Report on a research visit to a multi-business company, UK

The visit was in pursuit of my research into software acquisition. The main points from the interview were:

• For the central IS department the aim is to add value to the business where it will do most good.
• Essentially the company buys packages. Occasionally they will source bespoke systems.
• One should think in terms of a procurement process, rather than a systems process
• Commercial skills are important, but people need also to be able to manage the process, the suppliers and the implementation. Not all these skills necessarily reside in the same person, but those involved must be able to communicate.
• There are differences between system procurement and other forms of procurement due to: the nature of systems, the breadth of knowledge required [for a range of different systems], the vocabulary
• They do not see a direct connection between "requirements" and "value" . There are of course examples where trade-offs can be made by adapting requirements. For example a system to support one of the businesses was originally costed at 20 days, but an adjustment to the requirements meant in could be done in 6. As another example, in a new system one bit of the system did not add to the software burden, but in practice would have taken three years to implement. It was taken out, with the proposers taking a "hit on the benefits".