How to do cost cutting in the IT Industry

(Disclaimer – This article is intended to be a satire on the (mal)practices prevailing in the IT Industry. Those who know me personally should be able to gauge the tone with which I am narrating verses, those who don’t can refer popular satire artists like Jaspal Bhatti. It’d be interesting if any of the suggestions mentioned here happen to coincide with some real life events. I hope that History books won’t hold me responsible for infusing new ideas in the minds of those who happen to be in charge of implementing cost cutting practices in their respective organization. This article is intended to be a general take on the IT industry, no indirect attacks are intended at any specific individual or organization.)

Ever since I joined the IT Industry in mid-2008, I have realised that there is a major similarity between the leading propagators of Glamour World and the implementors of cost cutting in the IT Industry, for both believe in the ideology “If you’ve got it, flaunt it”. Time and again, the Glamour World rakes up with stuff that depicts how they are raising the bar in terms of flaunting radically. Time and again, various IT organizations flaunt “innovative” (at least this is what they proclaim) measures of reducing cost to the company, thereby increasing profits.

Another similarity is that one more mantra holds true for both – “love them or hate them, you just can’t ignore them”. Forever in news for the amount of riches possessed by them, both also have the tag of “controversy” attached firmly. While I won’t be discussing the world of catwalk, excess make-up, casting process, photo shoots, etc.; I shall be certainly discussing the cost cutting measures related to an element that is considered the third biggest invention after fire and wheel (i.e. Computer).

I won’t spend time discussing what is cost cutting. The name itself gives way to what it infers.

Target audience
1. CEO’s, Head Honchos of IT firms.
2. People managing finances, in charge of implementing cost cutting.
3. (I will disclose this one later).
As each question progresses, the level of safety would decrease. That is, you can try the first suggestion without any hitch, but as I keep ascending, the level of bizarre outcomes/hazards associated with them would increase as well. Try them at your own risk, afterwards don’t blame me for employees leaving your organisation.

One, two, three, go!

1. Force people to switch off their machines when they leave from office. Say that it saves electricity. Make them go through brochures of what efforts it takes to generate electricity and how our country is facing shortage. Keep air conditioners and majority of lights turned off on weekends.

2. Save water. Make employees aware about how the amount of portable water is decreasing and the acute shortage some areas could face if no drastic actions were taken. Use less amount of H2O in flushes and taps. You can keep a system, wherein if an employee was found to have left the wash basin with leaking tap, a fine would be imposed on him/her. That way you’d be minting money by giving it the alias of “environmental concern”.

3. Travel by fuel-efficient cars. Even if some big shot insists on travelling by a Mercedes for official purpose, forcibly send a Tata Indigo and send statistics of the latter having fuel mileage difference of around three times compared to the former.

4. All air travel should be on Economy class, not Business. Avoid chartered planes. Give example of a certain Chairman who is famous for travelling by Economy class.

5. Don’t distribute paper pamphlets. Let everything be on email. Say that you are saving trees. And whenever you have to use paper, use low quality recycled one, that is cheap in terms of price. Also, no one will question the “quality standards” of your organization, for using below-par standard of stationery.

6. If you give bonus of 10,000 every year, then instead of handing it out once, give two bonuses whose combined value should be slightly lesser than 10,000. Deliver a long lecture to employees, over how you care for them, and would now make them happy more than once in a year (without letting them know that their salary is invisibly getting deducted).

If you hand out bonus twice a year, reduce it to once, saying that you’ll be giving them a greater amount at one go (obviously the new amount should be lesser than the previous one).

In short, give lesser wages, without letting the employee know, and if s/he has the time to calculate the reduced income, promptly say that the income is less because of new Income Tax laws laid by the government that has affected everyone, self included. Never let the blame be on you.

7. Do give increments, but in low proportions. Say that even though there weren’t huge gains, still you care about the employees and hence would be delivering raise. Before doing that, have a HUGE build up, consisting of rumors spreading in office over losses due to potential business deals getting cancelled, in such a way that each team should put the ball of blame on other teams, as if it was a consequence of their goof up. Let people sympathize with their organization. Never let them know that your company is financially prospering well. Quite a few employees don’t care about the amount of increment they get, for they very well believe that something is always better than nothing.

8. Cut taxes like how a mosquito sucks blood (Chanakya neeti). Don’t let your employees know the exact details of how their Variable Pay is being deducted; just give them a bigger picture, without going deep into the real picture. The “income tax” should actually be your company’s “hidden income”, that goes straight into your bank account instead of government’s Reserve Forex. And if the Income Tax guys conduct some sort of audit, hand over a small share of that money under the table, so that both parties remain satisfied without any negative publicity in the media.

9. Use free software alternatives instead of paid ones. Preach as if your company is a huge supporter of the GNU movement, thus adhering allergy towards paid stuff. Preach out lines such as “It’s not difficult for us to invest moolah in software that costs, just that we are an organization of very high standards that has always supported the underdogs. Which is also the same reason why we hire freshers.” (Never let them feel that you hire freshers simply because they do more work at less pay.)

Don’t worry about employees finding it hard to make a transition towards new methodologies. It is their problem, not yours.

10. Sell better, organic food at more rates. Like if you sell a normal meal for Rs. 30, making a profit margin of 33% per plate, sell a “healthy” one for Rs. 45, and make a profit of 50% per plate. Don’t retort to using cheaper ingredients, rather use expensive ones. I have seldom seen humans who don’t invest on good food, they know that their lives matter more than money.

In a nutshell, sell better food, with greater profit margins, keeping employees hypnotized that their health would improve that way.

That way you’d be playing with sentiments of your employees, but then you didn’t force them to behave that way, did you?

11. Make collaboration with a supplier, in which they’d give you stuff like furniture at cheaper rates, in turn you’d supply your product to them. That way you’d increase your consumer base as well.

The catch here is, you should do business with those from whom you need to give one-time payment, but the vice-versa need not be true. That’s because after they start using your software/hardware (more specifically, after they have handed you all the payment cheques), they’d naturally face issues. You need not pay a lot of attention to resolving them once your purchase is done; you can simply ignore their help mails, stop attending their phone calls, and avoid face to face conversation. If they threaten legal action, hand out contract in which it wasn’t mentioned anywhere that you’d be offering free future supporting them. If they want to receive support, they should pay additional fees.

If you fear they’d harm your market reputation, you can always do that before they strike. Employ jobless people who’d anonymously flood their website with numerous complaints, create hate communities on facebook over how their product isn’t up to the mark, spread negative word of mouth as much as they can. Point is, more and more people should get the point that their products aren’t reliable. So that people turn a deaf ear, when they see them damaging your reputation.

12. Ask your employees to donate towards some relief fund, after depicting visuals of starving children. Say that any money or clothes donated by you would directly reach these underprivileged humans. Put a drop box in your office, where employees can donate stuff like clothes, processed food, etc. Once sufficient items have been collected, force your junior to take out more than half of the items from there, sell in gray market, and return you the money, of which you can give him a small share if you want to (even if you don’t, he won’t ask for it, in order to retain his job). You can send the remaining items to poor children.

This way
i. You will be helping the poor.
ii. You would mint money, without doing any theft yourself (because it was done by your junior).
iii. You would be showing your junior who the boss is.

13. Invest in University hires. They charge less money, and are willing to do any amount of work you give them, for they feel it’d help them in settling their careers. Until unless an experienced resource is highly critical, throw him/her out in favour of a College Chirrup.

Put it across, saying that your company gives chance to young people, and has faith in the underdogs.

Another advantage is that some of these young brats have a keen sense of observation, within no time they are able to ape the way their seniors are doing work. Once they reach that stage, you can safely fire the one who demands more salary.

14. Put a label on all tea machines, saying that you’ll fill only a specified amount of premix every day, and the amount saved would go to some Charity for Children. In order to make the claim appear authentic, go to one such charity and donate some food. But most important of them all, take photographs of the event (don’t invest on buying a new one, force your junior to bring his personal camera from home). Let the world know about your Samaritan ways. You may or may not charge money for tea, but make sure that your employees consume less of it.

(It’s another thing that children should remain devoid of tea, so that they don’t become addicts. But then, no one is going to question your philanthropic cause).

Also, sample these two situations
i. Client comes for a visit, and learns that you charge money for tea, which doesn’t happen in his/her organization.
ii. Client comes for a visit, and learns that you request employees to take less tea, so that leftovers would go to Hungry children.
So which one of those would make a better impression on your client?

15. Another disclaimer – I hope I do not come across as a desperate person, while raising a question. Because I am not desperate.

Question – Would you hire me for your organization?

I repeat the question. Would you hire me for your organization?

As you wonder why I asked that question, here is the next point over doing Cost Cutting.
Stop serving alcohol and non-Vegetarian food in parties. Obviously, you’d reduce costs by more than half.

You can put it across your employees by saying that you have become ardent follower of some Religious figure, who despises such things.

If you are thinking that this way employees would be fleeing from your organization at a very quick rate, well, some of you did say “yes” over hiring me. And as there are plenty of guys like me in this world, so you shouldn’t face a resource crunch.

By the way, by asking that question, I wasn’t making a proposal. I can’t even propose a girl. I have forever been a Happy Bachelor.
(Some of you might be thinking that as I don’t drink, don’t eat Non Vegetarian food, and have never been involved in a relationship; what had I been doing all these years? 😉 )

16. When you set the base location of your office, you may do that somewhere inside the city, rented on a short-term lease. Meanwhile, start scouting for a location on the outskirts of the city, for obvious reason that property rates are less. After a while, as people start hogging the office space, you’d start running out of seats. Then all of a sudden, announce that you’d be moving to a new location, which your employees would have to comply with, in order to save their job.

You might be wondering why didn’t I ask you to open the office on the outskirts in the first place. Well, there are quite a few people who’d see the office location inside prime location as one of the lucrative for joining the organization, for they sense reduced commuting time. Once they get into the job, many don’t leave on the context of a new far-fetched location.

Don’t believe me? Check surveys of employees, over why they left their present job. Very few give commuting distance as the reason.

17. Whenever there is an office event, don’t spend any money on decorations. Cite two reasons. One is what we discussed a while back, environmental, that items such as banners and charts are made of paper, for which trees have to be cut. Second is also something that we discussed a while back, that you have become an ardent follower of some religious figure who believes in simple living and high thinking.

18. Instead of tying up with some store and offering exclusive gift coupons for employees, ask them to hold a Special Sale. That is, send an email to your employees with subject like ‘Special Sale for XXX Employees’ citing that you’ll get discount at that store just by showing the organization’s Identity Card.

The catch here is, that the discount need not be on all the items, it could be on either of these
i. The ones in high demand, for that’ll ensure plenty of sales for that particular item.
ii. The ones in low demand, so that the company would be able to phase them out soon.

Now, when such stores have to give a normal sale, they may offer discounts like 25-50%. Here, they can offer in a lesser range like 5-20%, and the consumer won’t complain over the amount that s/he got, s/he would be concerned over getting at least some money off. Also, the store would be getting more sales than usual. Based on whatever profit they generate, you demand your share, which is understood that you would have settled the percentage ratio at the time of setting up the offer.

And if you want to give Gift Coupons, do that only if the store has oodles of black money, that they want to depict as loss.

19. Automatically deduct money from Salary, saying that Rupee 1 per day would go to some charity. Give employees an option, that those who don’t wish to donate, can cancel it. Take care that this is informed via an unattractive email, something that’d go largely unnoticed by most employees. That way you’d earn some extra bucks courtesy employee’s negligence.

For those genuinely interested in cancellation, make the process as tedious as possible. If its via some software, it should be as cumbersome to use as possible, and so slow that timed out requests should be common. Most of the employees would change their plan, out of sheer frustration.

20. Some organizations have started holding meetings remotely, instead of making employees travel. You can carry that forward to other aspects as well, like training, critical sessions, etc. Avoid travel as far as you can. You can cite environmental concerns, saying that this reduces carbon emission.

Even though most employees feel more comfortable in a face to face situation, with one reason being that they get to visit different parts of the world for free, let them feel that way. You can’t pay attention to each and every concern of all your employees, can you?

21. Make your expense reimbursement policy tough. Let the software be as confusing as possible, and instruct your Claim Approval team to reject expenses for the minutest of mistakes, putting the blame back on employee for not filling details properly. Don’t make an employee feel that reimbursement is kids play, let them suffer at their own peril, so much that they reduce filing claims.

Also, make your Expense / Income Tax teams difficult to reach. Implement lengthy IVR process, and reduce mailbox capacity so that they get jammed frequently thus leading to increased frequency of mails bouncing. Silently force teams to keep their phones on hold for prolonged period, so that they come as engaged when an employee tries to call them.

22. What you give, versus what they claim. If you actually give out the amount in their hands, they will get 100% of the money. If you ask them to claim it, then all employees won’t do that. Make the informative policy as confusing and least accessible as possible. Also put a limit to the money that an employee can claim.

 
This finishes the ‘suggestions’ part. I once again reinstate, that this article is intended to be a satire. Personally, I have never implemented any of the aforementioned suggestions.

If you do wish to implement any of these, then you may do that, keeping in mind that never assume your employees to be fools. If they were smart enough to enter your organization, they’d be smart enough to gauge the real motives behind your cost-cutting measures. Remember that in the beginning, I had listed the last point in Target Audience as something I’d disclose later? This is the blank value, i.e. normal employees who are seeking an answer to their curiosities.

As I round-up the article, there is one thing I’d add on a serious note. The people in charge of introducing Cost Cutting measures in a company are usually at very high levels in the organization, for them many such measures are insignificant as they earn quite handsomely. But everyone in their organization doesn’t, especially the younger fellows, many of whom join with enthusiasm and some of them are from such a family background that each and every penny greatly matters to them. They may not be doing as high-profile work as you, but then a great organisation is one in which all employees are treated equally and are made to feel proud of their belongings. Ensure that such cost cutting measures aren’t the prime reason for an employee leaving your organization.

I conclude the article with a Hindi poem. Once again, request you to treat the situation as imaginary, bearing no resemblance to any real life events.

Anjuman ka tassavur (The plight of an IT employee)

Kuch logon ko premrog hua, kisi ko bewafaai ne maara
Apni to kismat footi thi, hume cost cutting ne maara

Jo wazan biwi kam na karva saki, IT ne kara diya
Machine ke vaahiyat chai par bhi, daam laga diya

Na chahte hue bhi, pehle zabardasti aadat dalwa di
Ab unki keemat lagwakar, jeb ki band baja di

Chiththi daalne gaye, to dekha ki envolope nahi the
Isi chakkar mein, naa jaane kitne dukaandar ameer hue

Canteen gaye, to paneer baasi nikla
Tabiyat kharaab hui, BP high ho gaya

Puraane reused PC’s, jaise ki baba adam zamaane ke
Khatiya khadi kar di, unki slow processing speeds ne

Mehengaai badhti gayi, sab kuch mehenga hota gaya
Bas yeh tankhwaah hi hai, jisme ghaata badhta gaya

Kisi bhi cheez ki had paar ho jaaye, to veh buri hai
HIV ki tarah, cost cutting ka bhi koi ilaaj nahi hai

Khata humaari hai, galat samay par IT mein aa gaye
Choti si yeh zindagi, ab to bas bhagwaan hi bachaaye

(Special thanks to Arjun Suri Photography, for the photos).