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Article: Just Like Building a Home

October 27, 2008

If you were setting out to build your dream home, would you hire a general contractor who had never built a home before? Or, worse yet, would you oversee the construction yourself?  Unfortunately, New York’s state and local governments often go it alone for their major Information Technology acquisitions.

Most people who decide to build a new home know very little about housing construction, so they hire a general contractor.  A contractor brings experience, knowledge, and a proven process to the project, ensuring that the home is built soundly and within budget.  The contractor’s work starts well before the first brick is laid, and ideally before the blueprints are even drawn.  The contractor works closely with the homeowner to fully understand the buyer’s needs and to incorporate those needs into a vision for success.  Only when the buyer’s needs are fully understood and documented are bids put out for the work.

The general contractor understands the complete project requirements and all of the small details necessary to meet them. The contractor makes sure that all of these details are integrated in an efficient manner. For instance, the work of the framer, plumber, electrician, and wall boarder must be coordinated. If each of these vendors were hired separately and allowed to work independently, the project would be a disaster.  The heating contractor might not find an outlet for the furnace or a gas line plumbed to it.  The plumber might be unable to hook up the washing machine because the electrician failed to provide an outlet in the right place. With no one coordinating the overall plan and guiding its implementation, each vendor would need to perform considerable additional work at considerable additional cost.

Clearly the general contractor provides an essential service.  The contractor becomes the homebuyer’s trusted advisor, ensuring that the project is finished on time, within budget, and to the buyer’s specifications.

NYSTEC assumes the role of the general contractor for state and local agencies and other clients who are acquiring expensive technology systems.  Our role is to understand and document the system requirements, help develop the specifications, ensure that bids are properly evaluated, and oversee the project to its successful conclusion.  We use our extensive experience, knowledge, proven process, and lessons-learned to guide the client’s implementation team from start to finish.

Without such assistance, the likelihood of success is minimal and the client is faced with potential delays, cost overruns, incomplete specifications, or complete failures.

Just as you shouldn’t risk building your own home without a general contractor, New York State should not buy technology without a proven expert to guide the acquisition process.