ICT Procurement a root cause of technology failures

The procurement and deployment of any new technology has a profound impact on a business and the acquisitions are often of strategic importance as they seek to deliver a means for some form of cost, or other, competitive advantage.

The selection and sourcing of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) poses a serious challenge for most organisations and countless bad decisions have led to failed projects. In fact, statistics show that almost 80% of ICT projects fail to meet the expectations of those areas of business that commissioned them.

We need to ask the question: Why is this so?

A number of reasons can be proffered:

Firstly, procurement and financial departments are often unfairly tasked with procuring new ICT tools whilst being ill-equipped to do so. In addition, the selection of an appropriate technology tool is by no means a trivial exercise and without the correct mix of expertise in the selection team key issues are easily overlooked.

Secondly, in reality, the influencing skills of a specific technology vendor account for a far greater percentage of the weighting of the decision made than does the intrinsic capability of the actual system itself. Organisations that make decisions primarily using a Type 2 decision-making style (Political) are most at risk as the influencing often leads to "corner cutting "during the decision making process. This increases the risk of failed expectations as the system fails to deliver due to a flawed purchasing decision.

Finally, the evaluation process is not inclusive of all the key elements needed to make a correct decision, ranging from an understanding of strategy to business process and operational requirements.

What is required for a solid technology procurement project is that it starts with developing an understanding of the various business & divisional strategies and the ensuing process & operational requirements. The fit-to-business and technical architecture flow from this. A shortlist of selected potential products that comply with the functional and architectural roadmap can then be completed. This should be followed with a thorough evaluation process that includes pilots, RFP's and other evaluation tools. Contracts should only be entered into once a satisfactory pilot is concluded. Investing in such a thorough and well thought-out effort upfront will avoid costly mistakes and ensure that the potential for realizing maximum value exists.