IT: all part of the project?

It's so much easier to palm off any problems to someone else instead of bothering to work out a basic understanding of such matters (beyond switching your computer off then on again when anything goes wrong, of course).

The same situation also appears to ring true on the larger scale – to major IT installations as part of fit-out or new build work. Currently, the responsibility for such a vital, business-critical job appears to need defining. There's the contractor, or the M&E contractor who is responsible for implementing all the infrastructure and kit under orders from either an external IT consultant or the client's in-house IT team. A situation that may well get the job done, but appears to be take place a lot more on the hoof than the core construction package. It raises questions, such as: is the kit itself being bought at the right price? Or the installation at the optimum time in the overall job? Hence the complaint voiced to us by one QS – that while clients are super disciplined on price for construction, IT budgets are soaring, and could be slashed by up to 40% (see pages 10–12). And we are now talking about a sizeable chunk of a job – anything up to 40% of the whole price, with wiring alone between 5–10% of the total budget.

There seems to be a clear case for much more integration on IT. This is not a call for QSs and project managers to suddenly become experts in riser capacity or hyperlinks, but for them to transfer the skills they use in construction – pricing, buying, planning, integrating teams – to this part of the job. After all, if this results in a cheaper, faster and smoother job overall, clients will certainly not be complaining.