Thomas Jakob
CEO
T-Systems Singapore

THESE days, ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) services occupy a key position within the business processes of most companies. The majority of businesses are simply not able to function any more without e-mail services being available, the financial (ERP) systems working, and communication lines between HQ, sales offices and manufacturing plants being up and running.

As a result, expectations from management for such services are generally high, while it appears that the propensity to allocate sufficient budgets to the CIO (if existing at all) is often still lacking.

There continues to be a lack of strategic attention within companies especially in the Asia Pacific region concerning such mission-critical systems. The result is often that services get purchased at the cheapest price possible, resulting in complaints about poor quality, lack of flexibility, and implementation delays.

Companies actually need to realise the significant opportunity costs they are exposing themselves to by not having a well-equipped CIO function that has the abilities to develop a strategic ICT roadmap for the company and can monitor, adapt and steer the implementation together with external service providers.

Service providers, on the other side, can certainly help in this process by developing a better understanding of their client's business and working with them closely to devise the most effective and cost-efficient ICT strategy.

Sam Yap SG
Executive Chairman
Cherie Hearts Group

IT PROJECTS not yielding the desired outcomes are largely a result of companies underestimating the total cost of ownership, which in addition to the initial outlay, includes hidden costs such as that of integrating the project with the existing system and training for staff.

Besides, companies, before embarking on a project, must be clear on what their aim is and how it gels in with their overall strategy. They should not be jumping on the IT bandwagon just because others are doing so, without clear consideration of their individual needs.

On the side of IT vendors, after-sales service is of paramount importance. It is, after all, not merely the installation of the system, but the entire follow-through, including maintenance and training, that determines the success or failure of the project.

Peter Rigbye
Managing Director
PASR Technologies Pte Ltd

WITH experience in working on Global 500 accounts for DEC, Compaq and HP in the Asia Pacific and now with a Singapore company, we find there is a large gap in the market between clients' expectations, deliverables, the effort required to deliver the solution, and a customer's willingness to pay the price necessary to achieve the result.

This has been engendered by the market machines that exist with large IT product companies that have sold the plug-and-play concept. The reality is different, especially when the user requires a solution that is not out of the box. It comes down to project engineering negotiation - agree on the scope and argue on the price, or agree on the price and argue on the scope, it's not new. Our experience is that in the Asia Pacific, both approaches are frequently used.

Leon Perera
Group Managing Director
Spire Research & Consulting Pte Ltd

SURVEYS indicating dissatisfaction with IT project implementations are not new. All too often, IT vendors under-estimate the time needed to come to terms with customers' legacy systems. Customers are also partly to blame by encouraging IT vendors to quote unrealistic cost and time targets to win competitive tenders.

To address the problem, customers should be willing to pay for proper diagnosis and consulting to audit current systems, pin-point gaps and propose broad solutions. This activity should be separated from the actual shipment and implementation of the solution and should be costed separately. This would reduce the risk of vendors under-investing in diagnostics. Secondly, contracts should be in place to penalise late or inadequate delivery. A combination of these two approaches would help ensure more realistic goal-setting as well as greater seriousness in delivering on those goals.