You pay peanuts, you get monkeys!!

Here is a company ( we shall call “X”) that is an outbound call center mostly for Indian companies. They were on a certain outbound solution and decided that though it was a very good solution, it was not cost effective when they wanted to grow into a 3000-5000 seater. For every seat, they had to pay for a license which increased their TCO. So they decided to go with the Outbound Solution of another (2nd ) vendor. This was last November time frame.

The second vendor’s outbound solution would take sometime to be ordered,shipped and installed. So this “X” decided to go with a third vendor, who had a very cheap solution, quick to install and go live on production. This was a stop gap arrangement till the second vendor’s solution could be fully installed. Now the third vendor had given some hardware specifications for the expected load and the hardware was slightly expensive. “X” rationalized that since they were going the second vendor way in the near future, and the current solution was only a stop-gap arrangement, decided to use some cheap servers instead of the suggested servers.

Needless to say, the six months ‘X” ran with the third solution was a miserable experience for both “X” as well as the third vendor. There were performance issues, late night crashes, lack of stability. “X” finally went to the second solution early June and were relieved that they didn’t have to go through the mess. They bad mouthed the third solution and the damage was done.

Now, who is to blame. The third solution would have been perfect had it been run on the hardware that had been suggested. Was company “X” to be blamed for going cheap? Was it the mistake of the third vendor not to have put his foot down and say that “X” had to run in that specific hardware. To be honest “X” got what it wanted and wouldn’t care about what happened to third vendor. The third vendor would have to build its reputation all over again.

There is a popular saying “Whether you put cloth to a knife or knife to a cloth, it is always the cloth that gets torn”. It was the vendor’s mistake and it was its responsibility to have set the expectations right with “X” that they are paying peanuts and they will get only monkeys!!!