Five counterintuitive findings in IT-purchasing

Since 1995 we have been collecting quantitative data about the purchasing of IT-products and relations between buyers and IT-suppliers in The Netherlands, together with a team of colleagues. The data include the way in which buyers search and select their supplier, the way in which they negotiate with their chosen supplier, the kind and content of the contracting that is used, the kind and number of management staff involved, the importance of the IT-product or service to the buyer and supplier, the performance of the supplier, and the problems that were eventually encountered. Using our database of transactions in IT-purchasing, we present five empirical findings that we believe to be counterintuitive: (1) though the ability to deal with IT-purchases has increased over the years, the amount of problems experienced has not diminished, (2) the types of problems with IT-transactions that are encountered most, are not the ones managers expect to occur most often, (3) large investments in planning and contracting to prevent problems are not useful, (4) current rules and procedures concerning purchasing management within firms lead to larger management investments, while they do not lead to fewer problems, and (5) although large firms are more bureaucratic and deal with more complex transactions, they are not so different from SMEs as one might think.