Improve delivery and cut costs now, IT directors warn suppliers
- Posted:
- 14:34 14 Jun 2004
Users show the yellow card on
interoperability, standards, reliability and
partnership.
Leading IT directors last week threw down the gauntlet to
suppliers, urging them to make greater efforts in meeting the needs
of corporate users.
Top of the list of demands were greater interoperability of
products, the use of more open standards, the delivery of more
mature products and a genuine commitment from suppliers to deliver
the partnership ethos they talk about.
The IT directors spoke exclusively to Computer Weekly at the annual
meeting of Tif, the Corporate IT Forum, which represents the IT
departments of Britain's leading businesses.
Kevin Lloyd, chief technology officer at Barclays, said the bank
was focusing sharply on quality in 2004. To achieve this, it had
reduced the number of suppliers it was using.
"We work with fewer suppliers and we expect genuine collaboration,
interoperability, better systems driven to standards and
right-first-time delivery to an agreed time and budget," said
Lloyd.
Mike Croucher, head of IT delivery at British Airways, said
suppliers must improve the interoperability of their
products.
"A lot of suppliers need to look at the quality of what they do in
the interfacing of standard products. They have to think broader
than their own product base," he said.
Ross Taylor, manager of IT services at Powergen, said suppliers
"cry out for partnership but need to understand and articulate what
partnership means in reverse - for the users".
The key issues for users are changing, he added. There is an
increasing focus on flexibility, successful implementation and
reliability and on suppliers meeting users half way. "There are
examples of good suppliers doing that, but others fail," he
said.
Jose Eiras, chief information officer of General Motors Europe,
echoed the user determination to drive up the service they receive
from suppliers.
Speaking at the Economist Conference CIO summit in London last
week, he said that the car giant was using its outsourcers to
maintain pressure on its suppliers.
"General Motors is completely outsourced. Suppliers need to work
with our outsourcers and with other suppliers to deliver services
to us. Suppliers need to do things in a standard mode and work with
other suppliers in a standardised way," he said.
David Roberts, chief executive of Tif, said suppliers not only had
to improve delivery but also cut costs to users.
"Suppliers have to change. They have to provide what they are
providing currently at a much lower price," he said.
Microsoft's decision to extend the guaranteed lifecycle of its
products to 10 years (Computer Weekly, 1 June) was an example that
other suppliers should follow, he added. Microsoft is "showing that
it is listening to key customers in large companies," he said.
Gough: bring your IT back home
The head of one of the UK's largest IT user organisations has launched a broadside against user complacency. He has accused businesses of using outsourcing as the easy option.
Michael Gough, chief executive of the National Computing Centre, which has a membership of over 1,000 user organisations and owns the Institute of IT Training and CIO-Connect, urged users to hang on to IT facilities and bring application development back in-house.
"I am calling for less outsourcing and for users to regain control of the competency to manage information and use it to develop the business," he said, speaking at the Economist Conference CIO Summit last week.
"IT as a commodity is a misconception put about by the outsourcing industry. Machines and networks are commodities, but identifying requirements and building value-added applications are not - they are a source of competitive advantage."
Gough said there is too much emphasis on cost reduction over gaining business advantage. "If British firms do not shape the way they use IT, suppliers will do it for them. There is a choice to be made: cost or competency.
"It is time users took control of their destiny and brought
business applications in-house. That would be a welcome impetus to
the UK's prospects of being the leading knowledge economy."
More Computer Weekly coverage of the Corporate IT Forum
conference:
Compliance costs 40% of budget >>
Consolidation is blue chips' priority >>