March 23, 2014

This RFP for an Human Resource Management System (HRMS) for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is a classic.

PDF here: http://bit.ly/1nQPQQG

This is an opportunity to deliver a payroll, roster management and timekeeping solution for a prestigious agency. Solutions can be delivered using monolithic enterprise-y stacks or modern open platforms. 

But alas, “modern & open” options will not be presented to the selectors given the following restrictions:

- Companies should have presence in India for at least 10 years.

- Company should have a staff strength (full time and not contractual) of above 1000 in India with at least 200 resources (full time and not contractual) involved in HRMS application module implementation.

The award will go to an Indian IT major, who will throw an army of Java developers at the problem, buy a monster stack of Oracle licenses and deliver a bloated, overpriced, proprietary solution that may or may not deliver actual value to the agency.

We’ve seen this story unfold many, many times here with Western democracies. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS), the US Healthcare.gov crisis, and at city level with NYC’s CityTime project. 

Huge companies, with tens of thousands of employees, decades of experience and specific implementation skills took on those projects and still endured cost overruns, atrocious delays and delivered sub-optimal solutions. Heads rolled, regardless of reputation. 

The Government of India (National/State/Local) can consider improving technology procurement by:

• Writing concise RFPs that detail out the problems and limitations of their current operation. Mention the existing technology stack (if it exists) but don’t constrain responders to solely extending on that stack. Allow bidders to pitch enterprising approaches to your problems. Those who want to stay in the box, will.

•  Dropping ancient restrictions around experience, team size and revenue. In the end, open procurement & transparent implementations are the ultimate resiliency strategy. Small teams of talented and motivated people can do a LOT for Government and society. They collaborate better, deliver cohesive solutions and embrace change. 

• Embracing that things change. Smaller procurements, incremental improvements in capability and complexity are better than multi-year, multi-million dollar initiatives that lose momentum and go nowhere fast. Technology stacks change. Requirements change. People change. Nimble procurement is essential. 

• Procuring platforms with the intent to reuse. Is HR management particularly special for Banks? Can such platforms be extended and adapted for other agencies that have similar use-cases? The answer here is YES.

The US is already adapting and learning from past blunders. A new initiative by the GSA called 18F, empowers talented techies to change the way procurement is requisitioned, discovered assessed, selected and overseen. It has the potential to be a game changer. 

“Technology Procurement” in the next 20 years will have to consider advancements in AI, Robotics, Big Data, Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things.

The impact each one of these advancements can have on the lives of everyday citizens is massive. It is imperative that the people & processes around such procurement be open, adaptive and rational. 

India can repeat or leapfrog a generation of mistakes. I hope administrators take an objective look at the status quo and make informed choices.

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