ROI (was PowerHouse.Net)

[Edis, Bob]

Costs are an arbitrary and confusing issue.  I don't believe you can
accuse/blame any of Cognos' sales of ADT products on cost alone.

As someone has already said, perception is everything.  Reality hardly ever
makes a difference.

For example, Kent H. sent an email about a sale that Crystal Decisions had
on Crystal Reports.  I was surprised to see that the 'normal' retail price
quoted was actually close to the price I've paid in the past for the
equivalent version of Impromptu.  We use Crystal Reports here and I know
that once you get past the basics the price skyrockets.  The problem is is
that while Crystal Decisions puts the price of its reporting upfront Cognos
doesn't do likewise.  It has created and 'idea' that it's tools are much
more expensive and reinforces this by saying they have much greater value.
So the problem is one of perception created by different marketing
strategies and this perception is exaggerated in the financial depts. of
clients.

Another is ADT.  Here in the USA when I went searching for the price of some
of the MS products talked about I did not find a significant difference in
price to the Cognos ADT products (well as least Axiant).  But there a
perception that Microsoft tools are cheap (and some say therefore
sub-standard) and Cognos tools are expensive (but some say out-of-date).

I worked on a conversion from Visibility ERP to Oracle Manufacturing ERP.
The client's perception (created by Oracle sales reps) was that Oracle
Manufacturing had a much better ROI than Viz.  The reality was that the
annual license for Oracle was TWICE that of Visibility (we're talking USD
millions here) but the Oracle product, while it had a GUI front end, had
different functionality and less flexibility than Viz.  The client had to
spend huge amounts to customize (and in some cases abandon) features in O*M.
The project go-live date was eighteen months behind schedule!  What did that
cost?  What does the client have today?  A manufacturing ERP that has no
better functionally that what they had two years ago but has cost several
million dollars.  The sales pitch was that O*M was tightly integrated with
the other Oracle packages.  It's not.  The  interfaces are MORE costly and
MORE complex than they were before the conversion.

So, is it our job/responsibility to pander to client's perceptions or help
them deal with reality?  Isn't our first responsibility to our
clients/customers?  

As another thing someone said on this list, our real value and future is in
providing the 'soft' skills to our clients, not just PowerHouse expertise.

Blue

-----Original Message-----
From: John Pearce [mailto:jpearce@rmi.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 8:47 PM
To: powerh-l@lists.swau.edu
Subject: Re: PowerHouse.Net


At 09:59 AM 6/4/2002 -0700, Sam DeLeese <sdeleese@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Maybe, if Cognos is lucky, there entire PH base will continue to be 
>customers using PHWeb.  Wouldn't that be nice.  But, alas, it won't happen 
>I fear.  Cognos has always charged large sums of money for the product and 
>even more for the support.  So, much so, that the costs involved have 
>always been a bone of contention with management at almost every place 
>that I have worked.

I couldn't agree with you more!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------
John Pearce  <jpearce@rmi.net>	| Bethesda Management Company
Speaking for only myself		| Colorado Springs, CO  USA


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