The European Commission back in 2005 decided to implement the European Waste Electrical and Electronic directive (WEEE) and so far the adoption of this programme has been slow.
Why? Well think about this, for every customer you sell an item of electrical equipment to you can be made responsible to dispose of it when in three years or more, they want to upgrade. This is all well and good for those clients you still work with, but what about those one-off customers who you haven't spoken to since they purchased the goods from you?
Yet another burden for you and I to manage. We spend so much of our time helping alleviate and remedy our customers from the mass of small business legislation that when YOU get given even more benchmarks and responsibilities that you wonder why you are doing what you do!
But you and I are not alone. Governments in Estonia, Finland, Greece, Italy, Malta, Poland as well as the UK are dragging their feet and the EC are taking legal action in order to shoehorn us into what in theory is a great idea but for those affected is impractical and inconvenient.
The directive has been delayed in the UK twice already and although ultimately this will deliver benefits to the environment it seems that implementing it is a different kettle of fish.
I understand why this directive needs to be implemented, but in a place where much of the market is already unregulated, I would like to see how quickly everyone adopts this strategy and how it will be enforced.
There are already organisations who will be able to assist you such as www.weee-recycle.com who can recycle or re-use old parts to help avoid the risk of an elephant graveyard in your stock room.
But knowing how well the TMB programme failed to recruit the numbers needed in an effort to show a level of self-regulation within our industry (costs, lack of public interest, and no direction didn't help) it seems that the UK Government need to look at just what we as IT service providers really do. Just because we sell small business solutions doesn't mean that we are immune to the same issues our customers face. As the EC encourage voluntary involvement from businesses it seems that the lack of enthusiasm will not deter the powers that be as we are forced instead.
Being made to comply won't solve our problems; we all want to work responsibly, but if the support for us isn't there then it could have a negative effect on our industry and may discourage any 'box shifting' by the smaller firms altogether. This will lead to an increase in businesses that just offer services such as consultancy and network support which will make the need to regulate our market even more important.
Programmes such as the Microsoft Small Business Specialist and HP's Preferred Partner scheme already require a certain level of knowledge, skill, and experience, but if we don't back these then the Government will be forced to introduce a strategy which will be very much like the TMB programme.
Too many times I come across distressed businesses that have been mis-sold, orphaned, or left confused by cowboy 'IT solution providers'. The word 'solution' is used regularly to describe a whole host of technologies and customers forget what is important to them as they become blinded by science. All customers need to know is how they can run their business efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. The WEEE directive is an added solution available to them but it won't be their primary concern but it will be ours.
As a qualified and experienced IT professional, it is our responsibility to present ourselves to the client as a swan; calm and graceful on top of the water, but paddling like hell under!
For those who are proactive and responsible in their field of work, this perception to the customer comes naturally but when our calibre of work is compared to the existing network maintenance currently performed by the boss' nephew at weekends then it becomes disheartening.
So there is a need for regulation in all senses but the vendors should be doing a better job of informing the client about their partner programmes. All the push from vendors seems to be internally promoted and it must be conveyed to the end user so that Joe Public doesn't wander off to the local high street computer shop and expect the same level of service he could get from you.
Make an effort to know what programmes are out there for you. There are some which although we are proud to be associated with means absolutely nothing to the customer. I would recommend you consider the Microsoft Small Business Partner Programme if you haven't already as it's one of the first to recognise that it isn't just about the box and more about providing services and support.
posted by Susanne @ 8:14 AM
1 Comments:
Susanne:
after reading this ("Yet another burden for you and I to manage. We spend so much of our time helping alleviate and remedy our customers from the mass of small business legislation that when YOU get given even more benchmarks and responsibilities that you wonder why you are doing what you do!")
in your post, I am quite convinced you will see the need for the professional programers to have a "solution" called time-technology to focus on that most important "time" element - your's, mine and everyone else's.
Now, I have even figured out, "how to pay" for this frame work. The answer is to obtain a percentage of the highway transportation funds that get it's revenue from the gasoline tax. Now, if we have this frame work and we optimize the use of every-one's time then we have a service economy that will not only be highly productive but will maximize all the resource utilization.
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