Company-Internal Store Software.

[swestrup]

I first had this idea a few years ago when I was doing the old 'If I ever own my own business' type of musing. I have had the frustration (more than once) of dealing with the bureauocracy inherent in trying to buy a new mechanical pencil, ruler or some quad paper while at work. Usually this involves going through one or more catalogs, circling items or adding sticky notes, getting approval for the list and handing the whole thing to a secretary who phones the items in to the store. Then, several days later, it all shows up in a large box with everyone else's purchase and you have to fight for the items you specifically requested because your cow-orkers never imagined they might want a pair of scissors.

It seems to me that this problem has already been 98% solved by online stationary stores. What is needed is a company-internal purchasing portal. Give each employee an online account with some fiddling small allowance -- $10 per month is probably plenty. Then, anytime an employee needs some stationary they just go to the intranet store containing pre-approved items and selects what they want. The cost is subtracted from their account and the order is automatically combined with all other orders that day and the items are ordered from the real website. Then, when the stuff arrives it can be checked against the generated order and folks can get their stuff by internal mail.

This would ensure that folks can get the supplies they need with little or no hassle, and if someone is frugal they can save up for a few months and buy a $35 white board for their office. Why not?

Comments

[sps.livejournal.com]

Because there will then be a hidden bureaucrat who is able to decide that purple pens and squared paper are not standard (I mean, who would use them for bookkeeping? Anyone who wants those must be stealing them for their kids!). So at very least there needs to be an open process for adding things to the vstore.

[swestrup]

Yeah, there needs to be a process for adding items, and dealing with notes about things that don't work or are never in stock, etc.