I was talking to a businessman
other day who was bemoaning fact that company for whom he works was being held to ransom by a single individual, a freelance contractor, who was only person capable of maintaining a vital software system for them. He could more or less charge them what he liked.How had this come about? How can you avoid this in your company?
In past, in order to speed up software development and prolong life of their older mainframe computer systems, this company had invested heavily in a particular proprietary “Rapid Application Development” (RAD) software system. This became an integral and essential part of many of their critical applications.
Unfortunately, this particular RAD system did not catch on in wider marketplace. It is not widely used, and is now also rather dated. Consequently it has become increasingly difficult to find people with necessary skills or wish to acquire them. Those few individuals with required skills can hold company to ransom.
Don’t let this happen to your company.
Here are a few simple guidelines on how to avoid finding yourself in same position.
1.Don’t be an “early adopter” of new software systems. Make sure a product has an established client base before climbing aboard bandwagon. 2.When you buy a software package, use it as close to standard as you possibly can. Don’t demand masses of special modifications. You will be building up huge maintenance problems (and costs) for future. 3.If you must have non-standard add-ons to standard packages, get knowledge transferred in house. Don’t put yourself in hock to your suppliers. 4.If replacing old systems, make sure you do it fully. Don’t let an old system be kept and used for just one small function. The eventual (increasing) maintenance will far exceed (reducing) usefulness. 5.Don’t loose sight of life cycle costs of a system (purchase, installation, maintenance, replacement). Don’t stop at just first two of these items.
