISO 9001 quality management system, And you will be able to reduce the risk in your business and sleep better at night like I did in the computer business days.. When you implement a quality management system, ISO 9001, one ot the really important things you learn is to check contracts. This is one of the ways to have a sustainable business
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