Phillip Overmyer
Executive Director
Singapore International Chamber of Commerce

MANY companies today outsource their IT projects for a variety of reasons, such as focusing on their core competencies, freeing up internal resources, accessing available expertise, and accelerating time to market.

I believe companies can still maximise the benefits of outsourcing without getting caught in a rut with unfinished jobs and wastage of valuable resources. Our members tell us that run-of-the-mill IT tasks such as web hosting, data storage and database administration are best left entirely to dependable third-party vendors. This is to help companies lessen the burden of directing precious time and resources in these "lighter" projects. However, for critical fundamental IT projects, companies should play a more participative role and maintain regular checks and balances throughout the entire project to eradicate any unnecessary nasty surprises. This is also good practice to ensure that the project is kept to the recommended timeline.

No doubt IT projects fall under the purview of the CIOs and CTOs, but I strongly advocate that CEOs have to know that IT projects are not just a purely technical issue but are essentially a business decision as well. CEOs should look to equip themselves with some basic knowledge of these projects, be active in the decision-making, and if possible, be made aware of the implementation process. Eventually, an IT decision should be viewed as a business decision because it is at the end of the day a financial investment which cannot be ignored.

Ng Kong Yeam
Group Executive Chairman
Sino-America Tours Corporation Pte Ltd

ALL companies in Singapore must have an IT department with an efficient IT officer who will ensure that as and when the companies source for IT projects, the IT officer will be able to make sure that the IT projects will lead to more satisfactory outcomes.

IT vendors in Singapore must improve their performance to satisfy their customers. IT or ICT has changed the way of doing business in the world; Singaporeans unfortunately did not enjoy a grand gain of profitability in the IT business. IBM, Dell, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, eBay, Amazon, AOL, etc, have made so much money from IT technology in the last two decades. The Singapore government must encourage Singaporeans to enter IT businesses in whatever way the government thinks fit.

Deb Dutta
Vice-President of Asia Pacific/Japan
Brocade

MY BELIEF about successful projects, any project for that matter involving multiple parties, is all about setting right expectations and good communication. Expectation regarding scope, timeline, budget, back-ups & contingency, resources, down-time (if any) et al. Add to that great communication at all times during the life cycle of the project to keep all the stakeholders on the same page.

This calls for significant skills and track record to ensure consistent results. Most often, in-house IT executives handling internal IT projects possess the requisite skills but fall short in their end-to-end implementation experience, which leads to wrong expectations, sub-optimal planning, inadequate communication and insufficient resilience which are all detrimental to the success of the project.

I also believe that leaders in the outsourcing field 'tell' their customers what to do (based on their experience and track record of success in the customer's industry vertical) rather than 'ask' what the customer wants, while at the same time also accommodating any specific nuance that the customer wants addressed.

Customers want to talk to domain expertise providers who know their stuff and can 'take charge' to provide advisory services or even hands-on guidance throughout the entire implementation. Honestly speaking, even the customer in many instances does not know what he/she wants at the end of the project.

Tan Yen Yen
Managing Director
HP Singapore

COMPANIES need to ensure that their requirements for IT projects are properly defined from the onset and these projects can adapt quickly to changing business priorities.

Their IT departments should be able to capture all end-user requirements and prioritise them against the available time, resources and budget; and monitor the health of applications from the business point of view and then act to address problem areas.