Anonymous Customers

March 30, 2005

Two press releases from today brought to mind the problem faced by many suppliers of products and�services. See if you can guess what these two news items have in common:

Jacada Wins Significant Contract with Large Telecommunications Provider

PFSweb Contracted for Dedicated Call Center to Serve U.S., Canadian Customers of Consumer Electronics Firm

Yes, in�each case the (no doubt smaller and more desperate) supplier was not able to get permission to identify the name of the (no doubt larger and holding-most-of-the-cards) customer. Having done stints as a�PR copywriter, I can sympathize with the poor suppliers in both of these cases. You've made a big sale to an important customer and for whatever reason you're not able to crow about it and�milk it for publicity -- drat!

I suppose in some cases the big customer might have a legitimate concern -- maybe they don't want to reveal some aspect of their business strategy to competitors. Wouldn't it be a shame, though, if the insistence on anonymity was just�the result of somebody throwing their weight around to show how much power they have? Think that could ever be the case?

AB -- 3/30/05

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