In the late 90′s I headed up technology for an investment banking firm doing mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Our success attracted Smith Barney and we were acquired in 2001. I learned a lot about compliance and regulation while integrating into Smith Barney. Shortly after 9/11, the Patriot Act went into full effect. As a bank, we were required to know who our customers were. The regulation was called ‘Know Your Customer‘ – KYC for short. I won’t try to remember all the details, but essentially KYC meant that you had to have some sort of identification process and a “file” on each of your customers. It was designed to avoid anonymous banking transactions from funneling money to the bad guys.

Today I encountered ‘Know Your Customer’ in a different context. Late last week an employment offer was accepted by an individual who’ll be joining us shortly. As we do with all new hires, at blist we buy whatever gear you need to do your job well. When a candidate accepts a position, I just ask them to send me the laundry list of equipment they need to be here the day they show up. There’s no judgment. Do you want a Mac? Fine. You want a PC running Vista? No problem. Do you want a laptop with VMware? Ok. You need a 24″ monitor? That’s fine too.

The new hire wants what looks to me like a pretty vanilla, standard issue HP laptop. He courteously sent me a link to buy it online from HP. When would you think most computers are purchased? Yep, you guessed it – just before a new hire joins. I know this in part from my job heading up technology at the M&A firm. Twice we bought 400 PC’s to re-equip everyone with new hardware, but other than that we would always buy whenever we hired someone new. The PC manufacturers including HP have to know this. So how disappointing is it that HP’s online ordering system tells me that the vanilla, standard issue laptop I’m ordering will be released to build on 4/21/08 – two weeks from today. Adding for build time (2-3 days) and ship time (2-3 days), that laptop isn’t going to arrive within the customary 2-weeks notice period that people give when leaving their old job.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the table stakes in the PC business are being able to have a computer delivered within 10 or 11 of days of being ordered. It seems really obvious. If most people give two weeks notice and most companies buy PCs when new employees join, then PC manufacturers would figure out how to hit this goal.

When you try to buy something on Amazon on 12/20 it tells you, “You have 1 day, 13 hours and 9 minutes to order if you want to receive your gift before Christmas.” Amazon gets KYC. HP not so much.