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The cost of living is high enough without Christmas coming along and running a steamroller across our current accounts and maxing out our credit cards.
Things these days are not cheap and in some ways while some things have got cheaper (such as disk space while we consume more and more data) and some much more expensive (like software we now often license at full price rent monthly or annually).
I come across lots of missing functionality that is quite often an obstacle to really good self-service, making integrated solutions work seamlessly or eliminating those spreadsheet archipelagos. On the latter, now at the end of 2023 I see more places like the Malay Archipelago than the Falkland Islands. As anyone who has worked with me or knows me, I work with a vast variety of socialhousing landlords and councils of all sizes and types. My smallest client was a charity that managed only 34 homes, largest over 150k properties. So we may be generally solving the same challenges, but we also have our unique features.
My professional reaction is to question those gaps, as there are usually easy solutions in an infrastructure, software or application sense. When you breakdown the reasons, for me it generally falls into the following reasons:
1 – My clients are not aware of some of the suitable solutions available
2 – Some of that functionality was de-scoped during implementation
3 – Some of that functionality was meant to follow in a future phase, that never happened
4 – There is not currently a productised solution to plug that gap
5 – There is one or more solutions, but they all sounded too expensive
While I see a lot of 1-3, not many of 4, however I see way too much of 5 (which is very interesting).
Are software providers or HMS makers too greedy? If I had £50 over the last decade, for every time I heard that, I would easily have over a grand by now. Is that a reasonable accusation ? It can feel from certain suppliers naming no names, the minimum you will be quoted can expected to be £10k. That’s whether you are asking for something blue sky or maybe really should be working properly already!
Having been on ‘the dark side’ myself many years ago, its got to be said suppliers do need to turn a dollar, although there is perhaps reasonable and unreasonable profit being made, considering a lot of work takes place much cheaply offshore these days. However, most of the time its less of the suppliers profiteering and more perception of clients. Often exclaiming like those folk in Yorkshire do on their counties celebratory day, ‘Ow Much?’.
“Well it was expensive”, how expensive, “well £30k”
Those conversations remind me of that saying, “They know the price of everything and the value of nothing”. The point of spending any money or making an investment in business, is to realise greater value or efficiency. When I work with commercial organisations, such as external contractors, that calculation is often done at the speed of light in someone’s head. In social housing or councils, often a calculation is never done at all. A business case can just be an obstacle to be maneuvered, rather than a tool to help make a decision to see if a £30k investment is worthwhile.
Sometimes it truly is a no-brainer.
£30k not spent on a finance interface to link repair invoices with a purchase ledger for example, might mean we have to employ a full time equivalent person to double enter them. With pension, salary, employers NI, holidays and sickness payments etc, that might be more than a £30k cost annually. In addition, risks of mis-keying, mistakes, risk of susceptibility to fraud, auditor concerns also point to this being a more than sensible investment.
We are now close to a new year coming and the opportunity of renewal and turning over a new leaf. Maybe dust off your rejected historic aborted improvements and try to see them through the prism of some hindsight and the un-totalled costs of not following through. You never know, even your supplier might just have a short January Sale on soon. Here’s hoping!
Related Post: Consultants - Can they save you more than they cost you?
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Motörhead – (I Won’t) Pay Your Price.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009
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