Honey, let’s go to IKEA!
You might be wondering what on earth such title for a software company blog, in fact there are many similarities when you compare family trip to IKEA and delivering IT project for an organisation.
I begin with a little story that the state of my kitchen is dreadful, the look is so dated and it needs total refurbishment and I’ve been promising my wife a trip to IKEA so we can have one of those shinny looking kitchen just like the one in the brochure.
So we take a look on the brochure and we really like this one. At £860 It’s a bargain! So let’s go and get it!
Then the reality starts to emerge you don’t came out the store with that kitchen; in fact you ended up with these.
All the good things isn’t included, definitely not the coffee and the laptop, but fittings and lighting, all the things that make it looks good.
If you think about isn’t it an elaborate con? They are selling you the picture with the price tag but you ended up with pile of flat pack?
Have we actually factor-in the cost and time required for transport, unpack, build, other fittings, disposal of the old kitchen units, daily disruption, and possible error?
Of course not we are so blinded with the image in the brochure and the low price!
It makes me wonder how many of the proud purchaser that successfully ended up with the picture just like in the brochure. Perhaps the percentage is not dissimilar to the percentage of successful IT projects.
Now back on the software business. I am seeing the similar attitude of “Honey let’s go to IKEA’ to sort out problem within an organisation. Many of us still believe that to sort out internal communication problem is to go out just buy the software.
How about that “intranet” Dear? It looks sexy and cheap? Surely it’s within our budget.
How about other things, which we need to factor-in? Such as Planning, resources, preparation Check out 10 steps planning your intranet project.
At Claromentis our attitude is always to go for extra miles, we believe unique solution is required for unique problem, the value it’s not in the product but in the complete solution based on our experience that we’ve learnt deploying more than 100 intranets and bespoke web-based software across the world.
The reality is we are only one side of the coin; the other side is you Mr Customer. We can’t solve your problem if you don’t want it to be solved.
No offense to Mr IKEA, I still think your business model is brilliant, and this post is based on my personal view.