Naked CIO: Oh great - an efficiency review

Sick of consultants knocking on your office door? The Naked CIO vents about the pointlessness of spending millions to save thousands.

Anyone who has seen the movie Office Space and remembers 'The Bobs' will no doubt be able to relate to the experiences my company is currently going through. Alternatively anyone who has been part of a restructuring or efficiency review will no doubt have sombre stories about the process and outcome.

My company, like many others, is part of a larger global enterprise. Currently there is a review by an outside company of all of our business functions to investigate and propose centralisation and consolidation opportunities. In short, we are paying a company millions of pounds to tell us how we can save thousands.

The Naked CIO

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For months I have been rambling about opportunities within our organisation that could save money and improve business functions, mostly through the effective application of automation and technology and through a full evaluation of business process. However, this is very different than the current exercise.

College grads no older than 25 years old are coming into my office, sending out in-depth surveys and professing best practice without an ounce of practical experience to back it up. Their philosophy stinks of short-term tactical cost-cutting and threatens long-term strategic benefit. They harbour preconceived notions that our organisation is inefficient and look only to facts that will support this theory. Essentially, they are ensuring a self-fulfilling prophecy in order to justify their overpriced and unnecessary services.

Am I bitter? No.

But I am profoundly frustrated that this process is non-inclusive and that the outcome seems to be decided.

My team and I have spent a great deal of time ensuring efficiencies and effective delivery of services to ensure our part of our company is consistently aware of and delivering value - yet in a world where consultants make money telling executives they can save money there is no appreciation of this work.

Their business model to save cost is simple - consolidate functions, outsource everything to cheaper labour markets, cut back labour until it bleeds and cut out layers of management. Their arrogance that we have not considered all of these options within our current environment is offensive. Yet the one question they do not ask is why we may have rejected these options - they only want the answers that will support their case and nothing else.

So these so-called experts come into our company and in a few months decisions made beyond my control will see many people jobless and essential functions outsourced and offshored. Functions will be consolidated, creating bottlenecks of service delivery that will cripple any ability to meet customer needs - and the reduction in staff will leave the organisation with neither the talent nor the resources to do anything about it.

Am I bitter? No.

I am sad. I am sad for my business and what will be left of it. I am sad for my staff. But most of all I am sad we will not be able to realise our goals of improving the function of IT and in turn become the stereotype of the ineffective IT world, not because of IT but because of executive leaders looking to save a few pence and not improve net worth.

Organisations need to learn that best practice and efficiencies come from hard work, good people and iterative processes of continuous improvement. Great organisations don't subscribe to consultant models of efficiency or cost savvy but rather the loyalty, culture and passion of the people that work for them.