My Own Worst Enemy...
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@NetworkNerd said:
I was told the monthly cost was the same, toner was covered, and so was maintenance. I did mention the fact that they were allotted only 300 black and white impressions before having to pay a per-impression overage fee (not cool).
Technically they failed on a business level here, not a technical one. That they made a bad business decision and need IT, not management or finance, to point that out is really a business failing, not a failing on the part of IT. Sure, IT could step up and do other departments' jobs for them, but they shouldn't have to. Why are managers and financial people paid to be in those roles if they need to rely on IT people to do the financial assessments?
It's great to get more eyes on a problem, but IT shouldn't feel that it has failed when they don't cover every base for every department. If they did that, they should become the CEOs and fire everyone else and keep all the profits for themselves.
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Here's an added twist. They sent the leasing agreement to our CFO who then responded with...did you run this by IT first? They then responded that they had spoken with me via phone and thought I was good with everything.
I think it's time we set the record straight.
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@scottalanmiller said:
If they did that, they should become the CEOs and fire everyone else and keep all the profits for themselves.
I often think that would be a great plan.
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@NetworkNerd said:
Here's an added twist. They sent the leasing agreement to our CFO who then responded with...did you run this by IT first? They then responded that they had spoken with me via phone and thought I was good with everything.
Your CFO made a classic mistake then. He should never have trusted their answer and should always ask you directly. It sounds like you're beating yourself up because those above you have failed to implement the right procedures.
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@NetworkNerd said:
Here's an added twist. They sent the leasing agreement to our CFO who then responded with...did you run this by IT first? They then responded that they had spoken with me via phone and thought I was good with everything.
I think it's time we set the record straight.
I think you have a few organizational issues here. You've had issues in the past where the CFO passed financial decision making over to you which you can do but he's explicitly qualified for and you are simply a well informed, smart party.
- Did the CFO ask it to pass to you for technical approval or for financial approval?
- Did the CFO approve from a financial sense before passing to you or avoid approving altogether?
- Did the signing party accept your technical acceptance as financial advice?
- Who is overseeing these communications and processes to know which teams are doing which jobs?
- I think that you need a clear cut role with the CFO, if you are playing the CFO, you should be the CFO.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
If they did that, they should become the CEOs and fire everyone else and keep all the profits for themselves.
I often think that would be a great plan.
It always sounds that way, what I have found, though, is that IT people are notoriously bad at a lot of things (management, forecasting, sales, marketing, etc.) and it all falls apart if they try to do all of those roles. But the degree to which businesses rely on IT because someone who is generally "bright" with no experience or training turns out to be way more useful than getting advice from people who have a lifetime dedicated to the field but are not all that bright.
This supports Scott Adams' claims that the vast majority of the workforce are "in the way" and actually taking value away from the businesses that employ them and the economy in general.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Your CFO made a classic mistake then. He should never have trusted their answer and should always ask you directly. It sounds like you're beating yourself up because those above you have failed to implement the right procedures.
He probably should have communicated directly. But it sounds like the issue was more that people were not in sync. Did he ask for the wrong approval from the wrong person? Did the third party use common sense to say that that didn't make sense and try to do something really sensible given that the CFO asking IT to approve the financial portion made no sense.
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To answer your question, he basically asked them if they talked to me about whether the decision made financial sense from a leasing contract perspective. We've decided to go without maintenance contracts in the past to save money. He mentioned that and how this can be a cheaper route. But once the other party spoke for me saying I was fine with it he was fine with it.
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@NetworkNerd said:
To answer your question, he basically asked them if they talked to me about whether the decision made financial sense from a leasing contract perspective. We've decided to go without maintenance contracts in the past to save money. He mentioned that and how this can be a cheaper route. But once the other party spoke for me saying I was fine with it he was fine with it.
Yeah, that's the big problem. Why would the financial head get financial advice from IT? Something is very wrong. You are functioning as a senior financial person to the head of finance!!
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, that's the big problem. Why would the financial head get financial advice from IT? Something is very wrong. You are functioning as a senior financial person to the head of finance!!
This is a point I have disagreed with you on before. He is not getting financial advice. He is getting technical advice. The CFO should not be expected to deal with the details of the hardware and determining all the IT costs involved in choosing a lease with maintenance over something without. Only a person with IT skills can know how much IT time will be spent for comparison purposes.
That is IT's role in decisions like this. Once these facts are known, they are presented to the CFO to make the business decision.
You always mix too much big business/enterprise concepts into the SMB space. No matter how "things should be," things are much different between the two.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, that's the big problem. Why would the financial head get financial advice from IT? Something is very wrong. You are functioning as a senior financial person to the head of finance!!
This is a point I have disagreed with you on before. He is not getting financial advice. He is getting technical advice. The CFO should not be expected to deal with the details of the hardware and determining all the IT costs involved in choosing a lease with maintenance over something without. Only a person with IT skills can know how much IT time will be spent for comparison purposes.
That is IT's role in decisions like this. Once these facts are known, they are presented to the CFO to make the business decision.
You always mix too much big business/enterprise concepts into the SMB space. No matter how "things should be," things are much different between the two.
And we (IT) are asked to approve the bills for IT services, which would include said lease agreement. I can see why the CFO would want my input in this case.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, that's the big problem. Why would the financial head get financial advice from IT? Something is very wrong. You are functioning as a senior financial person to the head of finance!!
This is a point I have disagreed with you on before. He is not getting financial advice. He is getting technical advice. The CFO should not be expected to deal with the details of the hardware and determining all the IT costs involved in choosing a lease with maintenance over something without. Only a person with IT skills can know how much IT time will be spent for comparison purposes.
That is IT's role in decisions like this. Once these facts are known, they are presented to the CFO to make the business decision.
You always mix too much big business/enterprise concepts into the SMB space. No matter how "things should be," things are much different between the two.
If he is asking about if leasing makes financial sense, that's not technical. That's purely understanding opex, capex, ROI, TCO, etc. No technical there at all.
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@NetworkNerd said:
@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, that's the big problem. Why would the financial head get financial advice from IT? Something is very wrong. You are functioning as a senior financial person to the head of finance!!
This is a point I have disagreed with you on before. He is not getting financial advice. He is getting technical advice. The CFO should not be expected to deal with the details of the hardware and determining all the IT costs involved in choosing a lease with maintenance over something without. Only a person with IT skills can know how much IT time will be spent for comparison purposes.
That is IT's role in decisions like this. Once these facts are known, they are presented to the CFO to make the business decision.
You always mix too much big business/enterprise concepts into the SMB space. No matter how "things should be," things are much different between the two.
And we (IT) are asked to approve the bills for IT services, which would include said lease agreement. I can see why the CFO would want my input in this case.
Input, sure. IT has good reason to put eyes on the subject. But who did the CFO want to run the numbers and determine if it made financial sense?
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@scottalanmiller said:
If he is asking about if leasing makes financial sense, that's not technical. That's purely understanding opex, capex, ROI, TCO, etc. No technical there at all.
And how do you get ROI, TCO, etc. without having IT participate? You do not.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
If he is asking about if leasing makes financial sense, that's not technical. That's purely understanding opex, capex, ROI, TCO, etc. No technical there at all.
And how do you get ROI, TCO, etc. without having IT participate? You do not.
For a printer, you probably get no financial input from IT. But you certainly can never get that solely from IT. That's a financial decision that might value some amount of IT input. It is never an IT decision alone. It can be financial alone or financial and IT together.
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If you were left out of the loop, it isn't your fault. Could you have prevented some higher costs from being an issue? Yes, but ONLY if you knew. If you didn't know, it's nothing you should blame yourself for
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I really think you need to move on to CYOA on this one, now that the CFO has the impression that you approved everything, your ass very well could be on the line, even though it had nothing to do with you. If I were you, I'd set the record straight ASAP.
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@Dominica said:
I really think you need to move on to CYOA on this one, now that the CFO has the impression that you approved everything, your ass very well could be on the line, even though it had nothing to do with you. If I were you, I'd set the record straight ASAP.
Definitely do this.
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@Dominica said:
I really think you need to move on to CYOA on this one, now that the CFO has the impression that you approved everything, your ass very well could be on the line, even though it had nothing to do with you. If I were you, I'd set the record straight ASAP.
Ok, I just did that. I just let the CFO know the conversation happened after the lease was signed and really all I could do was verify the machine would seemingly do the job from a technical standpoint since IT had previously been left out of the process.
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@NetworkNerd said:
@Dominica said:
I really think you need to move on to CYOA on this one, now that the CFO has the impression that you approved everything, your ass very well could be on the line, even though it had nothing to do with you. If I were you, I'd set the record straight ASAP.
Ok, I just did that. I just let the CFO know the conversation happened after the lease was signed and really all I could do was verify the machine would seemingly do the job from a technical standpoint since IT had previously been left out of the process.
As long as you're covered there, you're fine.
