Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer!

Brand Killer Robots reveal::

One of our friends in the other intelligence community explained an idea he had sometime ago that could help to reduce the risk of selecting the wrong IT supplier. He suggested that a further stage needed to be added to the due-diligence process that involved conducting surveys with the suppliers ex-staff.

He suggested that it was feasible to identify say 20 ex employees at different levels and then using a series of questions, develop a body of knowledge on the supplier, from which specific questions could be developed for the due-dilgence process itself.

So we conducted our own survey contacting ex staff of one of the biggest IT suppliers in the UK.

None of this information was ever drawn up such that it was linked to the ex-employees, we were simply interested in ensuring that we developed a series of appropriate questions for the supplier.

Instead of approaching this particular supplier with the set of questions, we decided to use the data to draw a number of conclusions about the company and then sit back and see if any associated evidence transpired. We had no insider information so we had to rely on what we told by ex employees, company reports and what was ultimately reported through the press.

Low and behold, four months after we had concluded our report, a series of incidents were reported through the press that completely confirmed our findings. This particular problem was consistent with what we were told by over 90% of those surveyed.

It is a good example of the old saying, "keep your friends close and your enemies even closer".

You can also learn a lot from the enemies of your enemies!