Professionalising IT is a Computing campaign organised in partnership with Intellect, the technology industry trade association, to examine the status of professionalism in the UK technology sector.
We hosted a series of three roundtables involving many of the most influential figures in UK technology, to debate the issue and make recommendations for how to improve IT professionalism at all levels.
A culture of professionalism is central to the reputation of IT; it leads to better projects and more successful companies.
This week, in the final roundtable, we look at the role and responsibilities of IT suppliers in developing professionalism.
Improve supplier/buyer relationships
Traditional relationships between IT buyers and suppliers do not promote professionalism, say our experts. Typical models often create secrecy and confrontation and hinder partnership.
‘Current engagement models were built on massive contracts, which try to define everything,’ said Royal Mail chief information officer David Burden.
‘They may more or less reflect reality when you sign them, but are almost totally irrelevant two or three years later because technology and the services you need change. You need a model that captures the concept of understanding what needs to be done from a professional perspective.’
Consultant Richard Sykes says vendors need to move away from a situation where sales staff promise one thing, but the firm is unable to deliver.
‘To get more professionalism, we have to learn to merge selling, marketing and delivery into a more constructive process that ensures the right foundation to build close working partnerships to handle often very complex arrangements,’ he said.
Carsten Sorenson, senior lecturer in information systems at the London School of Economics (LSE) says it will not be easy to move buyers and suppliers away from old-style relationships.
‘It would be very difficult for people who have their experience in a traditional model, where it is very much a one-way street, and where you have certain points where a contract is specified,’ he said.
And Frank Tudor, director of supply, relationship and performance management at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), says the relationship between users and vendors is complicated and needs to improve on both sides.
‘It is change management; understanding how business works; coding; infrastructure. It’s steep, complex and scary to put within an IT professionalism box,’ he said. ‘But we, within the buying community, have to be equally professional, or it will fail.’
Accountability is vital
IT users often feel there is little sense of accountability from the individuals and organisations that supply their technology, according to the panel.
‘It is that sense of personal responsibility that we find missing in the IT industry,’ said Royal Mail’s Burden.
‘There is a sense of responsibility that somehow we haven’t managed to develop, which exists much more strongly in other professions. It is the sense that people working on the supply part understand how serious a moment of inattention or a failure to follow a procedure might actually be,’ he said.
John Woodget, managing director of Intel UK and president of Intellect, says that people often see a big IT failure and nothing seems to happen.
‘There is no evidence of negative consequences to the perpetrator of the failure,’ he said.
Woodget says that accountability needs to exist on both sides of the relationship.
‘We must be able to hold ourselves accountable to a set of high standards and we need to hold our customers accountable for the same set of high standards,’ he said.
‘If you can’t differentiate the ones who can from the ones who can’t, then you have a bunch of cowboys and they’ll turn the whole thing into the Wild West.’
Part of the problem is the lack of any benchmarks, which could be used to compare suppliers, says Stephen Darvill, a director at LogicaCMG and chairman of Intellect’s Professionalism Working Group.
‘There are no guidelines that say something is professional behaviour from a supplier or something else is not,’ he said.
Darvill says that the challenge of professionalism means a culture change in the people who work in the IT industry.
‘They need to create trust and know they are in a position of responsibity. They can’t just go home at 5pm and forget the fact they know there’s a bug in there,’ he said.
IT buyers must demand professionalism – it is not a contractual term
Businesses cannot criticise suppliers for a lack of professionalism unless they make it clear what they expect – and that means more than simply adding a clause to the contract, according to our experts.
‘When we start to say to suppliers, “If you have a historically poor performance then you’re going to start at minus 20 on the evaluation scale,” then maybe that will be a catalyst for real, fundamental change.
‘We buyers need to show the rest of the industry that we’re serious about getting this right,’ said DWP’s Tudor.
‘But, for me, it’s difficult to try to change those behaviours when we’ve spent months and months locked in combat across a negotiation table.’
Royal Mail’s Burden says that buyers are right to expect certain standards from suppliers.
‘When we deal with an IT supplier for things that are critical to our business, where the consequences may not be quite as serious as an aeroplane losing an engine, but are certainly potentially lethal for the business, we do expect certain things to be done,’ he said.
‘We don’t expect them to be written out in a detailed contract, but there is a level of professional standards around how you provide these kinds of services.’
‘The problem is a “we do what is in the letter of the contract” attitude rather than a duty of care.’
Tom Abram, chief executive of IT advisor Mantix, says some suppliers let the rest down by trying to win business at any cost.
‘There is always somebody in the industry who is crazy enough, incompetent enough or ignorant enough to bid for any contract, at any price, and probably fail to deliver it,’ he said
Intel’s Woodget says trust is essential. ‘You go to a professional because you trust them and if we don’t hold ourselves accountable for the work we do, we will never achieve the level of trust we need,’ he said.
Understand the causes of success and failure
The panel says suppliers need to understand why projects fail, but there is just as much to learn from good implementations.
‘The industry needs to analyse where those failures are and understand what went wrong.
‘It needs to work out how we can come up with a codified set of rules and processes, interactions and relationship maps, and define all the things that help achieve success and be able to say, “This is how professionalism in the IT industry works”,’ said DWP’s Tudor.
Mantix’ Abram says that to promote professionalism it is important to recognise that the IT industry does get things right more often than not.
‘There’s a vital ingredient in this professionalism initiative, and that is getting people to understand that we are an industry that does good, and that we should be respected for the good things that we do,’ he said.
‘We have to get people to understand the value that IT professionals bring to the economy and their lives.’
And Peter Buchanan from EDS says that if there were no professionalism, users would soon notice.
‘You have to behave in a professional manner. If you don’t, you would just repeatedly fail – and most of us don’t repeatedly fail. Most of our projects actually succeed,’ he said.
Collaboration is key
Professionalism will only take hold when everyone works together, says the panel.
‘The professionalism debate has to involve not only the firms and employers, but academia as well, and the government in setting education policy,’ said Mark Kobayashi-Hillary from the National Outsourcing Association.
Intel’s Woodget says that this means rival vendors must work together too.
‘We need the collaboration of competitive companies to look to the future and make that part of our professionalism,’ he said.
The IT supply chain is increasingly complex and the lines between vendors and users are becoming increasingly blurred, says LogicaCMG’s Darvill.
‘Somewhere in the supply chain, you and your organisation are a customer and a supplier to your users,’ he said. ‘Understanding those complex relationships and getting them right is one of the key parts of professionalism.’
LSE’s Sorenson says that the debate needs to consider how the nature of business relationships is changing.
‘We need to understand how professionalism can be expressed in a context that is not just formed by large opposing institutions,’ he said. ‘The complexity of the networks of relationships will just increase. It is no longer simply a large buyer and a large contractor meeting each other.’
Read the first two debates:
What the experts say:
Individual and corporate competency equal trust. It’s the soft skills around professionalism. It’s the relationship building, engendering trust, going that extra mile. It’s the soft piece of the jigsaw that will turn a collection of skills and competencies into a profession.
Frank Tudor, Department for Work and Pensions
Are UK IT suppliers professional enough for our industry to be held in high regard, trusted as critical for the future of the country and the individuals in society? The answer is no, we’re not.
John Woodget, Intel UK
Professionalism can create a more trusting environment, and then business becomes a lot cheaper.
Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, National Outsourcing Association
There is in some areas an imbalance of power. The supplier often has very much more power than the consumer.
David Bacon, Department of Trade and Industry
It’s one thing to lose out to suppliers abroad because of lower pay, but quite
another to lose out as they’re more professional and do a better job.
John Higgins, Intellect
On the one hand professionalism is very difficult to achieve; on the other hand, it is more and more important to do it.
Carsten Sorenson, London School of Economics
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