Words from CEO, Don Munro

An open letter to our customers:
 
 

We’re all ears and ‘All-in for the Flop’ in 2010

Recently in this spot, I wrote about why Coastal Environmental Systems, Inc. has succeeded — the people/culture, the business model, the products and continuity.  This letter focuses on what I mean by continuity. We see continuity as being more similar to jazz than symphony — Oscar Peterson always refused to make any distinction between jazz and classical music. He said, “As a rule, jazz performers like to appear to be improvising; classical performers like to appear not to be improvising.”  I think the main difference is in the understanding of time and scale.  Jazz, like small business, in our case building meteorological instrumentation, depends on small groups of people working together in the moment to produce something special. Coastal collaborates closely with its customers, just as a great jazz group responds to the mood of the audience.  This approach does notwork when building airplanes or mass-producing hamburgers — scale is everything.

Relevant History – In 1976, I was head planner for Seattle's bus system. I believed in ridership prediction models. My boss, with me as a reluctant but obedient follower, embarked on a different strategy; we estimated how many riders we could seduce onto buses. With much thought and public discussion, we settled on 60 million bus riders for 1981. In contrast, the models predicted 40 million. Everything we did was based on what we could thoughtfully see through the fog. We did not stubbornly adhere to a well-modeled self-fulfilling prophecy, which provides a false sense of clarity ahead, but in fact is misleading because of its seeming clarity. In less than five years, we didn't quite reach 60 but we were way over 40. I took this lesson with me when I co-founded Coastal, transforming it into a business philosophy – Jazz not symphony is right for Coastal: it is the essence of continuity.

Our Continuity of Purpose connects directly to you

Continuity maximizes our ability to survive. Survival depends on listening and responding to what we hear you say, not to a predetermined mind-set endemic to a plan – jazz if-you-will. Coastal does this well by collaborating with our customers and being flexible. Customer's wonder, at times, what our constraints are. We are more concerned with your specific needs and what constraints we need to lift in order to build exactly what you desire. Our job is to provide you with options and flexibility so that you are completely satisfied with the products you purchase from us – it makes us who we are.

Tip: At every turn in the procurement process look to see if responders have heard what you are saying, thinking and asking for. Are the questions asked merely sales pitches aimed at locking other competitors out? Are they "look-at-me-aren't-I-smart" questions or are they questions focused solely on understanding your constraints? Reject the first two, hire the third.

All customers have special needs, wants and wishes. Continuity pushes us to design reliable and adaptable top quality products. The alternative is to build a 'take it or leave it' product which may or may not be 'top quality'. Many companies' business plans and products are set in stone and you either buy what they have or you don't. Companies do not usually change their product offering for each individual customer. At Coastal, we are flexible in our operating plans because we have to meet our customers required product specifications, or we will not get the work. On the right is a summary statement from a source selection document of the United States Air Force. It was the largest contract ever made for AWOS weather equipment: we were not the low bid, just the best. We listened well and won.

TIP: We like it when we are encouraged to offer wants and wishes as options. You will be surprised at how friendly we become when your wish is some piece of technology or service that we want to add to our constantly growing product repertoire.

Some competitors will say anything proclaiming universal expertise, thinking they actually have it. We know our limitations. While we are obsessed with innovating and making wishes come true, we will turn down work that places too much risk on our ability to innovate within a required time frame.

TIP: Thinking anything is possible is great, but trying to fly with no wings is foolish. One must understand the difference.

Lastly, as a privately held company, we are unencumbered by relentless quarterly expectations of Wall Street. Innovation at Coastal does not take a back seat to everything else that is money related, except to having enough cash to do the work. Coastal will stay private and go 'all-in' on the flop to get the win.

TIP: Ask everybody how much is spent on R+D in meteorological instrumentation. It had better be a big number, because it is of great importance.

Please give us a call to discuss your needs, wants and wishes. We're all ears.


Sincerely,

Coastal Environmental Systems, Inc.
 
 
[signed by] Don Munro
Co-Founder, President and CEO