Jeff - You are so right that company procedures should not hinder the customer's experience. (Although your auditors might not see it that way. ) We try very hard, in everything we do, to make taking care of the customer job one. I'll flip burgers at McDonald's before I create an organization that is so busy filling out forms they don't have time to take care of the customer.

Well, today I pulled an entire job function, order invoicing and supplier invoice vouching out from the main company and into our department. Instead of paying for a portion of the salary and benefits of a couple of the people in our main company's billing department, I'm going to be using my own staff (and hiring accordingly). !sigh I just, on paper at least, increased both my costs (by needing to hire) and the main company's costs (since I'm not paying for half the salary and benefits of these particular staffers anymore).

It'll end up working out fine for me. I needed to hire anyway, and there are plenty of ways I can crosstrain people and get more value out of the dollars I'm spending. I'm leaving the parent company holding the bag though since they just lost the money I was chipping in.

Oh well. At least I can threaten to fire somebody who screws my bills up now.

Andrea
who is not sure she has actually ever threatened to fire anyone