Erwin's StarOffice Tango

Favorite HBR of the Week: "How Do You Know When the Price Is Right?"
This is my favorite Harvard Business Review of the week. It made me think that one problem alternative office suites like StarOffice and OpenOffice.org have is that the end-users within the companies don't have to pay for the software themselves. Therefore, they don't care that the company might spend too much money on functionality that actually nobody uses. Why should they (the end-users) support a switch to a different software if there is no obvious benefit to them?

To give an extreme example, if end-users could (or had to) chose between layoffs or a reduction in software costs, I'm pretty sure they would choose the latter. Or to use a positive example, if every employee would get 50% of the savings, they most likely would be more open to a change.

I think there is a similar situation at many companies with respect to travel expenses. Why should I accept/book a much cheaper, but more inconvenient and less flexible flight (maybe including many stops), if I only have to take the risks (of missing and losing my flight) and don't benefit from the savings?

Fortunately my own travel record should show that I'm pretty cost sensitive! ;-)
( Mai 13 2005, 11:46:30 AM CEST ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

Kommentare:

Ideally, if the employees' goals are aligned with the company - perhaps because they are share holders - they will "do the right thing" for the company even where it involves some personal inconvenience. As Scott says, "spend the company's money like it was your money."

Gesendet von Zlatko am Mai 14, 2005 at 08:05 AM CEST #

« Dezember 2009

Heute