Battered IT suppliers looking to the public sector as a new
gravy train are in for a rude shock. The climate there has changed
drastically over the past year or two.
In recent weeks, government's exasperation with the supply side has
exploded. The IT industry has chanced its arm too far. The
one-in-four failure rate for IT projects is now unacceptable, and
the furore stirred by the Microsoft software licensing debacle of
2001 was a catalyst to strengthening demands for interoperability.
Even the future of public private partnerships for IT projects is
being profoundly questioned.
Government's message to IT suppliers, particularly prime
contractors, is simple: don't lie about your capabilities; inject
real value into projects during their lifecycle; and regulate
yourselves.
Whitehall now has on board poachers turned hard-nosed gamekeepers
such as Peter Gershon of the Office of Government Commerce or
Richard Granger of the NHS to help ensure this. They aim to stamp
out the all too prevalent practices of knowingly over-egging
claims, taking on unreal commitments, and mismanaging risk
assessments, which doom many projects to failure while the ink on
the contract is still wet.
Prime contractors now need to add real value by encouraging the
small and medium-sized IT suppliers that do the bulk of the work to
feed innovative ideas through to the overall programmes.
Self regulation among IT suppliers is an oxymoron, their trade
associations invariably stating they are membership, not
regulatory, bodies, but there is real pressure building for the
industry to get its act together. The army of IT supplier secondees
within government will doubtless be making that message
clear.
True, many in Whitehall remain oblivious that IT success requires
process and culture change; civil servants often buy on short-term
cost rather than long-term value; and some invoke data protection
and other legislation as brakes to inter-departmental data sharing.
But the tide has turned. The trough is drying up.