A reusable service needs a repeatable customer problem, not merely reusable code.

In 2023 we reviewed twelve customer programmes that used a shared software core. The commercial proposal treated that reuse as evidence for one standard service proposition. It was an appealing account: the provider had already developed relevant material, and the customer programmes appeared to demonstrate demand. The service-design review found a more qualified pattern. Eight programmes could fit the proposed standard undertaking, while four required materially different operating workflows. A common component did not make the customer's full requirement common.

The sales team wanted all twelve retained in the market story. It argued that excluding four would understate the provider's experience and make the standard proposition look narrower than the work already delivered. Minzhuo Qian, our fictional service-design director, objected to the implication that the same introduction and support model would serve every programme. I supported keeping both perspectives visible: the twelve demonstrated relevant experience, but only eight supported the particular claim of repeatability being proposed.

I recommended a standard proposition for eight and bespoke treatment for the other four. The response carried CNY 8.4 million in proposition and service-design expense. Engineering colleagues retained responsibility for technical suitability, while commercial and contractual owners examined what could actually be offered. I did not treat existing code as proof that reuse rights, permissions or support responsibilities were already settled. My contribution concerned the business description and the choice it asked the provider to make.

The decision gave up a broader standard-service claim and retained the work required to handle four programmes differently. That made the proposition less simple to market. It also prevented the full customer undertaking from being represented by the most reusable part of it. The four bespoke programmes did not become failures or inferior customers because they sat outside the standard offer. Their requirements remained legitimate; the question was whether they belonged inside the same commercial promise.

I use this case to explain why a service strategy needs evidence about the customer's operating problem as well as the provider's assets. Technical reuse can support a repeatable business, but it cannot establish the whole business case on its own. The useful outcome was an offer with a clearer boundary and a disclosed development cost. I do not claim a measured margin improvement or a universal eight-to-four rule from this fictional decision.

A 2016 service-portfolio review examined a cohort with CNY 48 million in contracted annual service fees. The recurring description had become central to the strategic account, suggesting a business less dependent on individual projects. The same cohort required CNY 17 million in separately budgeted initial transition and project work. Those figures described different economic quantities and periods. I wanted both represented before the fee label was used to imply a model resembling a pure software subscription.

The commercial sponsors argued that the annual contract form showed the direction in which the business was moving. They were right that recurring fees mattered. My concern was the inference that a recurring billing arrangement had made the initial work incidental. Customers still needed substantial introduction, configuration and transition activity before the continuing service could operate as intended. Leaving that work outside the strategic description made the proposition appear more standardised than its actual undertaking supported.

I supported CNY 2.1 million in assessment and commercial redesign. The work examined how the proposition represented its initial and continuing responsibilities, with finance, delivery and contract owners retaining their respective judgements. We did not subtract CNY 17 million from CNY 48 million and call the result a margin. The figures were not a complete comparable-period revenue-and-cost account. Nor did the strategic discussion prescribe accounting recognition or determine the terms that could be changed for an existing customer.

The response gave up an easy story about recurring revenue as proof that the business model had already changed. It required the provider to describe where repeatability existed and where project dependence remained. Some colleagues worried that the fuller account would weaken interest in the service portfolio. I argued that a proposition should be assessed on the work it actually required, and that a more accurate description could support a decision to invest in improving repeatability without pretending the improvement was complete.

The case shaped my view of commercial labels. Annual fees are evidence about a contract arrangement; they are not a substitute for examining introduction effort, support responsibility and the pattern of resource use. A leadership account can describe a move towards a different model while retaining the work that has not yet changed. That is more useful than presenting the desired future economics as if they already followed from the way the fee was named.

In 2021 we assessed a channel partnership whose proposed market account covered nine sector offerings. The presentation treated the partner relationship as a route across the full set. Review by the responsible commercial and legal teams established that the arrangements being considered covered five offerings, with four outside that scope pending separate agreements. The strategic market estimate had moved ahead of the actual proposition the two parties were in a position to make together.

The sponsorship team argued that the wider description expressed the partnership's ambition and would help build momentum for the additional arrangements. Ruolan Zhen, our fictional commercial-partnerships head, challenged the risk of allowing an aspiration to become the understood present offer. I agreed that the wider possibility could remain a subject for development. I did not agree that it should be used as current reach while the relevant rights and responsibilities remained unsettled.

I recommended narrowing the joint proposition to five offerings. CNY 3.6 million in commercial and legal assessment and launch rework remained in the account. The four excluded offerings were not declared impossible; they required their separate arrangements before the joint claim could change. The legal interpretation stayed with qualified owners. My role was to ensure that the strategic description used the scope those owners could support, rather than treating the commercial ambition as its own permission.

The decision reduced the initial breadth of the market story and required changes to work already prepared for launch. It also made a dependency explicit. A channel relationship does not mean that every capability of either participant can be presented as part of the shared offer. The responsibilities of selling, delivering and supporting a service may differ even where the parties have a legitimate wider relationship. Those distinctions needed to travel with the proposition into its commercial use.

I would not turn this case into a universal contractual rule. The five-and-four split describes one invented assessment, with the relevant terms examined by its responsible teams. Its strategic lesson is that a market estimate should correspond to the offer the institution can actually make. A future possibility may deserve investment and discussion, but it should remain labelled as future work until the conditions supporting the claim have been established.

In 2009 I supported retaining fourteen local variants in the service catalogue after a bespoke programme. The variants represented work we had completed, and I believed that preserving more of it would increase the range available for the next customer. The decision treated the provider's delivery history as evidence of customer choice. I had not asked clearly enough whether each retained difference addressed a distinct need that another buyer would recognise and value.

A subsequent review identified six genuinely different buyer requirements and eight variants without a separate requirement. That did not prove that the eight contained no useful technical material. It showed that our catalogue had allowed an internal distinction to stand in for a commercial reason to choose. Colleagues who had developed the variants understandably wanted their work retained. They argued that removing distinctions too early could discard options that a later customer might need.

I accepted that some technical material could remain useful without appearing as a separate public proposition. We revised the catalogue and research at a cost of CNY 1.9 million. The correction concerned how the offer was organised and explained; it did not authorise withdrawal of an existing customer commitment or the deletion of assets without the appropriate owners' review. I needed to separate respect for work already done from the decision about what the next buyer should be asked to understand.

The revision gave up the breadth implied by fourteen named variants. It also required me to acknowledge that I had supported the earlier assumption, rather than present the smaller set as the plan I had intended all along. The mistake was not believing that different customers can have different needs. It was failing to establish which differences mattered before preserving them as part of the commercial structure. More catalogue entries had appeared to mean more choice when some mainly represented our own history.

I carry the case into later standardisation discussions as a reason to examine both directions of error. A provider can standardise too much and conceal a legitimate customer difference. It can also preserve differences that make the proposition harder to understand without adding a distinct reason to buy. The strategy work is to establish the relevant distinction through evidence, not to adopt either variety or simplicity as an unconditional virtue.

In 2025 we considered how to add a specialist layer to an enterprise service proposition. An internal-build option was estimated at twenty-four months with CNY 36 million in planned development expense. A partner-backed alternative would support a narrower initial offering, with CNY 9 million in integration and proposition expense. The options differed in scope, time and control. I wanted the strategic comparison to preserve those differences instead of presenting the smaller budget as a simple saving on the same undertaking.

The internal-build advocates argued that ownership would provide greater control over future development and reduce dependence on another firm's choices. That was a substantive argument, not resistance to partnership. The commercial team preferred an earlier, more limited offer that could test the customer proposition. I asked both sides to state which customer needs their option would address and which commitments would remain outside it. A broad future capability and a narrower present service could not be compared as if only their cost differed.

I supported the limited partner-backed proposition, subject to the relevant commercial, intellectual-property, technical and security assessments. Those responsibilities stayed with their qualified owners. The CNY 9 million budget described the chosen integration and proposition work; it did not establish that CNY 27 million had been saved. The internal option's CNY 36 million estimate concerned a different development scope and timetable. I also retained the dependency on the partner's agreed role rather than describing the choice as obtaining ownership without building.

The decision gave up some direct control and the broader capability anticipated in the internal option. It required a clear account of what the initial offer could support and what further choices might be needed if the proposition developed. The partner route was not a way to avoid responsibility for the customer undertaking. It changed how part of that undertaking would be supported, making the rights, interfaces and continuing relationship important to the strategic account.

I use this example to explain why make-or-partner decisions need a comparison of actual propositions. A cost difference becomes misleading when the alternatives silently change their scope. The fictional outcome was a narrower initial choice with its expense and dependency disclosed. It was not proof that partnership is generally preferable to building, or that a smaller approved budget measures the full long-term economics of the resulting service.