Brian Sommer summarizes what he learned in a recent meeting focused around services procurement. I think he is far too generous about the sophistication in procurement practices around services.
This comment is particularly telling "No consistent definition exists for professional services or consulting. Sourcing executives find it tough to apply a single set of practices that apply to the full breadth of services that companies procure."
Just around IT services (as against legal or architectural services) there are distinct markets around contracting/staff supplementation, systems integration, application management outsourcing (and offshoring), infrastructure outsourcing, and BPO. The players are different (look at the different ways different offshore markets are evolving), the things to look for are vastly different (ITIL and utility models in infrastructure outsourcing versus time tracking around contractors), the price points are widely different. And markets are morphing as everything gets delivered "as a service" - so software, hardware, telecom companies all offer variants of IT services.
No single sourcing process or sourcing technology can handle it all. Or should be expected to handle a services market which totals spend of over $ 500 billion a year.
I know I am being critical of my own clients in saying so, but like I wrote here, I wish more procurement folks would treat IT spend, not just IT services, as very different from MRO or other direct spend, not just try to find homogeneous "solutions" . Lots of empty calories in the spend.
The good news is there are plenty of disruptive vendors and business practices and tools waiting to be leveraged. But they are often at sub-categories and niches of markets. Tough to discover them if you seek a "single set of practices".
"Because It's B2B"
I ran into Dana Blankenhorn at the HiMSS conference. And he remarked how little media there was at the huge conference. Then he suggested an answer. Because the event is "B2B".
And it hit me:
a) even in this political year, with health care getting lots of attention, MSM is not at this conference. Though with Eric Schmidt of Google keynoting tomorrow, it should draw a few more journalists. As I have written before, it's not a liberal or conservative bias, MSM just has a bias against B2B and enterprisey stuff.
b) The consumer - you and I - have so little say in the health care technology market. Solutions for hospitals, pharma and insurance companies galore, but few signs of consumerization in the various technologies on display. Of course, sites like WebMD are making the consumer smarter and Google is pushing its Personal Health Record but they are a rounding error compared to the investment in PACS, CDSS, eMAR and other vertical 4LAs which define the industry today.
More of a consumer focus would draw more MSM I would say both would be healthy for the health technology industry.
February 27, 2008 in Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)