Reply to post: Is this normal in the IT world?

Your Agile-built IT platform was 'terrible', Co-Op Insurance chief complained to High Court

Commswonk

Is this normal in the IT world?

From the article: A £175m IT platform for Co-Op Insurance that was subcontracted out by IBM to a third party...

The above made me shudder a bit. When I worked for <redacted> (an Agency of the Ministry of <redacted>) we set up a contract (or more correctly a contract was set up on our behalf) for the nationwide maintenance of quite a lot of (non - IT) equipment. We then found that much of the work was then subcontracted to other businesses of which we had no knowledge whatsoever, which was a bit of a nightmare because of the serious security concerns it raised.

When the contract came up for renewal we managed to get the terms varied so that we had knowledge of those subcontractors in advance, which was a bit better, even if only a bit.

Perhaps my views are out of date (excuse; I am long retired!) but if I were to contract out a chunk of work I would expect the company winning the contract to actually do the work and not pass it on to subcontractors of whom I have no knowledge, or (worse still) I would specifically not want to be involved, perhaps because of previous experience with them.

To me a subcontracted contract rings the alarm bells very loudly indeed.

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