The paralysing effect of bureaucracy

We would never behave like this, would we?

We have all become accustomed to dealing with the insanity relating to almost any interaction with bureaucracy and we all rail against this stupidity. Maybe we should not be so quick to point fingers, as I have recently encountered this same stupidity in dealing with a few local suppliers in the private sector.

What would one consider a reasonable time for a company that makes, lets say doorknobs, to provide a quote to supply a number of additional doorknobs, the same as previously supplied by them?

Try three weeks and at almost three times the price that I had, by then, sourced the identical item from another supplier. The main difference between the two companies -

• The company that supplied us, owns only one store and their service is fantastic.

• The company with the three week quote period, is part of a national chain and in dealing with them I gained the impression that they were doing me a favour to even speak to me.

One of the lessons we can learn from this - It is the fast that eat the slow, not the big that eat the small.*

* - There is an excellent book by Jason Jennings & Laurence Haughton "It's not the Big that eat the Small, It's the Fast that eat the slow