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August 18, 2004
Cost reductions
One of the messages in my inbox this morning came from our EMEA Finance VP, telling me I must complete web-based telco cost reduction training within 30 days. This sort of stuff reads like a subpoena, and consequently fires you up for the whole day. Admittedly, saving on calling costs looks like a good idea. The cost of creating, disseminating, and checking up people's progress on the training course must be outweighed by the ensuing savings or our finance VP would of course never impose such an irritation.
Since I work with the software development folks, it probably doesn't matter that this whole thing caught me off balance at the beginning of the day, when my head is most clear, to go spend the best of my energies on a fire drill. If I ever hesitate to pick up the phone, probability that Sun loses a sale must be quite low. We communicate so well with distant colleagues that it's unnecessary actually to talk with them, right?
What about salespeople? Do we really want every sales person in EMEA taking 45 minutes off from selling to customers so they'll hesitate to make calls they need to make. In some ways, this seems like telling marathon runners, "Careful with the water, folks. As a RunnersRUs employee, you are required to take web-based water conservation training within 30 days of receiving this message..."
Posted by Mark at August 18, 2004 08:51 AM