The Enemy is Out There - Learning Disability #2Learn Management Articles on management-info.biz. The Enemy is Out There - Learning Disability #2 article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
An organization's success is usually limited due to the learning disabilities found within it. These learning disabilities keep companies repeating the same mistakes time and again and prevent them from taking advantage of new opportunities. 'The Enemy is Out There' is not a problem confined to organizations but also to individuals in their daily lives. It is related to the saying 'A bad workman always blames his tools.' Nothing is our fault it is always someone else's. In an organization this disability can be fatal as marketing blames manufacturing who blames purchasing who blames accounting. Instead of a problem being sorted out someone else is blamed. Blame is easy; it can be passed on and forgotten. However, this is never going to solve the problem and let the organization thrive. Think of a sales situation. The sales team goes out to sell the company's widget to a new customer but instead they come back empty handed. The company was dependent on this sale so everyone wants to know why it wasn't successful. Sales blames marketing as they say the prospect thought the widget solved another problem they had and worked a different way. Marketing blames design as they say that is what they were told. Design blames manufacture as they say the widget obviously wasn't made correctly. Manufacture blames purchasing saying the wrong parts were bought to make the widget. This pass the blame keeps going round until no one has any idea what the problem was or why the prospect didn't buy the widget. To solve a problem someone needs to take ownership of it. They need to make it theirs and then strive to find the best solution. If the solution lands up on their doorstep then changes should be embraced and not avoided. The whole organization benefits if there is collaboration between the departments and there is a common vision of the desired outcome. The 'Enemy is Out There' is not confined to passing the blame within the organization but can also be used to blame external factors for our lack of success. Think of the airlines that blame the rising price of fuel for their lack of success. How then is Virgin or SouthWest operating a successful airline? The Enemy can be government regulations, expensive labor, foreign companies, the weather or any other excuse we can think of. When blaming someone or something else we should remember that there is always another company that doesn't seem to be affected by this enemy. The more we take responsibility for our current situation and work as a team to find a solution the more successful we will be. Individuals and organizations have thrived in the midst of enormous adversity. Look for possibilities and solutions and strive to achieve your shared vision.
Remember that the Enemy will only affect you as much as you let it.
My colleagues and I get asked a lot about licensing. Frankly, Microsoft doesn’t have a great reputation for keeping it simple. And to be totally transparent – I, like many of my colleagues, would usually rather stick a fork in my eye that talk about it because it can get complicated. And confusing. And just…ugh. So you can imagine my joy when I was asked to write a newsletter editorial about simplifying licensing. Exactly. Then I had a very enlightening conversation with Terry Choquette, Licensing Marketing Manager at Microsoft and she pointed me to a few resources that got back to the basics and laid it all out very simply. I like simple. And I decided that this simple information was as blog worthy as it was newsletter worthy. While details about software licensing is not everybody’s favourite reading material, stick with me on this. Ways to buy a licenseFirst of all, there are 3 ways to buy a license as illustrated in the slide below: a full packaged product from a retail store, an OEM product on a new computer or a volume agreement from a reseller.
Volume licensing agreementsWhile you could simply walk into the nearest Best Buy or Future Shop and make your purchase, most organizations that need 5 or more licenses can benefit best from volume licensing agreements. Why? Well, there are some pricing advantages, there are more flexible options based on size and type of business, payment structure, ownership of software, etc., there are additional use rights for cross-language and reimaging machines, and there are use rights to new product versions, support, training, tools, etc., with Software Assurance (more about this below). For this post, I’m going to limit my discourse to those organizations who want to license less than 250 devices or users, which I would hazard a guess applies to most of you reading this blog. If you need help with licensing options for 250 devices/users or more, lemme know and I’ll put you in touch with people who can help you or you can check out these online resources. Below is a great 3.5 minute video that lays out the volume licensing options that are part of the Microsoft Open License program for small and medium sized businesses: (Please visit the site to view this video) Basically, there are 3 volume licensing agreement options: Open License, Open Value and Open Value Subscription. Now if you want more detail than the video gives (you did watch it right? C’mon it’s only 3.5 minutes long and it’s pretty entertaining!), you’ll want to take a look at the Open License Program Guide. It has a very useful chart on page 8 which compares what you get with an Open License agreement compared to an Open Value agreement. Software AssuranceSoftware Assurance is something that can be added to your volume license agreement which provides 24x7 support, deployment planning services, training, and the latest software releases. Although once viewed as simply an insurance policy for free software upgrades, Software Assurance has now been recognized by analysts as an essential tool for getting the most out of your licensing purchase. Below is a screen shot from an interactive PDF listing the benefits of Software Assurance with each type of licensing agreement.
For more information about Software Assurance and what it can do for your organization, check out the Software Assurance site. Let me know if this was helpful!
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