If there is one constant in these sour financial times, it’s that there’s no dearth of stories about corporate waste. And that’s good news for us, as our company makes a living boosting productivity.
Training and support transform smart phones from “fun toys” into powerful business tools.
The most recent is a witty report published by TechRepublic, titled “IT Budgets: How to waste money.” The nine-page report offers 10 tips on effective money-wasting, including doling out too much money on energy, unnecessarily purchasing new hardware, and spending too much on travel.
All of the tips are worth a look, but here are a few we’d like to amend/elaborate upon:
Spend too much on mobile technology. Yes, spending too much on mobile technology is a waste of money – when you don’t show your employees how to get the most out of it. Training and support transform smart phones from “fun toys” into powerful business tools. Write that down.
Hire full-time employees when contractors would be more cost-effective. We’re taking liberty and renaming this suggestion: It should read “Hire full-time employees when outsourcing would be more effective.” We know outsourcing is a sore spot for many workers, but consider the following scenario: Your company is migrating to Office 2007, and you are expecting a deluge of calls to the help desk, thanks to the radically changed interface of the new version. Do you hire new IT staffers and train them on Office 2007 or do you find an outsourcer/migration partner to do it?
First, consider the cost of hiring new employees, plus benefits, training and overtime. Secondly, can you afford to hire enough Office 2007 experts to cover a company-wide migration? And what will you do once the migration is complete and call volume diminishes? Fire them? A migration partner has trained experts, who are there when you need them, even after-hours. Best of all, you won’t have to do any icky firing.
Make unnecessary upgrades. The upgrade itself isn’t the problem; it’s what your company does or doesn’t do with it that can create waste. If you simply upgrade without offering complementary training, then, yes, it’s waste. If you show your employees how to harness the new software’s power with training and support, well that’s just plain smart. (Jen Darr)
MORE INFO IN: Productivity Loss Index (PDF) | Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining |Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps
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