Re: paying for docs

[<neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>]

Some methods are demonstrably worse than others. A company of yore printed expensive books in two colors or four colors. Sales offices could requisition docs at no charge to them. Through an early decision of management, those give-away books were charged to the Tech Pubs budget. Sales gave the books away as sales tools or sold them at cover price to customers, keeping all the money to fund a *lavish* sales-office Xmas party each year.

The manager of Tech Pubs was hauled up on the carpet because his budget was out of control.

One of the customers of the same company was a university. An instructor there whined to Tech Pubs that the books referred to text of one color or another ("enter the commands shown in blue"), but that the book was printed in black and white. Investigation revealed that the university bookstore had used the administration department's copying machine to manufacture the books at "no" cost.

Charging a cost to some other department where it won't be noticed is not recommended, but is apparently quite common. 

--Peter Neilson


Erika Yanovich asks:
> 
> I'm interested to find out whether the companies you work for charge for
> specific (not off-the shelf) docs provided to clients before they buy
> the products. What happens if the clients get the docs and then don't
> buy anything? Is this included in the cost of doing business? What about
> other services they ask for before they buy?
> 
> All answers appreciated, especially from the telecom sector.


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