Le 2013-04-15 13:29, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> On 15/04/2013 02:52 PM, scott wrote:
>>>> (This based on the fact that I work for a tiny company, and the
>>>> financial director has made it her mission in life to never spend any
>>>> money on anything, ever, no matter how necessary it is...)
>>>
>>> That's her job. By definition.
>>
>> If you're working somewhere where the financial director can't agree to
>> spend money on things that are absolutely necessary then it's time to
>> move jobs.
>
> The idea is to reduce *unnecessary* costs.

Yes, but who defines unnecessary?  That requires actually thinking, 
making educated decisions... and obviously resolving conflicts.  It's 
much easier to just say "every dept must cut 10%"

>
> There are times when *spending* money can actually result in drastic
> savings. Real managers understand that. People who just run companies as
> a hobby so that they can feel all important and stuff...

The problem is not that they run companies as a hobby, even if some 
obviously do.  The problem is that the shareholders expect double-digit 
growth, and quarterly results that exceed the forecasts, or else they'll 
get the C-level guys' (and gals)' ass out ot there at the next 
shareholder's annual assembly.

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Le 2013-04-16 03:34, scott a écrit :
>> The idea is to reduce *unnecessary* costs.
>
> Things aren't black and white though, it's quite rare a company is
> paying anything significant for absolutely no benefit. How about things
> like pay rises, pension schemes, a receptionist, IT staff, a christmas
> party - necessary?
>
>> There are times when *spending* money can actually result in drastic
>> savings. Real managers understand that.
>
> My earlier point was that if a real manager is working for a healthy
> profitable company they are likely to get the money easily to do such
> projects/schemes that benefit the company in the longer term. However in
> a failing company the cash is likely not there to do such schemes, no
> matter how good the manager is. Or rather the manager would need to
> spend a disproportionate amount of time convincing senior management
> that they should get rid of the receptionist and use the money for X
> instead.

Even in healthy companies - as I said, my employer made $10G in profits 
last year, up from $9.1G the year before - it can be difficult to get 
funding for any thing.  Not impossible, but still difficult.

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> Even in healthy companies - as I said, my employer made $10G in profits
> last year, up from $9.1G the year before - it can be difficult to get
> funding for any thing.  Not impossible, but still difficult.

Maybe profit per employee would be a better measure? I've worked at 
places with net income per employee varying from -£66k to +£47k (figures 
taken from the reuters financials page for each company). IME those 
figures very much correlate to how easy it was to get money to do stuff 
and the overall "culture" within the company regarding money, which 
isn't surprising.

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