Huge over-arching mega-projects carry enormous risk, both financial and operational. They are more likely to go wrong, because of the additional complexity; and when they do go wrong the cost and damage is proportionately greater. The size and scale frequently precludes all but the largest suppliers, to the disadvantage of small and medium size suppliers. This both builds excessive dependence on a handful of suppliers and disadvantages the UK-based technology industry.
“Software purchasing needs reform. Right now the government ends up excluding most small and dynamic (and usually British !) companies due to the paperwork and hassle….” Alan, December 1, 2009, Make IT Better website
Hi
I agree small to medium sized suppliers with innovative ideas building customer loyalty is an excellent idea. What is required are standards for integration and interoperability. Government must concentrate on ensuring that standards are adhered to between systems on meta-data formats, transport mechanisms etc. This will ensure no matter who supplies the system it will be able to exchange data / information with another across organisational boundaries, Police Health and Local Government.
Regards
We must not confuse SMEs with good service innovation and flexibility for better value with SMEs with real technology break through innovation which needs to be adopted in contracts – large or small. Such technology innovation rarely comes from the large vendors indeed UK has a good reputation with such innovation but lacks the “buyer” to see widespread adoption to build our home grown global players. The proposed CIO “skunkworks” could quickly address this solving the problem of how to become the intelligent buyer?
The point about including smaller suppliers is very important and essential to maintaining a viable local industry.
However, do not get confused over what causes complexity and cost over-runs – it is large scale process change. Simply limiting individual project sizes will not eliminate complexity, cost and risk! Only smarter procurement, better project management and hugely better risk management will do that.
If you just put caps on project values and leave it at that then you will find that the ingenuity of vendors and the size of process change will lead to even bigger ICT over-runs, but in many little projects rather than a few big ones.
Hi,
I disagree with some parts of this with over a decade of experience in enterprise scale project I believe the issues in delivering large complicated project is quick and consistent decision making based on the application of a proven methodology by experienced leadership.
It feels like “open source” and “smaller supplier” are being used as a way of being less ambitious and not dealing with the root cause of the failures.
Using smaller suppliers with different technologies, methodologies, approaches and interfaces does not solve the root cause of the issues and is likely to compound the problems surly?
The ‘control shift’ process should empower organisations to take on their own small projects which can be then rolled out across the country.
The question should be what do suppliers have to gain? Ask a supplier to save 50% of a £2bn contract, they have £1bn to loose. Ask a small supplier to deliver the same project for £1bn, they have much more to gain from success.
Government should be willing to invest in innovative prototyping, but it must accept that every project carries a risk of faliure – and that along the line, some projects will fail. We need to make the case for trying alternatives, rather than sticking with what we have already done.
I agree with the above comment. _Unencumbered_ Open Standards enable a dynamic and diverse ecosystem of suppliers. No single vendor dominance either.