Computer Weekly readers' give their views
Building a broader vision for public services
IT
The statement with which you credit me in your article
"Whitehall calls shots on local IT" (Computer Weekly, 28 February)
is misleading. I did not say that local councils had "announced
plans for 130 shared services centres", but that across the whole
of central government and the wider public sector, we knew of
proposals which, if they were all to be implemented in their
current form, would produce an additional 130 shared services
centres. This looks like an overcrowded scene to me.
My point is that public service bodies need to look beyond their
own organisations at existing shared services options before
contemplating setting up their own. We are certainly not dictating
a particular solution from central government. But we certainly are
saying to all public sector bodies that we believe there are
benefits to be had from a shared service approach, and that the one
option that isn't really open is for organisations to choose to do
nothing.
John Oughton, chief executive, OGC
Ban tech talk in the boardroom for good of
IT
In response to the piece "IT still struggles with image in the
boardroom" (Computer Weekly, 7 March), the discrepancy between IT
and the boardroom has always been a difficult one to bridge.
Traditionally it has been tricky for senior executives to
understand IT and what it's trying to achieve, and difficult for IT
professionals to visualise IT from a business perspective. The
perceived complexity of IT can mean the board views it as an
ambiguous, unpredictable area of their business.
Much of IT will always remain a techy, back room process. But IT
needs that business translation in order to get board buy in. Many
of the issues and misconceptions around IT in the boardroom are
created between those speaking in tech speak and those who don't
understand it. Too many people still talk about technology in terms
of the products and protocols, rather than the business needs and
benefits.
Personally, I would ban the use of technology-related terms and
force my board to discuss the business requirements - let the IT
director worry about the technology and justify their chosen
direction in business benefits.
Adam Ripley, IS Integration
The need for planning is too often
neglected
Bola Rotibi rightly identifies the lack of joined-up thinking
between IT and the boardroom, regarding the creation and delivery
of the overall IT strategy (Computer Weekly, 28 February).
The absence of a "committed IT champion at board level" is an
all too common problem, and Rotibi's point that businesses focus on
immediacy and neglect IT's need for planning is spot on. Every IT
director will sympathise with the scenario of ever increasing time
pressures and budget constraints. Being forced to operate in a
break-fix mode makes it unrealistic to take the vital step back to
review how IT systems align with business goals, and deliver a
supporting, benefit-focused, IT framework.
However, whether it be lack of exposure to corporate goals or
lack of business acumen, IT departments are often oblivious to how
a well integrated IT strategy can have a significant positive
impact on business performance.
Karen Smith, 81G
Negotiate and monitor to avoid arbitration
Arbitration and litigation as an alternative means with which to
end an outsourcing contract that has gone wrong should really be
viewed as a worst case scenario (Computer Weekly 28 February).
These are extreme, unnecessary measures that could be avoided if
contracts are negotiated properly from the outset and appropriately
monitored.
Achieving an excellent business process outsourcing agreement is
not just about sound contract negotiation, but this is an important
starting point. Ensuring the contract retains its successful
perception throughout the business long-term requires a proactive
approach to managing the relationship between the business and
service provider.
If organisations are to maximise their relationship with a BPO
service provider or even just make sure they stay "on track", then
other key factors such as price performance, customer satisfaction,
levels of innovation and continuous improvement, risk management
and end-user satisfaction need to be identified, monitored and
actively managed against.
Making this broader performance management a fundamental
component of contract governance will be a key factor in
eliminating the need for contract termination, arbitration and
litigation.
Simon Lindley, Orbys Consulting
CRM cannot work if data is wrong or out of
date
I found Eric Doyle's article (Computer Weekly, 7 March) to be a
well presented case for considering CRM as a service.
But so important to consider in any CRM investment, is the means
by which you will ensure the quality of your customer data behind
the system. Bad data is most often cited as the reason for the
failure of CRM investments. According to analysts, each month 2% of
customer data records change, and 25%-30% of customer data held by
companies is wrong.
Regardless of whether you choose to rent CRM as a service or
host on site, the business value of this investment will be utterly
undermined if the data is riddled with duplicates, multiple records
for the same customer, or missing information.
Ed Wrazen, Harte-Hanks Trillium Software
Datawarehouses must cope with change
Deloitte's Mark Douglas is right to advise restraint in
heralding business intelligence as a panacea for business
performance (Letters, 14 February). But the failed data warehousing
investments of which he speaks cannot only be attributed to
over-inflated expectations.
Many firms attempt to self-build datawarehouses without a real
understanding of the difficulties involved. Large businesses change
at an incredible rate and most datawarehouses just aren't able to
cope. In many cases, once the datawarehouse project is deemed
"complete" it's almost redundant because the business has changed
so much. Thus the maintenance costs of keeping a datawarehouse
current far outweigh those of the initial set up, leading to this
negative perception and the high percentage of failures.
A successful datawarehouse accepts change as a constant and
takes a federated approach, breaking down the project into
bite-sized chunks.
Andy Hayler, Kalido
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