In years gone by, when the domain of computing comprised of mainframes, multiplexers, terminals and not much more, PABXs were crossbar and call centres - where computing and telephony applications are most tightly integrated - had yet to become a recognised business unit, businesses and government departments managed their own IT.
It was a time when computing and communications environments (not that there was much in common between the two) were inherently heterogeneous, with enterprises dealing with each of a number of discrete vendors for those vendors' own products. These IT units selected the hardware and software products, integrated them themselves and developed the applications to use them.
As the computing environment grew more complex and began to encompass telephony, the requirements to interface these various systems and integrate their applications grew more. However, as in the days when interface standards were embryonic, interfacing already-purchased systems was often very involved and expensive. The demand for systems with a pre-purchase guarantee of their ability to be interfaced lead to some suppliers designating themselves ‘systems integrators’.
Systems integrators are typically vendors which retail a range of products from a number of developers, each of which, hopefully, can integrate with those of the others. These multi-vendor retailers, as they would be more accurately termed, are of benefit to those enterprises that would prefer to deal with fewer suppliers, and know that the various components those suppliers sell can be integrated. However, when they begin to use the slogan we deliver solutions, the claim implied by this slogan demands scrutiny.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with delivering actual solutions. However, the danger lies with the underlying one-size (or one-package) fits-all message which implies that, having chosen a systems integrator, there is no need for the enterprise to concern themselves with choosing specific systems, let alone with such matters as configuration and application design. The message is that if an existing customer requires a product, in any category, they are to buy the product that the systems integrator sells - without considering alternatives. The risk is that some users will actually buy into this message.
When an enterprise relinquishes its right to choose the best product for its requirements, it does so voluntarily. However, by not going through even an informal selection process that invites each of a number of potential suppliers of different products to compete for the business, the selected vendor will have had no incentive to shave their prices and find ways to optimally configure their products into an actual solution.
If the vendor was vying for the business against others, whether CTI software, an IVR system, or whatever, they would ensure that their product was configured to integrate with the less well known enterprise computer applications, or that it would perform that specific function sought. However, if bought without any of the disciplines of a competitive process, it is likely that it would perform these functions only with considerable difficulty and expense.
But the likely additional cost and less flexibility that is almost inherent with non-competitive selection are only two of the risks of buying we deliver solutions. As there will not be any out-of-the-box solutions until we have out-of-the-box businesses, an implementation and application development process is required to develop actual solutions for using such products as CTI, IVR and CRM. And this requires expertise on the part of the enterprise to intelligently liaise with the vendor to define requirements, scrutinise their work and perform sanity checks on their pricing. Whether provided by internal staff or external consultants, this expertise is necessary.
An organisation can outsource its call centres, telecommunications management, IT infrastructure, IT services, or the lot. It can also outsource its manufacturing, property management, distribution, sales, recruitment, and just about anything else. But it cannot outsource its strategy direction setting.
In a different, but parallel, context, David Suzuki argued that although a company could hire all the expertise it wanted, to answer questions related to science, and research and development, the board needed at least one member to ask the right questions. Similarly with IT, the using organisation needs persons, internal staff or external consultants, to ask the right questions.
An organisation that attempts to implement systems with neither, does so at its peril.
Stephen Coates is the author of the reports
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