[LINK] IDC lukewarm on federal outsourcing overhaul

[Jan Whitaker]

At 03:09 PM 17/01/01 +1000, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
>So - good management saves more money than outsourcing. Which might suggest
>that the reason the billions of savings didn't happen was because gov.au
>computing was efficient and well-managed...

I agree with the basic premise, that the actual situation is a series of 
complex and interacting variables.  But I hope your tongue was firmly 
planted in cheek on that last statement!  It's as bad to stereotype the 
good view as it is the bad.  I reckon that there is always room for 
improvement, but keep in mind the 80/20 rule, about 80% of the gain is 
achieved from the first 20% of effort.  Anything after that is regressively 
advantageous.  In other words, the marginal increase in whatever isn't 
financially viable. In that case, sometimes 80% can be good enough as long 
as it's not heart surgery or dropping bombs!

It's always easier to be an armchair critic [speaking of myself here on 
this issue and not living inside that environment], but that's another 
reason that outsourcing can provide some advantage for *some* things - if 
you can get the outsourcer to provide this:  skills transfer; and the 
agency has someone to transfer the skills to!  All or nothing thinking and 
ALL government vs department level decision making seem to be a key lessons 
to gain from this exercise.  I wonder if they will be learned?

Jan

JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@primenet.com  --  http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm