IT procurement and data – making it work for your business

This encompasses not only customer-facing websites and online ways of doing business, but also the back office servers, telephony and hardware which keep the business operational.

As well as the tangible IT systems, the data which is stored on and collected by those systems is an increasingly valuable asset and which must be treated accordingly.

Robust and reliable systems are crucial to enable business to operate and to ensure your data is secure, whether procuring new systems or when taking a critical look at your current architecture and whether this meets your needs.

IT procurement can be complex and there are a myriad of options and suppliers in the market place, but keeping a few golden rules in mind, will help you to successfully install or transition to new systems:

• take up references and do your due diligence with previous customers of the supplier(s) you are thinking of working with;
• keep your requirements clear, both internally and with the market you are going to, and don’t lose sight of that;
• if you have a large scale procurement, run a competitive process to maximise the best possible price and terms with suppliers;
• what does your current operating system (if applicable) look like? How easy can you terminate those arrangements? what assistance do you need from your current suppliers to transition to a new operating system? Timing of this cut-over will be crucial to ensure no loss of service and may require both old and new suppliers working hand in hand for period of time;
• where possible, future-proof to ensure you have the capacity to scale up (or down) and that any restrictions (for example, licensing, numbers of users and geographical restrictions) do not hamper you going forwards;
• deal head-on with what will happen if things are late, if they don’t work or if there’s a combination of both;
• agree service levels for the live service together with robust reporting and governance processes – successful projects tend to be those which are properly and well managed from the outset;
• build in obligations to refresh the technology and to look at ways to continually improve the service.

Once you go live and your new system is operational you still need to consider the data you hold, how it must be treated and how this potentially valuable asset can be exploited.

The technical and organisational measures you employ to protect and secure the data you hold and process are not only best practice but also a legal requirement where that data is ‘personal’ data.

Awareness of data protection law and regulation (together with high profile breaches) has meant that data protection has become increasingly important on the corporate agenda and, whilst businesses need to ensure they comply these requirements, the use and exploitation of data which businesses hold, can create competitive advantage and enhance and build customer loyalty.

When it comes to marketing, it is key to make sure you have the appropriate permissions in place (or, if you are buying data in, that the seller has these) and that you comply with the applicable regulation depending on whether you market by post, phone, text or email.

The use of IT and data can keep you a step ahead but beware the issues to ensure that you get what you want.