Core Values

Client Commitment

Because we are a business—and because our clients ultimately pay the bills—Client Commitment is where the rubber hits the road. To be successful as a business, we must bring value to our clients. This means that we have to work hard to know and understand our client, that we must anticipate what our client needs, and that we must figure out how we can best satisfy these needs. What happens when we don't nurture our client commitment? That's simple. When we stop committing to our client—with all the understanding and hard work that commitment entails—we stop providing value to the client, and we eventually lose that relationship.

Client commitment, however, means more than just measuring HPTi's relationship with its customers. It's also about knowing who we are, so that we can know what value we bring to the customer. It's about understanding our employees—their skills and their abilities—so that we can know exactly what value our employees bring to our clients. One sure way to lose our clients' trust is to oversell our capabilities. Instead, one of our jobs is to teach our employees how to manage client expectations. We need to ensure that we can do what we say we can do. And since all programs are in a constant state of flux, we need to be able to manage changing expectations as well.

A familiar scene occurs around HPTi at regular meetings attended by project teams, leadership, and executives. Even though we work with many different clients who have widely varying needs and represent many diverse government agencies, the meetings begin with the same question: Have we made a difference for our clients this week? Another way of saying it: Have our efforts for our client had a measurable positive impact on our client's mission? When our discussions begin by asking these critical questions, then we know that we are truly engaged in fulfilling our core value of Client Commitment: We make a difference for and through our clients.

Every day we feel the pressures of our business lives, whether it's worrying about a project deliverable, making sure our corporate reporting is accurate, beating our competition, securing our networks, or meeting a proposal deadline. Every so often, a customer satisfaction survey is conducted with numerical scores returned for analysis. All of these activities—along with a myriad others—are necessary to execute our business.

But we all know that this isn't the whole picture. HPTi exists because of our collective passion for our government's important missions. Because of this, we must never lose sight of the critical features of being committed to our clients: that the most important time we spend is when we are with our customers, that quality is defined by the customer, that the best ideas come from living with our customers, that knowledge of our customer is a valuable asset, and that customer loyalty is a key to our success.

- Scott Miller - Chief Operating Officer