🚀 365 Days of Stories: Day 26 - Turning Around a Global Enterprise Account in 2 Months
- Partha Sarthi
- Mar 18
- 2 min read
As of now, I have shared turnaround stories of 3 accounts, and now let’s talk about another critical one.
🏢 The Challenge: A Global Enterprise Struggling with Slow Progress
A multinational enterprise customer had signed up to roll out an application across many countries, committing to our product for its customization capabilities and the promise to replace an existing vendor’s product.
But here’s the catch: the existing vendor had a major flaw. Change requests took over 6 months to implement. By the time they were completed, they were no longer relevant. This was a massive pain point for the customer.
Our product had a clear USP—speed of change requests and competitive pricing. We promised the customer we could go live in 3-6 months, with some minor customizations and integration with their core systems.
But things didn’t go as planned.
⏳ The Roadblock: 12 Months of Struggles
What was expected to be a 3-month timeline turned into 1 year. The project was stuck at the integration testing stage, and the core issue was that most of the flows hadn’t even been integrated with the customer’s systems. We were testing on stubs, and there were too many bugs in the system.
To make matters worse, the customer’s contract with the existing vendor was about to renew. If the project didn’t go live, the customer would be forced to sign up for another year of support with the existing vendor—a huge cost that would add no value to their migration. The customer gave us an ultimatum: Go live in the next 2 months, or the contract is canceled.
For the customer, this was just another contract, but for us, it was our entry into the global market—a massive opportunity.
⚠️ The Turnaround: Time to Step In
That’s when my CEO realized I needed to step in. He knew my expertise in turning around struggling accounts, but pulling me from another project was not going to be easy. However, given the urgency of the situation, he had no choice.
This account had a team of 30 people, many of whom had been hired specifically for this project. The project was being led by a former boss of mine, making the situation even more delicate.
But I knew the only way to turn this around was to take full control and make tough decisions. I couldn’t afford to please everyone—I had to do what was necessary.
💪 The Bold Decision: Full Control
I told my CEO, “I can’t take a supporting role. I need full authority to drive this project. The goal is yours, but the path is mine.”
He agreed, knowing we had only 2 months left to save this project. The stakes were high, and failure wasn’t an option.
🤔 What Would You Do?
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to take full control to turn a project around? How did you handle it?
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