A Mandate to Be Cheap
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@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@scottalanmiller said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
I know my boss "wants the cheapest option" but I also know that she wants what I believe to be a viable good, even if not best, solution. I think most SMB probably uses the term cheap incorrectly. They, like many of us, just don't communicate well.
Everyone wants cheap.... when it is also what is best. But what is best is what is important. In the OP's case... he feels that they want cheap instead of what is best. Sure they might overlap from time to time, or even often, but the decision criteria is that what is best is not the driving factor.
Whether an SMB uses cheap correctly or incorrectly isn't the problem, the issue is that there is an inherent mandate to do what is best that we all are supposed to follow (that's the job of IT) until politics of the organization mandate that we do something else.
In the OP's case, they've made him feel that his goals are not to do what is best for the company.
So there's a few things there - Why does the OP feel that way? It is because it's true? i.e. he proposes X and they always hack it down to Y which doesn't really meet the goals of the purchase, but it works, and they've been doing that so long that they think they will forever continue to be lucky (but really they just always think the IT person is shooting for the moon, so they assume they can always just hack and slash the IT suggestion since they've never been bit before)?
I asked about the "is it true" part. He only said that he felt it, not that it was stated. So that's certainly an issue. He needs to find out if doing things not in the interest of the business' bottom line is really what he is supposed to do.
Understanding that prioritizing cheap means deprioritizing the overall value to the business is the first step. Then you are ready for a conversation: "Do you REALLY mean to imply that I should sacrifice business success in exchange for this different priority? Or did I get that wrong?"
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@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
And I know of very few businesses that would say it must be Free
Free is just dangerous, as it's all on "you" to maintain. Sure you save 100% of the cost.
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
But if it doesn't solve the problem you're trying to solve, then what difference does the cost make? So to use your example, if you buy the 'cheaper' NTG option, yet they can't fix your problems, did you really get the cheaper option? I'd say no, instead you just wasted money.
The goal of most businesses is to support the infrastructure, not troubleshoot the source code.
So 99.999999% of the time the solution works perfectly.
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@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
And I know of very few businesses that would say it must be Free
Really no different than prioritizing cheap. Once cheap is the priority, essentially everything in IT can be free. So that's the obvious result of that priority.
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@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
A better example than support would be say Access Points (APs).
The solution calls for 10 APs, but management wants to be cheep, so they only install 5. A year goes by and 99% of the time WiFi works just fine (and from a management perspective it's 100% because they personally haven't been affected) so now management looks at IT and says why did you want 10, clearly 5 have done the job. Now management doesn't trust that IT is doing their job as efficiently as they could have, and questions everything going forward.
This is a good example, and it could be proven that "well do you need 10 AP's here is the documentation to prove it"
Which you could run a heat map, and check the coverage of the AP's and performance monitoring etc.
we're talking about management here, documentation, smockumentation - they don't need no documentation.. they look around and say.. see, we've been running for 1 year - I know of no problems.. you're just an over spender. It's the difference between being a business person and being and 'owner'.
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@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
A better example than support would be say Access Points (APs).
The solution calls for 10 APs, but management wants to be cheep, so they only install 5. A year goes by and 99% of the time WiFi works just fine (and from a management perspective it's 100% because they personally haven't been affected) so now management looks at IT and says why did you want 10, clearly 5 have done the job. Now management doesn't trust that IT is doing their job as efficiently as they could have, and questions everything going forward.
This is a good example, and it could be proven that "well do you need 10 AP's here is the documentation to prove it"
Which you could run a heat map, and check the coverage of the AP's and performance monitoring etc.
we're talking about management here, documentation, smockumentation - they don't need no documentation.. they look around and say.. see, we've been running for 1 year - I know of no problems.. you're just an over spender. It's the difference between being a business person and being and 'owner'.
A business owner should understand the value of the people they have employed. Without understanding that, the owner would look around and immediately think everyone employed by them is there to rob from them.
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@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
That's an undefinable definition. Cheap but not the cheapest, good but not the best for us. So not the best option for the business, but not recklessly cheap. How do you make decisions around that? How do you decide what is "cheap enough" while being "not so bad" but not just choosing "what is best for the financial interest of the business?"
I'm seriously, without a clear definition but also without the goal of doing what is right for the business... what's the motivator for this? What makes something the lesser choice, but good enough?
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@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
A business owner should understand the value of the people they have employed. Without understanding that, the owner would look around and immediately think everyone employed by them is there to rob from them.
Of course they should but you can read countless encounters where they don't. Hell, I think you've given some of those points from time to time.... i.e. you're dealing with learning XO instead of just purchasing a know good working backup product. Of the fact that your company won't shell out the $900/yr for XOA which would keep you from having to jump through hoops to keep XO updated manually, etc.
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@dafyre said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
Cheap is one of those subjective words as well... What @DustinB3403 thinks is cheap, what I think is cheap, and what @scottalanmiller thinks is cheap can all be different things.
Not really. Cheap means "cost less to acquire". Or "you spend less". Cheaper means that one is less than another. Cheapest is free or as close to free as possible. Saying something "is cheap" is subjective, but that's not involved here. Prioritizing cheap means that "spending less up front" is more important than everything else, like "value to the business".
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@scottalanmiller said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
That's an undefinable definition. Cheap but not the cheapest, good but not the best for us. So not the best option for the business, but not recklessly cheap. How do you make decisions around that? How do you decide what is "cheap enough" while being "not so bad" but not just choosing "what is best for the financial interest of the business?"
I'm seriously, without a clear definition but also without the goal of doing what is right for the business... what's the motivator for this? What makes something the lesser choice, but good enough?
Isn't part of being the best solution also having the lowest cost while still getting all of the needed items from that solution?
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@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
And I know of very few businesses that would say it must be Free
Free is just dangerous, as it's all on "you" to maintain. Sure you save 100% of the cost.
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
But if it doesn't solve the problem you're trying to solve, then what difference does the cost make? So to use your example, if you buy the 'cheaper' NTG option, yet they can't fix your problems, did you really get the cheaper option? I'd say no, instead you just wasted money.
We assume that it solves the problem, or isn't in the decision matrix. If "solving the problem" wasn't a goal, you'd literally do nothing at all - not even drive into work any more. Solving the problem is obviously implied or this discussion would not even arise.
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@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@scottalanmiller said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
That's an undefinable definition. Cheap but not the cheapest, good but not the best for us. So not the best option for the business, but not recklessly cheap. How do you make decisions around that? How do you decide what is "cheap enough" while being "not so bad" but not just choosing "what is best for the financial interest of the business?"
I'm seriously, without a clear definition but also without the goal of doing what is right for the business... what's the motivator for this? What makes something the lesser choice, but good enough?
Isn't part of being the best solution also having the lowest cost while still getting all of the needed items from that solution?
Right, but cheap denotes that you are making sacrifices that would stop you from getting the best solution for you business. At least to me it does.
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@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
A business owner should understand the value of the people they have employed. Without understanding that, the owner would look around and immediately think everyone employed by them is there to rob from them.
Of course they should but you can read countless encounters where they don't. Hell, I think you've given some of those points from time to time.... i.e. you're dealing with learning XO instead of just purchasing a know good working backup product. Of the fact that your company won't shell out the $900/yr for XOA which would keep you from having to jump through hoops to keep XO updated manually, etc.
Oh I totally agree, and the best approach for this business (other business issues included) requires that at ever point, if it's reasonably easy to do and free do it, that that is the given choice.
I've actually had this conversation time and again.
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@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
And I know of very few businesses that would say it must be Free
Free is just dangerous, as it's all on "you" to maintain. Sure you save 100% of the cost.
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
But if it doesn't solve the problem you're trying to solve, then what difference does the cost make? So to use your example, if you buy the 'cheaper' NTG option, yet they can't fix your problems, did you really get the cheaper option? I'd say no, instead you just wasted money.
The goal of most businesses is to support the infrastructure, not troubleshoot the source code.
So 99.999999% of the time the solution works perfectly.
No, the goal of most businesses is to make money. Period.
But some, we find, is to be cheap while making less money. But that's an emotional driver in politics, not a logical one of business.
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@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
A better example than support would be say Access Points (APs).
The solution calls for 10 APs, but management wants to be cheep, so they only install 5. A year goes by and 99% of the time WiFi works just fine (and from a management perspective it's 100% because they personally haven't been affected) so now management looks at IT and says why did you want 10, clearly 5 have done the job. Now management doesn't trust that IT is doing their job as efficiently as they could have, and questions everything going forward.
This is a good example, and it could be proven that "well do you need 10 AP's here is the documentation to prove it"
Which you could run a heat map, and check the coverage of the AP's and performance monitoring etc.
we're talking about management here, documentation, smockumentation - they don't need no documentation.. they look around and say.. see, we've been running for 1 year - I know of no problems.. you're just an over spender. It's the difference between being a business person and being and 'owner'.
A business owner should understand the value of the people they have employed. Without understanding that, the owner would look around and immediately think everyone employed by them is there to rob from them.
I've literally seen owners thing that. Even to the point of refusing to give staff the tools necessary to do their work because they assumed that staff won't work regardless and are just there to collect the paycheck.
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@scottalanmiller said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
And I know of very few businesses that would say it must be Free
Free is just dangerous, as it's all on "you" to maintain. Sure you save 100% of the cost.
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
But if it doesn't solve the problem you're trying to solve, then what difference does the cost make? So to use your example, if you buy the 'cheaper' NTG option, yet they can't fix your problems, did you really get the cheaper option? I'd say no, instead you just wasted money.
We assume that it solves the problem, or isn't in the decision matrix. If "solving the problem" wasn't a goal, you'd literally do nothing at all - not even drive into work any more. Solving the problem is obviously implied or this discussion would not even arise.
Well then, considering my 1 min ago question - Best means option that solves problem while being lowest cost... then NTG would be the BEST solution.. it also happens to be the cheaper but really, less expensive option.
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Cheap has, to me, always been related to quality. Something that is cheap is inferior to other products. Inexpensive is different, again to me, then cheap. Inexpensive on the other hand meets your needs without sacrificing quality. Cheap =/= Inexpensive in my mind.
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@coliver said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@scottalanmiller said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
That's an undefinable definition. Cheap but not the cheapest, good but not the best for us. So not the best option for the business, but not recklessly cheap. How do you make decisions around that? How do you decide what is "cheap enough" while being "not so bad" but not just choosing "what is best for the financial interest of the business?"
I'm seriously, without a clear definition but also without the goal of doing what is right for the business... what's the motivator for this? What makes something the lesser choice, but good enough?
Isn't part of being the best solution also having the lowest cost while still getting all of the needed items from that solution?
Right, but cheap denotes that you are making sacrifices that would stop you from getting the best solution for you business. At least to me it does.
So can it be cheaper and still solve the problem and not be the best?
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@coliver said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@scottalanmiller said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
The term cheap to me (and I think others) means it needs to perform to the level that we can still run production (or whatever the use case is) and save more money than what we may have been proposed before.
That's an undefinable definition. Cheap but not the cheapest, good but not the best for us. So not the best option for the business, but not recklessly cheap. How do you make decisions around that? How do you decide what is "cheap enough" while being "not so bad" but not just choosing "what is best for the financial interest of the business?"
I'm seriously, without a clear definition but also without the goal of doing what is right for the business... what's the motivator for this? What makes something the lesser choice, but good enough?
Isn't part of being the best solution also having the lowest cost while still getting all of the needed items from that solution?
Right, but cheap denotes that you are making sacrifices that would stop you from getting the best solution for you business. At least to me it does.
But in this case, the "best solution" just happens to have all the features they want and need at the lowest price point.
The cheapest solution isn't always going to be the best solution for a business... but sometimes it is.
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@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@DustinB3403 said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
@Dashrender said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
A better example than support would be say Access Points (APs).
The solution calls for 10 APs, but management wants to be cheep, so they only install 5. A year goes by and 99% of the time WiFi works just fine (and from a management perspective it's 100% because they personally haven't been affected) so now management looks at IT and says why did you want 10, clearly 5 have done the job. Now management doesn't trust that IT is doing their job as efficiently as they could have, and questions everything going forward.
This is a good example, and it could be proven that "well do you need 10 AP's here is the documentation to prove it"
Which you could run a heat map, and check the coverage of the AP's and performance monitoring etc.
we're talking about management here, documentation, smockumentation - they don't need no documentation.. they look around and say.. see, we've been running for 1 year - I know of no problems.. you're just an over spender. It's the difference between being a business person and being and 'owner'.
Not good managers, just those trying to get paid and maybe take advantage of the company, or those that really don't know what they are doing.
A good manager is interested in the business. Owners are just investors.
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@coliver said in A Mandate to Be Cheap:
Cheap has, to me, always been related to quality. Something that is cheap is inferior to other products. Inexpensive is different, again to me, then cheap. Inexpensive on the other hand meets your needs without sacrificing quality. Cheap = / = Inexpensive in my mind.
This is a good way to look at it.
