Quoted in KIT: Take IT Seriously!

Our study of the municipal merger on the Danish Island of Bornholm is still creating news in Denmark. Many spectators (some more qualified than others) are afraid that the public sector has not learned from the mistakes that were made by the central government and the five municipalities on Bornholm regarding the integration and reorganization of the different information systems and their business processes. By January 2007 all counties and municipalities in Denmark will be reorganized in a large structural reform. More than 1 million employees will be affected, and all public IT systems will have to change. Denmark’s 270 municipalities will be merged into 100 municipalities and everybody is frightened that the potential IT-cost and integration problems will be very expensive.
A couple of months ago I was contacted by a journalist from KIT – a magazine for municipal IT-responsible public servants. I was asked about the political focus on information systems on Bornholm. And my answer was clear: Merging the five municipal’s IT-systems was seen as a technical exercise that could be left to the primary vendor, KMD. Both central officials and politicians and top officials on Bornholm later told us that they had underestimated the importance of the information systems integration as part of the merger. My point in KIT is that this is not the right approach. Politicians and top official in the 100 new municipalities must take the IT-challenge seriously and develop a business driven plan for the future IT-infrastructure. IT must be taken seriously!