Don’t throw good money after bad on suboptimal software

Reversing a suboptimal business decision is rarely cost or pain free. But not rethinking a bad call is likely to be more expensive and unpleasant in the long term  

Scott Hyde, Event Hub co-founder

Imagine that, in early 2007, you bought a Blackberry Pearl 8100. Chances are you would have felt pretty pleased with yourself and taken every opportunity to show off the phone’s cutting-edge technology to friends and colleagues. You might even have pointed out that guy running to be the first African-American US president was also a huge Blackberry fan.  

Now imagine what you would have felt like in the second half of 2007 when the newly released iPhone was taking the world by storm.

Chances are you would have spent a lot of time trying to convince yourself that your Blackberry was just as good as the iPhone. Even after resigning yourself to the fact that the iPhone was far superior to any other mobile phone on the market, you probably would have told yourself you couldn’t possibly buy one. After all, you’d recently spent hundreds of dollars on a perfectly functional phone. Also, wouldn’t it be a hassle learning how to use an iPhone after years of doing everything on a Blackberry?

The sunk cost fallacy  
Humans are stubborn creatures who are notoriously reluctant to abandon a course of action after making an (emotional and/or financial) investment in it. This is such a common phenomenon that economists have a term for it – the sunk cost fallacy. A good read if your company is in this position.

The reason it’s called a fallacy is because those who fall prey to it fallaciously believe they will be better off persisting in their folly rather than writing off their sunk costs and starting afresh.

To continue with the phone analogy, rather than swallow their pride and allow themselves to enjoy the superior user experience offered by a smartphone, they insist on continuing to use a dumb one.

The iPhone of venue-and-event-management Software

I’ve detailed why Event Hub’s solution is superior to that of its competitors here and here and here. I won’t belabour the point here, other than to note the Event Hub’s software was created from the ground up and specifically designed with Australia’s venue-and-event-management industry in mind.

However, in the same way Blackberry soldiered on for another decade after the release of the iPhone (it transformed into a software company in 2017), I suspect Event Hub’s competitors will continue to find a market for their unimpressive Software for years to come. Like the ever-dwindling band of Blackberry users between 2007-2017, my competitors’ customers will be tempted to keep telling themselves it makes no sense to jump off the sinking dinghy and swim to the luxury yacht moored a couple of metres away.

Try taking emotion out of the equation

We all fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy in our personal lives. In most cases, no great harm is done. Those who held onto their old Blackberry, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia phones for years after Apple and Samsung began manufacturing smartphones didn’t suffer terribly as a result.

But the consequences of a business remaining committed to a deficient technology after its competitors have adopted a superior one can be severe. If you fear you may have backed the wrong System horse, it’s always wise to see what other options are now on the market then make a rational business decision that’s unclouded by ego or emotion.  

Event Hub can only help you so far with your Sunk cost issues. Read More here.

Teams, codes and venues that have already made the switch

A growing number of teams, codes and venues – The Parramatta Eels, The Western Sydney Wanderers, the new Alliance Stadium, McDonald’s Stadium, the T20 World Cup, the NRL, the Sydney Kings, the Melbourne Renegades, Melbourne United, Cricket Victoria, Qudos Bank Arena, the SCG, ICC Sydney, Optus Stadium and GIO Stadium Canberra – now use Event Hub’s SaaS solution.

They do so because it delivers exactly what they need when they need it from the get-go and removes the need to bring in pricey consultants and software developers to retrofit inadequate technology. Event Hub guarantees it can provide a cheaper and better venue-and-event-management solution both short-term and long-term.

If you’d like to have a confidential, no-strings-attached chat about what Event Hub can offer your organisation, please make an appointment here.