Frugality at Administrate
February 15, 2013
Note: This is a deeper discussion of the things we value and how we work. Read more about what we believe here.
Frugality is one of our core values at Administrate, and something we take seriously as an organisation. Simply put, we want every member of our team to treat company resources as if they were their own. We want to be mindful and intentional about purchases and expenditures, because controlling our own costs means we can pass savings on to our customers.
One of the great things about being a Scottish company is Scotland’s great tradition of frugality. There is plenty of great humour that goes along with this:
- Copper wire was invented by two Scotsman fighting over a penny!
- How do you disperse a Scottish mob? Take up a collection!
- The Scottish cure sea-sickness by leaning over the side of the ship with a ten pence coin in their teeth!
Humour aside, there is much to admire about our heritage, and we deeply believe that incorporating this into our company provides the following benefits:
- Lower prices for our customers.
- Deeper consideration of how we spend our resources generates better ideas for those resources.
- As the economy naturally ebbs and flows, we won’t find ourselves overextended.
- We don’t need dozens of rules and policies over expenditures – we simply ask team members to treat our money as their own.
- Extra money we have is spent on our products, returned to investors or spent on our employees.
- We spend more time automating than hiring, It’s hard to find great people and we prefer to get more done with smaller, more efficient teams.
- We value having the best tools and plenty of training and education for our staff as these save money in the long run.
Finally, frugality doesn’t mean cheap – often we’ll spend a bit more in the short term to ensure a better long term solution, fit, or approach. We also strive to be generous and help other companies, our customers, and each other whenever we can.
Want to learn more about how this affects you, or do you have a great joke to add to our list? Contact us!
Tags: values