On a loading dock near his data center, an IT technician accepts a shipment of 18 new hard drives from his company's favorite PC vendor. He's in a hurry, so he doesn't bother to count them-nor does he remember that the original purchase order called for 20 hard drives. Three weeks later, he absentmindedly signs off on an invoice for 20 hard drives—an invoice that contains additional shipping charges and a penalty for any payment received after 15 days. The net result? After paying the costs of unshipped items and unnecessary late fees, the technician's company is now shelling out about 22 percent more than originally expected. On the other side of the data center, a telecom specialist glances over the company's monthly 25-page phone bill and signs her "OK to pay" at the top. She doesn't take the time to go through it carefully, because the bill is incredibly detailed, and the total seems to be approximately what the company paid last month. What she doesn't realize is that the phone bill contains fees for three features the company never uses, two overcharges for tariffed services and monthly tolls for six phone lines the company no longer owns. The company is paying about 35 percent more than it should.
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