What I Know It’s About Experience

The primary function of a client

Hi there,

What do I mean when I say 'client'.  Well, in business it means the person who comes to your shop and buys the products you have in your store. In a company's IT department (say a bank), the client would be the 'users'. To a supplier and contractor, it is the person who buys the product they sell or pays the consultant for the time he spends.

Alright, as a client to say Jarir book store, you go to buy a laptop, the price is marked as say 5,000 SAR (yes, it is not a Toshiba). You ask for a discount and what does the sales person say? Sir/Madam, there is a 'discount' card which you may use, else the price you see is the price you pay. Now, you go to a reputable shop in the Computer Souk (Olaya Street, Riyadh) and you see the same laptop, for say 5,500 SAR. You ask them for a discount and they agree to the sell the laptop for 4,500 SAR after the required discussion where I am sure the saying 'you are taking the food out of my grand children's mouths' will come up. Yes, this does happen, ask a few of my friends.

What is the difference? Same product, one is cheaper than the other. In a nutshell, Jarir has a support team that will 'repair' the laptop if there is a problem. I used them to get a Linksys 3G router to work properly with a 3G card I purchased from them. They spent 3 hours on the problem, finally told me to upgrade the firmware which solved the issue. Some of my experiences with the shops in the Souk is different, the sales person seemed to have disappeared. From others, I got good service, the same as at Jarir. However, on average, the service at the Souk was worse than the average at all the Jarir stores I went to. Believe me, I own shares in Jarir, I spent enough money to get them free

Now lets move to an IT department in a company, ultimately, the client of the company is their client as they provide or support the systems that the company uses in their service offerings. But, unfortunately, the IT shop always see their clients as the 'USERS'. They also have the requirement to save the company money when they spend it on new systems or consulting. This is where the difference between Jarir and the Souk come to play.

IT managment will always look at the 'cheaper' option but expect the service of the most expensive. What is the difference? Surely, spending the company's money demands good service and delivery of what is required. YES, it does, however, there is a limit, service delivery costs money (read as resources) and the 'client' must realise the fact. However, in all my years as a consultant in IT and Information Risk Management, I have not seen a client understand that good service (what the client expects) is more expensive. You get what you pay for. A saying I heard in the Kingdom and which I use in South Africa is 'If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys'. Don't get me wrong, the level of service is based on the client's expectations of what he is buying and the expectation of the sales person and consultant of what they will deliver at that price.

Now remember, the management of a company must contain the costs both Capital Expenditure (CAPEX - new Equipment/systems) or Operational Expenditure  (OPEX -maintenance and support of current systems) or they will lose money (their bonus) and the supplier or consultant, if you do not make money, you do not survive.

This is where 'ethics'  becomes important.

Wa Alaikum As-Salam until Thursday,

Enjoy the rest of the week and may you travel safely.

Still to come;

1. The primary function of a supplier,
2. The primary function of a consultant,
3. The differences between client and supplier,
4. The differences between supplier and consultant,
   
5. The differences between client and consultant,
6. Ethics as a consultant,
7. Ethics as an employee and
8. Is there ethics in business.

To script or not to script?

Coming from a UNIX background (SUN, HP, AIX, Tru-64, SCO) when the only navigation aid on the system was a keyboard and later a mouse. The mouse was primarily used to click on an icon that opened a 'shell' either Korn, Bourne or C.  These are, for Microsoft fundies, similar but more powerful than the 'cmd' prompt you see in windows. All administrative work was done from the shell with no 'click here, drag here, drop here' ability. It was only later in the 90's and early 2000's that UNIX and Databases went GUI (Graphical User Interface).

What did this teach me? Well simply, when doing any system changes and/or configurations to write the commands into a 'script' file. I would then save the script file and use it as documentation of the change or configuration. With a friends help, we changed the 'scripts' into actual programs using AWK (pre Java) and Shell scripting that was a fundamental part of UNIX. These scripts then became our documentation on how to configure or change the systems from a clean install which was scripted as well.

When I started working on the Window's platform, back when NT 3.51 was launched in South Africa, I tried with limited success to get the same scripting functionality. The reason? According to Microsoft in South Africa it was due to the fact that people could now use a 'mouse'. 'What does that have to do with it?' was my reply. After a pause, and I quote this correctly (I think) "Microsoft does not expect that any of their administrators will have (be able?) to type in commands as the GUI makes it easier". When I asked the person what would they do if the mouse did not work, I again quote "why should it not?". Hmmm, I wonder why not?

Now, any person will tell you that a GUI makes it so easy, yes it does, BUT you have the be there. A script is something you execute and the walk away. There is also the chance that you may make a mistake with the GUI, we all have, thats why MS put the BACK button on all screens.

As a consultant and project manager, I always try to make sure I take as little time to do repetitive tasks as possible. Yes, you have it, I script it. It takes more time to do it the first time but then everytime I do the same or similar task it takes a fraction of the time. What would take me 30 minutes I can now do in less than one and instances where I had to be physically at the system. I do not have to sit and look, I can work on something else.  And, the scripts allow me to show the client what I have done and how I do it.

The great thing about scripts are you;

• write them,
• test them,
• document them and then
• forget them (unless they need to be maintained)

and go onto other challenges in life.

Try them, you will make mistakes and improve with experience, in the end, it will save you and the company time and lots of it.

Role of auditors in an organisation

Back to the 'auditors', when asked by friends and aquaintences about what work I did, I mentioned that I did GRC, short for Governance, Risk and Compliance. What? You have to be joking? How do you do that?

Easy, I audit existing processes against requirements and make recommendations. Well, the big 'A' word hit the spot so to say. You are an Auditor, one of those morons put on earth to make other peoples life unbearable and painful similar to a boil on your behind?

The 'A' word in business has the same impact as the 'C' word for men and women. 'C'ommitment for men and 'C'ellulite for women. Something Bad times 10 to the power of infinity.

Not so, the role of the auditor is and I quote; 'to give the board the assurance that there are sufficient controls in place to mitigate risks to business'. That is why internal audit is the only division in the enterprise that has the 'Authority' to access any system or information based on their auditing schedule. This is actually written (or should be) in the Internal Audit Charter signed off by the board.

So think about us as good samaritans, see us as people who can assist in making your life easier and not as seagulls - 'birds who fly into your office, fly around and poop on your head and then fly out'. And unfortunately, controls equal documentation.