Locked In With A Supplier Without Any Recourse

Locked In With A Supplier Without Any Recourse

If your service provider broke every promise and refused to engage – would you tolerate it?

As a Business Advisor and NED for Obelisk AI , I am working with many UK businesses, who were all forced to enter into a 4-year watertight contract with the same service provider.

To win the agreement, the service provider promised them all:

✅ Cost stability
✅ Clear communication
✅ Delivery on agreed outcomes
✅ Accountability for performance

Just over 1 year into the agreement, the same service provider has:

-> Broken multiple commitments their business relied upon

-> Increased their operating costs without warning

-> Refused to answer questions about why or what’s going to affect their business next

Here’s the toughest pill for these businesses to swallow:

The service agreement gives them no recourse. They are all locked in and have no way out, until the end of the agreement.

In any business, this would trigger urgent conversations about customer care, governance, and accountability.

When a supplier stops listening, it’s not just poor service, it’s a breakdown of trust.

Strong leaders know:

-> Engagement isn’t optional

-> Transparency isn’t negotiable

-> Accountability drives trust

The questions we should consider are:

Would you want to keep working with that service provider?

Would you want to enter into another agreement with them, given the option?

Unfortunately, these aren’t hypothetical cases, it’s the reality for every UK business today, whether they like it or not.

If this was your business, and this was a regular service provider, you’d call this unacceptable.
In Leadership, whether in business or government, it should be just as unacceptable. Do you agree?