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> You could serve 80% of the payroll burden with software that cost $10m. 90% coverage costs $100m. 98% costs $1,000m. And 100% costs $∞ I read something in a
by mseebach 9y ago
> You could serve 80% of the payroll burden with software that cost $10m. 90% coverage costs $100m. 98% costs $1,000m. And 100% costs $∞
I read something in a trade journal probably probably about 15 years ago, that really stuck with me: When businesses buy big software solutions (I think the article was about ERP systems), they should prepare to adjust and change their processes (within reason, of course) and not just insist that the software be modified endlessly to suit every little ossified process and preference. Not just because it's very expensive, but because the resulting system will be brittle and incompatible and taking advantage of further developments.
Too many buyers of software would benefit immensely from taking a good, hard look at those remaining 20% and making some hard decisions about what is actually important. Sure, for a government payroll system, there is limited room for movement, but I'd suspect that the majority of the long tail are people on weird, custom contracts and the correct solution is actually to hire a room full of clerks to handle these in Excel - and/or applying political pressure on the hiring parties to get their contracts adjusted to fit standard payroll schemes.
- 1024core 9y ago> Not just because it's very expensive, but because the resulting system will be brittle and incompatible and taking advantage of further developments. But that's where the lure of the IBMs of this world comes in: they claim no change will be required, it's all free. Of course, we know that eventually it'll be a big fuckup.
- greenshackle3 9y agoHaving worked on ERP software for medium businesses, that sounds spot-on to me; in my experience the biggest challenge was not so much technical as getting clients to change their processes so they can be systematized in a sane way. There is a lot of resistance from employees not willing to change the way they work. Even seemingly simple things like standardizing language / glossary between departments so we can have a single representation in the system can be an uphill battle.
- azernik 9y agoSame for me, working on MRP-ish software for small businesses.
- adrianratnapala 9y agoAs an employee of organisations I can tell you one reason for resistance: this sort of systematization ends up being endless meaningless churn.
- jamesmishra 9y agoMy favorite quote illustrating this is from former GE executive Craig Kipp, quoted in the book Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle[1]: “So Oracle has this great product that will do eighty percent of what you want just by throwing the right switches in the software—no special code or anything—and it all falls down because someone asks that innocent little question: ‘What else would you like it to do?’” (p. 231). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AK78QVI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AK78QVI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- cm2187 9y agoExcept that there are often legal reasons for things to be in a weird way. Or it would require a long negociation with trade unions and 3 strikes. I have some sympathy for the complexity large organisations (public or private) have to deal with (even if “keeping it simple” is still too underrated). I have way less sympathy for the ERP software than can only handle one use case and then it takes a bunch of non technical consultants months to hack a way around the ERP through configuration when really the problem is that the ERP has been designed in a too narrow minded way or that the consultants aren’t the right people for the job.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]