[ Date Index ][
Thread Index ]
[ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Adrian Midgley wrote: > > "The public sector needs its vendors or some other single source > of expertise," he explained. Such hand-holding needs to be and > to be seen to be professional, expert and available at all times > with immediate answers. " > > From The Register. > > He is not wrong... As pointed out it is available, and selling well according to IBM. I think there are general issues with government purchasing that make it very hard for organic growth of small vendors/suppliers. I've tried to compete for government projects that mandated 2 CISCO certified engineers to a very high level of certification, even though the proposed solution featured no CISCO kit what so ever, and would have involved cheap free software based appliances that didn't require a guru to (buy!) install or operate. In the end the public sector buys from the SEMA's and EDS's of this world, who supply the cheapest person they can to fulfill the contract requirements and buy in expertise from small companies and individuals on an "as needed" basis. This puts at least two (and usually three or more) layers of ass covering burocracy between the users, and the people who understand what is technically possible. Also these companies have established relationships with current suppliers, and so the bosses will continue to specify what they have done before until something major happens like they are no longer competitive at the bidding stage. Innovation in such circumstances is usually when the techies get called in 12 months down the line, and say "why not do it this way?", but there is no way after a huge 1,000,000 pound bid a SEMA or EDS is going to say, oops we found a way to do it for 15,000, here is the extra 985,000 quid back (less several hundred grand for administrative costs). Whilst we'd like to argue that it is a risk calculation, very few companies have any concept of proper risk management in IT projects, in the software world we dealt with only a handful of companies who had any meaningful quantification of risk (usually project deadline related). In most cases it is just inertia, and ignorance, "lack of support" is just a convenient excuse that is used to hide the fact that people didn't even bother exploring the option. Bidding for big government contracts is a nightmare in itself. One project I was vaguely involved with submitted two volumes of detailed plans on how it would meet a software projects requirements, I estimate about 1 man year of skilled work went into the bid process, cost circa 60,000 GBP. We were underbid by a few percentage points. Result, well I lost a couple of grand in opportunity cost, training and train fares, fortunately it was a "consortium" and I wasn't heavily involved. Some companies have the resources to keep bidding for these contracts, and survive off the percentage they win, most small companies are better off dealing with private sector companies with simpler procurement procedures. Often the public sector purchasers have a product or vendor in mind, but are forced to open it to bidding by law, in many cases trying to compete in these is pointless. But you have no way of knowing if the bid you are entering is for one of these, as the rules are specifically designed to prevent it being admitted, so you have to read between the lines. At one point I got quite good at recognising which of our competitors products the purchaser really wanted, but it is an uphill sales pitch even so. Worse still potential competitor see the NHS and MOD with MS enterprise licencing agreements and think, why bother trying to sell to these people, when they have already paid for the competitors products! Don't get me wrong, a lot of big companies also have equally closed or demanding procurement procedures, but as soon as you put a 60,000 pound procedural barrier, the project cost has already reached 250,000 to cover the cost of similar failed bids, before any work gets done on the goal at hand. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE++tsHGFXfHI9FVgYRAjyzAJ43Q3C2Rn/fOqDQibLrJptQqVktOwCg04iU P3U60xplxIhi1VzES/M0vUQ= =gcD1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.