From a member of Wellinformed.co.za

There is a plethora of IT solutions and services providers in the market who contact CFOs and CIOs of medium to large organisations on a regular basis. Each one of these providers have a "compelling value proposition" that they want to share with the executive in question. The question is, how does the executive decide on the best possible solution to effectively optimise the business benefits offered by their IT landscape. They do not have the time at their disposal to evaluate each one of these solutions. They are also quite aware of the fact that if you are dealing with a representative of ne specific company, it s rather difficult for the representative to be seen as unbiased because their sole intent is to sell their specific solution to generate revenue.

I believe the establishment of a central point of contact for multiple companies AND multiple IT services and solutions providers will solve the problem. The important thing is that this central point of contact is managed by someone with IT and business savyy who understands the requirements of business epople, the role that IT plays within organisations and the IT services and solutions providers in the market.

Some reasons why I believe this is a good approach is as follows:

- Multiple IT solutions and services providers get benefit of scale by accessing one central knowledge base
- If IT companies are recommended for an independent, unbiased source, they are more credible
- If managed properly, the IT companies can reduce marketing and cost of sale and pass this saving onto their customers
- Companies looking for software solutions can turn to one source who is independent and will provide the best possible advice
- Companies have access to a central knowledge base of IT solutions and services that will add efficiencies and value to their existing IT infrastructure
- Companies are contacted with information that is RELEVANT, concerning real value creation
- Companies are comforted by the fact that the IT solutions and services providers that are presented to them are credible, experienced, have a business proposition that is worthy of investigation and have a long list of existing customers that can be contacted for reference purposes