From SSKA Blog -- Twice a year there is a nice study on "Top Ten Mistakes
of Kiosk Deployment" and usually one of the top ones is the principle
that the number of problems you end up having are usually inversely
related to the money you spend. You buy cheap, you get cheap as a rule.
The usual threat there is "well, we can buy it from China for this much...". You can buy something from China but it won't be the same, and it'll take 12 weeks and won't accept modifications. Probably you can forget about the Buy American ARRA incentives working here (I hope). Buying kiosksmade in America
narrows your choices to one hand.
Worst than all that is prospects/customers that are not trying the tactic of asking kiosk companies to fund the project and pay all the upfront costs. It's called investing in the project (not unlike people with brainstorm ideas looking for "strategic partners").
They''ll let us write the software for free, let us build the kiosks for free, do the site surveys and installations and get it all in (on our dime) and then they'll decide if they want to move forward, and if so, whether or not they move forward with us (ie a company).
The good companies are too busy, too smart to participate in something like that. I've seen it over and over where the expectation is the best possible product and the budget is zero. And always the same result. Sometimes due to lack of response the RFP gets re-issued, most of the time they were just taking a shot (and not a very good one).
Am I missing something here?
The usual threat there is "well, we can buy it from China for this much...". You can buy something from China but it won't be the same, and it'll take 12 weeks and won't accept modifications. Probably you can forget about the Buy American ARRA incentives working here (I hope). Buying kiosks
Worst than all that is prospects/customers that are not trying the tactic of asking kiosk companies to fund the project and pay all the upfront costs. It's called investing in the project (not unlike people with brainstorm ideas looking for "strategic partners").
They''ll let us write the software for free, let us build the kiosks for free, do the site surveys and installations and get it all in (on our dime) and then they'll decide if they want to move forward, and if so, whether or not they move forward with us (ie a company).
The good companies are too busy, too smart to participate in something like that. I've seen it over and over where the expectation is the best possible product and the budget is zero. And always the same result. Sometimes due to lack of response the RFP gets re-issued, most of the time they were just taking a shot (and not a very good one).
Am I missing something here?
(...and insiders would say the part missing is the other half of deal which is we want it right now too...)