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Australian Sourcing Interest Group Industry Awards
Wednesday 14 September 2007 - The South Australian Government and the combination of Rio Tinto and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) have been recognised for high-performance in the sourcing of information technology. They are the inaugural recipients of industry awards conferred by the Australian Sourcing Interests Group (ASIG).
ASIG is an industry forum comprising leading private and public sector organisations which meets on a regular basis to learn and share sourcing best practices. The awards were handed out during the conference dinner of ASIG’s sixth annual conference in Sydney on 13 and 14 September.
Mr Sandy Hollway, who coordinated the expert judging panel established by ASIG, said that impressive nominations had also been received for finalists, the Australian Customs Service, ANZ/Jones Lang Lasalle, ANZ/Carlson Wagonlit, the Commonwealth Bank/EDS, and Qantas/Amadeus.
"In presenting the award in the Leadership Category, Mr Peter Reynolds of the University of Melbourne said that the South Australian Government's next-generation sourcing deal exemplifies a focus on business outcomes and senior level engagement in decision making. The solution recognises that IT is now embedded into the business of government and provides agencies with flexibility and choice while enabling their overall IT transformation agenda."
Mr Don Easter, Managing Director of Edward W Kelly and Partners, presented the award in the Relationship Category. He said "Both Rio Tinto and CSC wanted to create a governance framework that lived their corporate values. Even though usual challenges arose, both parties have developed a process to implement their intent to collaborate. The spirit behind the agreement has significantly positively impacted on the execution of the outsourcing arrangement."
ASIG was created in 2001 in response to the growing interest by companies and government organisations in looking to external sources for supply of information technology and business processes.
“Organisations learnt, sometimes the hard way, that this is much more complex than a normal procurement deal,” Mr Hollway said. “Certainly that was our experience with the 2000 Olympics”.
Much of the initiative has come from two of the leading intermediary companies, ITNewcom and TPI, who sponsored the Sydney conference.
The theme emerging from the conference sessions is that outsourcing is now a well-established strategy for companies and for a substantial number of non-government organisations, many of whom are entering their second or third cycles.
“Both customers and service providers have learnt a lot” according to Brendan Welsh of ITNewcom. “The basis of a good deal, one which can sustain the inevitable pressures of time and change, is now much better understood “he said.
Arno Franz of TPI said that it was particularly appropriate that one of the inaugural awards should go to the best relationship between customer and vendor. “One of the big lessons,” he said “is that the best arrangements are driven not so much by the black letter law of contracts, but by a genuine partnership in which the user and the supplier work things through together”.
Speakers at the conference said that there was no choice but to accept the reality of offshore sourcing, notably by India but also in the future China. Rather than try to isolate itself, Australian business should turn this to its advantage in terms of reduced costs, capacity to be more competitive in world markets, and therefore to provide more sustainable jobs.
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