JBOB – Just a Bunch of Batteries
As you can see from the photo I used for this blog, I still use Rayovac batteries in my devices. This happens to be my thoroughly amazing Zoom H6 Handy Recorder, but I also use them in my guitars (professional musician on the side), some of my music accessories, cameras, etc.
You get the picture, I use just plain old Rayovac and not the one with the copper on one end, or the one with the rabbit, or the one that Robert Conrad dared us to knock off his shoulder in the late 70s.
By now you are asking yourself three questions.
- Did I click on the right blog? I thought this was on Data Protection
- This guy is either drunk, stupid, or both.
- I didn’t know he was a musician…maybe I did.
Well, yes, it is about data protection, no, I’m not drunk, you’ll have to decide for yourself on the stupid part, and, yes, I do play and sing…it is quite fun and is a nice break from tech. Enough of that, back to the purpose of this blog.
The Research
Point is, years ago I started looking at the batteries I needed for my purposes and the research I did showed there was little to no difference between the big name brand batteries and the one we’ve known for over 110 years, Rayovac. The alkaline battery lasts as long as the other name brand ones and is manufactured right in Fennimore, Wisconsin. Even though the other batteries had other features that were very cool, like a tab to check the battery’s charge, or a claim that it will last 2x longer than the others (for 5x the price), or some fancy packaging idea that leads me to believe that I’m getting more for my money, when in fact, they all last as long as the others in the alkaline family, I still selected Rayovac because it does the job I need.
Show me the VALUE, the BUSINESS VALUE
What job do you need to be done? Simple backup? Do you have specific requirements like it must support VMware and/or HyperV? Do you need it to be agentless? What about Exchange or Office 365? What is the biggest factor in choosing a solution, is it the performance of the backup or is it the performance of the recovery? Do you need it to replicate to some other place? Does that place happen to be AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud? Are you looking for something to support your containerization strategy? Is DR critical to your decision?
I could go on and on and on…the point is we often buy, or should I say, “we are often SOLD” based on feature richness v. the competition, but if you don’t need all that “richness”, emphasis on the “richness”, where is the real business value for your organization? Why buy something you don’t need when what you need may be quite affordable, and a perfect fit for your organization? Sure, sure we all know about “future-proofing” your investment – and that’s great, but unless it aligns with your own company roadmap, the only future-proofing you are doing is helping the company and the rep who sold you the solution make their number. If you cannot show how the solutions you are considering will tangibly help the business meet its mission, then you are not delivering value to the business. Furthermore, if you are paying twice or 10 times for a leading solution that ultimately does the same thing as the lower-cost solution and you are not using most or all of those features that make it 10x the price, you aren’t showing true business value.
Throughout my career I have helped IT organizations identify ways to show business value from the solutions they are recommending. We call it Business-Centric IT, speaking your value in a language the business will understand and comprehend. Make smart decisions, not popular or trendy ones for your business and you will be respected as a trusted leader in IT.
By the way, in January of 2018 Energizer put a bid in to buy Rayovac from its holding company for $2B. Funny how that works.
David A. Chapa, signing off