I wanted to share a Saturday Night Live sketch about business. Take a look and see if you have not been in this meeting (at least until the last 5 seconds…) at some point in your life. I know I have – on more than one occasion.
One of the more memorable ones was a meeting I attended with a client last November. They are a small (<300 employee) custom automotive parts manufacture that had suffered an exceptionally bad year. The CEO convened the meeting at 3pm and let all of us know that he had ordered dinner to be catered (and it was *not* pizza or sandwiches) so none of us were going anywhere until the problem had been addressed and a workable plan agreed upon.
My relationship to the company was one of consulting on Information Technology, specifically on aligning technology initiatives with the business goals. I was actually surprised to be included, as the last three projects I had been engaged to consult on I had recommended against, as they would not generate a positive return. This included the CEO's desired project to create a highly interactive web site (at a high cost) for a customer base that relied on sales engineers visiting their racing shops to design and/or recommend parts. All three projects had proceeded, with a collective cost that was a sizeable portion of the company's sales.
Now the company was looking at going on a crash diet as there were insufficient funds. Numerous suggestions were made, but by 1am it had become obvious that a large portion of the workforce would need to be let go within the week.
After the meeting, the CEO pulled me aside and asked if I would have additional bandwidth to take over managing their IT projects and could I bring on resources to aid in day to day operations as they were letting their whole IT department (5 people, including the manager) go.
I hired four of the five for a small decrease in wages, and then billed at my normal hourly rate. It is now 5 months later and the company is currently undergoing a reorganizational bankruptcy. At least from the IT perspective, the costs are close to doubled over what they were. On a positive note, I was able to defer or cancel the contracts for the three projects...
Oh, and I felt very much like Water Guy...
My relationship to the company was one of consulting on Information Technology, specifically on aligning technology initiatives with the business goals. I was actually surprised to be included, as the last three projects I had been engaged to consult on I had recommended against, as they would not generate a positive return. This included the CEO's desired project to create a highly interactive web site (at a high cost) for a customer base that relied on sales engineers visiting their racing shops to design and/or recommend parts. All three projects had proceeded, with a collective cost that was a sizeable portion of the company's sales.
Now the company was looking at going on a crash diet as there were insufficient funds. Numerous suggestions were made, but by 1am it had become obvious that a large portion of the workforce would need to be let go within the week.
After the meeting, the CEO pulled me aside and asked if I would have additional bandwidth to take over managing their IT projects and could I bring on resources to aid in day to day operations as they were letting their whole IT department (5 people, including the manager) go.
I hired four of the five for a small decrease in wages, and then billed at my normal hourly rate. It is now 5 months later and the company is currently undergoing a reorganizational bankruptcy. At least from the IT perspective, the costs are close to doubled over what they were. On a positive note, I was able to defer or cancel the contracts for the three projects...
Oh, and I felt very much like Water Guy...
