Budget Cuts

Xavier was the head of a 100+ person development team. Like many enterprise teams, they had to support a variety of vendor-specific platforms, each with their own vendor-specific development environment and its own licensing costs. All the licensing costs were budgeted for at year's end, when Xavier would submit the costs to the CTO. The approval was a mere formality, ensuring his team would have everything they needed for another year.

Unfortunately, that CTO left to pursue another opportunity. Enter Greg, a new CTO who joined the company from the financial sector. Greg was a penny-pincher on a level that would make the novelty coin-smasher you find at zoos and highway rest-stops jealous. Greg started cutting costs left and right immediately. When the time came for budgeting development tool licensing, Greg threw down the gauntlet on Xavier's "wild" spending.

"By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings."

"Have a seat, X-man," Greg offered, in a faux-friendly voice. "Let's get to the point. I looked at your proposal for all of these tools, your team supposedly 'needs'. $40,000 is absurd! Do you think we print money? If your team were any good,, they should be able to do everything they need without these expensive, gold-plated programs!"

Xavier was taken aback by Greg's brashness, but he was prepared for a fight. "Greg, these tools are vital to our development efforts. There are maybe a few products we could do without, but most of them are absolutely required. Even the more 'optional' ones, like our refactoring and static analysis tools, they save us money and time and improve code quality. Not having them would be more expensive than the license."

Greg scowled and tented his fingers. "There is no chance I'm approving this as it stands. Go back and figure out what you can do without. If you don't cut this cost down, I'll find an easier way to reduce expenses" like by cutting bonuses" or staff."

Xavier spent the next few days having an extensive tool review with his lead developers. Many of the vendor-specific tools had no alternative, but there were a few third party tools they could do without, or use an open-source equivalent. Across the team of 100+ developers, the net cost savings would be $4,000, or 10%.

Xavier didn't expect that to make Greg happy, but it was the best they could do. The following morning, Xavier presented his findings in Greg's office, and it went smoother than expected. "Listen, X. I want this cost down even more, but we're running out of time to approve this year's budget. Since I did so much work cutting costs in other ways, I'll submit this to finance. But enjoy your last year of all these fancy tools! Next year, things will be different!"

Xavier was relieved he didn't have to fight further. Perhaps, over the next year, he could further demonstrate the necessity of their tooling. With the budget resolved, Xavier had some much-overdue vacation time. He had saved up enough PTO to spend a month in the Australian Outback. Development tools and budgets would be the furthest thing from his mind.

Three great weeks in the land down under were enhanced by being mostly cut off from communications from anyone in the company. During a trip through a town with cell phone reception, Xavier decided to check his voicemail, to make sure the sky wasn't falling. Dave, his #2 in command, had left an urgent message two days prior.

"Xavier!" Dave shouted on the other end. "You need to get back here soon. Greg never paid the invoices for anything in our stack. We're sitting here with a huge pile of unlicensed stuff. We've been racking up unlicensed usage and support costs, and Greg is going to flip when he sees our monthly statements." With deep horror, Dave added, "One of the licenses he didn't pay was for Oracle!"

Xavier reluctantly left the land of dingoes and wallabies to head back home. He arrived just about the same time the first vendor calls demanding payment did. The costs from just three weeks of unlicensed usage of enterprise software was astronomical. Certainly more than just buying the licenses would have been in the first place. Xavier scheduled a meeting with Greg to decide what to do next.

The following Monday, the dreaded meeting was on. "Sit," Greg said. "I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that I've found a way to pay these ridiculous charges your team racked up." Xavier leaned forward in his chair, eager to learn how Greg had pulled it off. "The bad news is that I've identified a redundant position- yours."

Xavier slumped into his chair.

Greg continued. "While you were gone, I realized we were in quite capable hands with Dave, and his salary is quite a bit lower than yours. Coincidentally, the original costs and these ridiculous penalties add up to an amount just a little less than your annual salary. I guess you're getting your wish: the development team can keep the tools you insist they need to do their jobs. It seems you were right about saving money in the long run, too."

Xavier left Greg's office, stunned. On his way out for the last time, he stopped by Dave to congratulate him on the new promotion.

"Oh," Dave said, sourly, "it's not a promotion. They're just eliminating your position. What, you think Greg would give me a raise?"

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