System integrator market is 'huge, fat and lazy' - Specsavers CIO

Quality of service from systems integrators is at an all-time low, says Phil Pavitt

Specsavers CIO Phil Pavitt believes that the level of service offered by third parties is at an all-time low, and labelled the systems integrator market as "huge, fat and lazy".

In an interview with Computing, Pavitt said service providers were failing to innovate in order to improve their offerings, and as a result end users are bringing more of their IT in-house.

"Outsourcing partners' quality of service is the lowest I've ever seen. The innovations to improve it are very low and the investment is very low - and I've never quite seen such a poor part of the market," he said.

"The systems integrator market is huge, fat and lazy and I think people are starting to realise that and are asking tough questions - and they are not getting very good answers," he added.

Pavitt believes there are a number of factors as to why systems integrators have failed to live up to expectations, and said that customers are partly at fault.

"Systems integrators are very complacent, but customers are also very lazy - I think it is easy to roll over a contract, I think it is hard to stand up and say ‘that's not good enough', because you have to collect data and have much more of a commercial organisation internally. I think it's the kind of thing on a list of things to do that customers think of as ‘I don't want to do that'," he said.

And Pavitt suggested that the days when companies relied on "generalist" outsourcing providers are fast disappearing.

"[Previously] you could have people who could do everything but in the last few years, I [prefer] a more medium-sized systems integrator that is a specialist," he said.

An alternative would be a big systems integrator that has a specialist practice in a key area, such as the supply chain, he said.

This, Pavitt suggested, ensures better quality is being provided to the end user.

"I think companies are starting to think they can keep the more specialist things in-house. [They are asking] can I bookend it? Can I initiate change and can I assure the change and outsource the bit in between."

Specsavers' biggest partners include Accenture, IGATE and Oracle.