Almost every technology company is cutting costs now. Below is a list of cost-cutting moves I, my friends, and industry contacts have experienced:
- Lay off employees
- Raise insurance premium by 200%, and essentially force employees to enroll in Health Saving Account (HSA) based health insurance plan
- Instead of getting more office space, squeeze more employees per square foot in existing office space
- Re-negotiate office rent with property owners
- Have holiday party on-site instead of renting space in hotel/restaurant
- Re-negotiate with suppliers/vendors to extend payment terms (e.g. making payment at net-45 instead of net-30)
- Re-negotiate with suppliers/vendors to lower payment amount
- Close certain local offices
- Ask employees to take mandatory time off between Christmas and New Year
- Cut down business travels
- Stop hiring contractors
- Re-negotiate telephone rate
- Re-negotiate data center rate
- Freeze hardware purchase; free up existing hardware resources
Do you have anything to add to this list? Leave a comment.
I’m OKAY with most of those cost saving moves except the first two. 🙂
None of us likes layoffs. But, I think some entrepreneurs/managements might under-estimate the impact of cutting health care — it affects employees and their families. It could get quite ugly from a morale standpoint. Before you cut health care, think carefully.
1 response so far ↓
1 Peter Quinn // Dec 16, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Hi. I am a long time reader. I wanted to say that I like your blog and the layout.
Peter Quinn
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