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19 Oct 2009
Sir Peter Rigby has slammed the government’s procurement process, branding it ‘flawed’ and unfair on smaller businesses.
Speaking in a Q&A session at CRN’s Channel Conference in Northamptonshire last week, the chief executive of SCH Group hinted that he hoped a new government would signal a change in attitude to IT procurement.
“The industry is at a juncture and about to see a change of government,” said Rigby. “This government has missed a huge opportunity in IT with too many large projects and contracts going abroad.
Further reading
“The whole procurement process is flawed. There are only five or six firms
that can afford to go after big contracts. We were involved in an Environment
Agency bid it meant working with a large integrator whose costs were £7m over
14 months. The cost to SCC was £0.5m to £0.75m. You have to think before you
chase a contract like that. It gets to a point where you cannot engage because
it is so vast.”
Rigby said the future government needs to re-exa-mine how contracts are awarded.
“It must break contracts in-to more manageable entities,” he said. “If we want to retain the industry in this country we must elevate ourselves in the eyes of the government. I am determined to get smaller businesses involved with national projects.”
Nigel Taylor, managing director of VAR Taylor Made Solutions agreed. “We won an NHS contract through a European tender with the promise of extra work off the back of it. But to get it we had to go through a procurement process that was so rigid it was not worth it.”
Click here or a summary of the full interview.
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