Bigger companies suffer from small time thinking

A recent project-turned-south has inspired me to blow off steam regarding doing business with “big” companies. Small business always gets the short end of the stick and it’s not likely that will ever change.

Background

Last week I was approached to do some custom programming of a webform by a national bedding company. The basic idea of the form was quite simple; it is to supplement a direct mail marketing piece (which targets dealers only) to collect basic contact information, marketing information, and whether the user would like to enroll in a sweepstakes being offered by the company. Ok, no big deal. The form is then supposed to email the data to an employee at the company (again, big whoop) and write the data to a plain text file or database. Once again, not a brain buster.

Denial

Since this project was being subcontracted to me through another graphic designer (who’s main business is print design), I sent them a basic rough estimate with a not-to-exceed cost. Come Monday morning, I recieved an email stating that the project has been killed because my cost was “too high”. The project was then given to the bedding company’s internal IT department to undertake.

Anger and Frustration

My quoted price included graphical layout and design of the form (which, as specified by the client, was to incorporate branding and imagery), and the programming to perform the necessary tasks. Now keep in mind, this project was to be completed in approximately four days. I could have easily done the job for under $600 with a very bland (read: ugly), plain looking HTML form but I was shooting for something with a bit more visual zap.

Confusion

Has providing quality designed interfaces fallen by the wayside? Is there something I am missing? The estimate for the not-to-exceed price was around $1,200, without getting into detail, and as any designer or programmer knows, projects change! No matter how “simple” or “straight-forward” a project may be, there is always someone who will want something revised and that has a cost. Am I to assume that not being up-front about those costs should be hidden and revealed as a surprise at a later point? I tend to think not, but maybe I’m wrong.

I look at businesses with disgust sometimes because they are trying so hard to be penny wise, yet are dollar foolish. Better to have the IT department do it because its “free”. Sorry to burst your bubble Big Company, its not free - every minute they spend on your side project is one minute less they are maintaining your system as they should be.