Look after the important things first

If you’re a leader then your first priority is your environment.  Ensure your people have an effective environment and they’ll bring you the work.  Here is the order of things in priority that we look after first:

1. Administration – Usually the first to go but administration is there for a reason.  Working on this as soon as you can means you will never get behind and it is usually more important when busy.  Such as time sheets, you need to know how much to charge!
2. Your people – Your people will work more efficiently when happy.  Treat people as a flower, they grow themselves but you only need to guide them occasionally.
3. Earning money – You can reduce your costs all you like, if you are not making money your revenue is still 0.
4. Cost reduction – Cost reduction tasks such as business process improvement should still be considered to maximise your returns
5. The rest

Priortise on time AND importance

The chart to the right shows how we priortise our tasks.  0 needs to be done yesterday and 7 or above most likely will never happen.  Why do we do it this way?  Return on investment (ROI) is not just about the final earnings over costs, it includes time to market as well.  To prove our point if we gave you the option to take the $50,000 now or later then what would you pick?

Set up a strategic committee

If you are like us and have a lot of items to priortise then you need a tool to help break down all of the work.  This can be done by setting up a strategic committee.  For each item in the list:

1. Get each person in the comittee to rank 0 to 5 (5 highest.)
2. Multiply each of the ranks together
3. Size each item
4. Of the highest scoring projects pick the items to put on top based on the size

Note:  This is simplified, we actually have a complicated formula that includes size as well to avoid step 4.  If you’re interested in this technique have a look here to see about how we can build spreadsheets to help.

www.nzdirectory.co.nz – Large listing of New Zealand sites and a page rank of 10

http://www.gonzoz.com - Minor directory site and a page rank of 4

Your role is simply to network, market and sell Software Contracts services.  More importantly it is to listen to business problems and find the correct service to sell.  There are also some third party products or services available to take a commission on.  Building a referral network and regular business network meetings will be essential.  Please view the rest of the site for the services and business problems.  You will take in a 20% commission from regional profits and take a share of the company profits at the end of the financial year.  As it stands the position can be done on a part time/casual basis.

You will need to be passionate about solving business problems and have experience in sales or marketing.  A fully marketable rapport is essential and will need be demonstrated.  This role is ideally suited to someone wanting to expand their career and income opportunities.

This role can be customised to take on other responsibilities and therefore an hourly rate charge to the customer.  The hourly rate is a maximum of $80 per hour depending on your skills and experience.

If you are interested then please send a cover letter to vacancies@softwarecontracts.co.nz.  Applications without a CV or a cover letter may be automatically deleted to prioritise.

Web Based Software

The trend these days is that web based software is just chosen as the preferred avenue.  Although we do sometimes suggest this we are a little worried that as this is the normal that you are not considering the impacts.  However in most cases we think web based software is now the way forwards.

Web Based is important if you want:

1. work on the go
2. you are not sure what operating systems or phones you will use in the future
3. you want 24×7 access to your software
4. to allow customers to use your software
5. data and backup to data is usually kept on the software company servers

The disadvantages are escalated by the advantages:

1. it usually costs about the same that it does to have server based software on the computer
2. security, even with the highest security that anyone can provide the entire world can see your product and may somehow find a way in

Phone Software

To be frank, for a business you want to be sure that the infrastructure will be around in the next few years.  Although we are happy to build phone apps for you, we discourage this because when you change to an android, iphone, windows phone, and the next generation of phones you need to have your software changed.

The only advantage here is convenience, a phone application is more powerful than web based software.  As you still need to have internet servers to access information the price is about the same as server based software.

Computer Based Software

Computer based software is on its way out for most business applications.  There are two advantages to computer based software these days:

1. You need exceptional security – if people cannot find you then there is no way you can get hacked
2. You need exceptional performance - Such as a bank that needs to process thousands of transactions every second

Conclusion

As a consumer the phone option would be the most common avenue as its fun, its cool and it is convenient.  As a business I would mostly suggest going web based to avoid rewriting it all again in the future.  Have a look more about of software services here.

The new Software Contracts is organised only to help your business out.  The newly formed business managers job will be to work with you to find the best solutions for your business problems.  We want to work with all businesses around the country to make sure you get the best range of solutions for the business problem.

So if you are a business with any problems then please browse our site to see how we can help you.  If you are a b2b business then please contact James Burnby or one of the business managers in your region to add your services to our company.

Contact your closest business manager and ask how Software Contracts can help you.

Well unfortunately the reality is that your job and your computer is going to end up slower over time with a messy inbox.

Here are some tips to keep your inbox tidy while still having time for your busy workload:

1. Turn off the option to automatically mark an item as read when you read it.  This option usually causes that problem “I never got your email” when you did.
2. Create email folders including: Important, Park, Archive, Customers – then one for each customer and others that you think that will help
3. Dump all very old emails in to Archive.  For example six months or older.
4. Rather than reading every email as soon as they pop in - when you feel you need a mental distraction check emails:
5. Skim read the subject line and whom they are from – read only the most important ones – mark as read when finished
6. Once completed move it straight in to the designated folder or delete it straight away.  No need to keep emails when you will never look at again.
7. When you have a bit of time check the lower priority emails and delete any old emails that no longer apply.
8. When you get a response to an email delete the older version as your original email content is in the new email.

If you find your email system very slow doing all of this then another trick is to get your IT administrator to create another email account for you.  Move all of your old emails in to this account every six months.  Only check emails in this account when you desperately need an old email.

The trades person job usually lasts up until a week.  They know the entire picture and can accurately give you the answer.  Sometimes you will have to pay for them to look in to it more, but that will be about a day.

Software and building projects will take a very long time to know all of the details.  A lot of guess work needs to be done to avoid spending months on the details.  As a project size increases it is more than likely to find issues, remember guess work is required.  While a project is being built it is just a reality that we have better ideas over time and want changes.

More experienced project based companies add in risk factors based on the complexity of the project.  This is why you see their prices typically higher than the more novice companies.  The more novice company will most likely undercut the experienced companies simply because they are not aware of those risks.  The problem for you as a customer is when they get to that stage they will take many shortcuts to avoid the project costing them too much.

If you are after software pick a company you trust not based on the quoted or estimated amounts.  Such as ourselves, read more here.  As the reality is you will pay more with a quote we suggest:

1. Getting an estimate and multiply it by three for budgetting purposes
2. Set milestones with the software company to monitor the costs versus the return
3. Pay on a frequency but ask to get updated on that same frequency
4. Set a cap to spend each week – the amount can vary from $1,000 to unlimited in a week

The important thing is not to think too much about the cost but the benefits.  Have a look here to see a case study we did, big costs but the savings are gigantic!

2012 was all about raising the quality image of the company.  A new General Manager was brought in to look after projects and marketing.  This worked well.  Again I was involved a lot in the operational side of the company.  My dream is not to write software it is to have a company help solve business problems.

In 2013 I will still own and run Software Contracts but I am now taking a back step from the operational day-to-day running of the business.  2013 is all about growth across New Zealand.  My new role will be to support staff and manage the company while everyone else works on running the day-to-day operations of the company.

We will be broadening our services in 2013 to help solve more business problems.  A few of these services are being worked out with key players so we are unable yet to announce what these are.

Our first goal of the year is to have a business manager in each province of New Zealand to help business growth in each province independently.  Please keep an eye on the Job Vacancies page or if you think you can help then show how proactive you are and send an email to vacancies@softwarecontracts.co.nz.

Please do keep posted on the company by joining us on the social media sites.  The icons are the top right of this page, do not forget to like us.  It is going to be a quick year!

James Burnby – Technical Director

Auckland and Canterbury positions have been filled.

In 2013 Software Contracts is expanding, not just its services but our customer reach. The core focus of Software Contracts is to help businesses. Your role is to help decipher the best business solutions (services) for the business problem. We will be releasing a new website and many more services to help cure more business pains.

Your job will be to virtually run the business for your province. You will be responsible for networking, marketing using Software Contracts resources, business process improvement and project management. We will provide you with the rest, including resources to work on your projects.

This is a one year trial and a provincial role. During the trial you will be paid:

1. You will get paid $80 per hour from the customer, for customer chargable work
2. Being paid additionally at the end of the financial year using a profit share scheme
3. Taking a 20% commission from all of your provincial profits

The unit prices range from $100 all the way up to $300,000 so provided you are driven work should come easily after some core networking work. Until you get our business established in your province you will need financial support. This period is usually one to three months depending on your approach.

Additional Information

Type:

Contract

Experience:

Mid-Senior level

Functions:

Project Management, Sales, Consulting

Industries:

Computer Software

Compensation:

Contract Rate, Commission & Profit Share

Interested in the role? Tell us where you want to work and send a cover letter with CV to vacancies@softwarecontracts.co.nz.

Once we investigated to do these but found it went against our key values when delivering a high quality product.

The Novopay debacle in New Zealand highlighted more why we did not want to risk this.

Who’s fault is it?

Honestly the fault can be shared.  It is not really the fault of the people involved but the fault of the techniques used.  If it was to be anyones fault it would be the people who decided to use RFPs.  The reality is it will continue on.

Work collaboratively and progressively

The issue with this technique is someone decides all the work to be done upfront and then it is just built.  In my 14 years of commercial software I have never seen this technique work exceptionally.  Software companies should be working with the people as it is built.  The only up front plan should be what they want to achieve at a high level then work on it progressively.  We even go a step further and collaboratively streamline business processes before we worry about the solution.

The problem is for a three year project you cannot anticipate everything at the start.

Have you ever brought a car by telling the sales person what parts to use and where?   Have you ever given the specifications of your building to a builder down to the exact nails and glue to use?

Only a few companies do RFPs

Remember our comment we investigated and said it was against our key values?  Well it is more than that.  You can spend months reading and building specifications then send it on.  You have a high chance of not winning the contract.  Most of the smaller to medium sized software companies cannot even afford to take this risk.  This means you typically get companies outside of your country responding to RFPs.

So what we have here is most government departments investing in overseas companies.  Despite being told we have so much skill in our own country by the same people?

Quotes and estimates will never be accurate

The quote or estimate is based on what people know.  But you do not know what you want in three years, and that is the problem.  All software companies that have been around for a while have a clause to up the quote if requirements change.  This is just the reality otherwise they will spend many years building something for free.

Which means the quote or estimate is a guess, or it is numbers put together just to undercut their competition.  Despite what is given at the start most likely the price will increase.

Conclusion

I think realistically RFPs will remain around for a very long time.    I would like to see govenment agencies find a company, locally that they trust then stick with them.  The only thing you can partially judge is quality.  Price and ROI are only guesses.

Even better still pick people like us that are more experienced in business process improvement.  Not only do you have software following how you do business processes, you can be sure your business processes are streamlined.