Branch-office syndrome gets users offside

Poor levels of product support plague local CIOs who claim they are treated like a branch office economy while vendors focus on the core markets of Europe and North America.

The results of a survey of 257 senior IT leaders in a range of organisations in Australia conducted by CIO Magazine found local CIOs have a bigger bone to pick with the vendor community than their US counterparts.

Locally, 30 per cent of CIOs cite poor vendor support, service levels and product quality versus 16 per cent in the US where CIO Magazine surveyed 500 CIOs.

The figures are a reflection of the fact that many IT suppliers are US-based and the Asia-Pacific region typically accounts for only 2 per cent of a vendor's global revenue figures.

But CIOs claim this should be no excuse to neglect local organisations. Wattyl Australia IT manager Ian Rootsey called on vendors to get "fair dinkum".

“I would like to see vendors stand behind the product they’re selling and offer the support needed,” Rootsey said.

“I find that vendors in Australia are happy to sell the product, but not happy to provide support once the product has been sold.”

Gowings IT manager Shaun Stanyer agrees, believing it’s extremely difficult to get vendors to help with small problems with products.

“I find that vendors don’t have a large amount of contact with us; we usually have to jump up and down, and force communication with vendors to get them to address issues we have,” Stanyer said.

“It's easy to get vendors to pay attention when there are major issues that need to be rectified, but issues like using the system to improve productivity, which might mean a simple modification, usually requires more work to get a vendor to solve the problem.”

Except for the big-name industry giants, vendors often only have a sales office based in Australia with very few resources directed to product support, according to David Stevens, IT team leader at Gadens Lawyers.

“Most of the time we tend not to implement products from such offices as a general rule, as we prefer to look for vendors that have proven support on the ground, rather than a product supported by a few people in a branch office,” Stevens said.

Stevens said that, when Gadens Lawyers is negotiating a contract with a vendor, support tops the list.

“It’s critical for us to be able to provide a service to our users and our clients, and vendor support is important in providing this service.

“Suppliers and vendors need to be performance-managed, but basically at the end of the day companies are free to change vendors,” Stevens said.

“That’s the good side to the market, you can change to another supplier without changing the physical product already installed.”

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