(I Won’t) Pay Your Price

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

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!

Acutance Consulting would be happy to help you turbo-charge current solutions, 

please just get in touch, for a chat over a few gingers & a brew ☕😋

       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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Sweetheart Contract

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

This week I added a comment on a forum discussion, over on LinkedIn. The thread was essentially about how social housing organisations might compare IT suppliers. IE good, average or bad. It was very interesting and points revolved around the following familiar themes:

• Software suppliers are perceived as greedy and charge too much (some taking a view they will charge what things are worth to you, rather than cost to develop)
• Suppliers in the (social housing) sector lag behind ones outside in the 'real world'
• Lack of standards might be a problem, maybe someone should suggest/commission some (e.g. CORA, HACT - that's two standards )
• Package vs Bespoke, Package vs big ERP
• Observation that organisations often leave their supplier, not their solution, (rather than the other way around).
• Speculation on a mass rebellion by customers (try getting odds on that at Ladbrokes...)
• Variability of suppliers on taking user groups, help desks and taking real growth & development of solutions seriously

Do any of these sound familiar to you, if you are a supplier OR an end customer of these systems? They are to me, also more stunningly stark when I work with two or more suppliers delivering in a partnership. You know, a lead supplier, who is contracted to be the lead for a mixed delivery of solutions. This can be a popular option, to try to obtain the best mix of integrated solutions, without the traditional ping-pong across help-desks as the contract says everyone is working together.

I have experienced this when I was the other side of the fence 4 years ago as a supplier. I will be honest with you, some partners I worked with were pretty bad. Others I recognised as doing & managing things better than we did, and as in my nature, I was always keen to learn what made them tick, so I could reach the same heights. I never enjoyed being regarded as anything less than supplying a solution that was flexible, nor being thought of as inflexible.

Out there, its perfectly possible to get excellent suppliers for your project and not get the best from them. Great functional requirements are the cornerstone of a good project. Without those, a supplier cannot confirm what could be delivered. Since your contract is based then on those responses, they are the where the buck stops for delivery.

Always have your functional requirements tight before going to tender. I experienced one customer who went to tender way too soon and as a supplier I won the deal. During early implementation the customer wanted to totally change the requirements, adding new ones and substantially changing others. As a responsible supplier, I flagged up that we were delivering on the days and price tendered to the legal contract agreed. It didn't go down well, but quite clearly the contract was there to protect both parties.

IMHO, where many organisations go wrong is that they don't do detailed functional's, then don't include them in the contract, then don't refer and measure delivery against them. Don't get me wrong, but it's like a GRN (Goods received Note). Check your items delivered against the contract functional's and you have a means of confirming you have everything you thought you bought originally. While at it too, make sure your users understand what's to be delivered, as that will set their expectations too.

Systems are complex animals however and decisions made along the way, will expose you to risk, taking ownership or closing doors on some of that specified functionality, during the project. I have known of books / courses to obstruct buyers, customers implementing etc, particularly being used in local government software supply, going back to the 1980's.

Social housing sector IT on the whole, finds it hard to think in a commercial way and act socially. To get the systems everyone thought we bought, we need to be firm and fair, like a commercial organisation would. Being accepting and flexible, is unfortunately seen as a weakness by some suppliers. That is behaviour that comes with our sector.

Rather than checking out the grass over there, what are we doing to get ours like prime Wembley turf? It's your job to keep your suppliers in check, bring them to account at user groups while bringing your peers to support you. Recognise when your supplier is not giving you love like your sweetheart and put your foot down.

Please don't kid yourself that someone putting some standards together will change this landscape, because it clearly isn't. Nor will big ERP or anything sold as off the shelf Microsoft Dynamics CRM be the silver bullet that a groundswell of RSL's should, can, will, move to. Believe me I have looked at them, often with suppliers pitching them into our sector.

 A lot of the areas highlighted on that original forum, bullet pointed above, are in YOUR gift to manage, control and influence. As I have said before, your functional's and contract are your greatest friend. Do your bit, read it, understand it and bring your supplier and users nearer to it.

Related Post: Do you realise, when you choose the right solution, KPIs come right too

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You can link with me on LinkedIn here - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy It would be great to connect !

Magazine - Sweetheart Contract.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, or you could benefit from any of our services please get in touch and let me know!

You can access a quick list of blog posts here
Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems or issue.
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