What is it about integrity?

Yesterday, we were visited by Matt Tormollen and Dave Cooper from Pavilion Technologies (http://www.pavtech.com). They told us about a radical new sales paradigm they were offering to their clients. They call it "value first." What they mean is that they built a giant toolset called Pavilion 8, which apparently does darn near everything in the advanced process control field, just so that they could concentrate on a higher order issue: delivering value to the customer. What they do is to find a problem issue for their client, and produce a value-based proposal to resolve the problem. In other words, they offer a specific statement of what they will do, and what benefit this project will give (economic benefit, of course) and a money back guarantee if it fails to accomplish what Pavilion says it will. "Say what you are going to do, and then do what you say you will." It is about integrity. Too many vendors make vaporware promises, or excuses after the fact. This has led to a defensive skepticism about product and service claims on the part of our readers, the end-users. It seems to me to be a natural extension of personal integrity to make the sort of offer Pavilion has started to make. And it takes great assurance, knowledge, and courage. After all, if you screw up, you can't make excuses. If you don't deliver, you can't explain it away. You either did what you said you would, or you didn't. Might be interesting if this was the start of a trend, now wouldn't it? Comments? --Walt Boyes