No Free Lunch or Dinner

Such things as expensive meals, outright gifts, and junkets present a challenge for both CIOs and vendors as both navigate the fine balance between due diligence and the risk of corruption.

It is easier if CIOs remember that vendors are there to make money out of you, says another CIO. "There is all this talk that the vendors are your partners. Well that's crap. They are there to make money out of you. It's our job to stop them making money out of us and tell them what we want."

He does not accept hospitality or entertainment from vendors beyond the odd cup of coffee and has never been on a vendor-sponsored trip. That said, he does try to get overseas once a quarter. "I'm absolutely a proponent of the need to look overseas; Australia is not a leader in banking technology. But I think that there is no value in doing a vendor-sponsored trip - it's much better to organize it yourself.

"The vendor has a role as a facilitator. Looking for best practice involves looking overseas and vendors tend to have good contacts. But the issue is they want you to see what they want you to see, not always what you want to see."

This particular CIO harnesses his own network of international contacts and international reading to ensure that he sees beyond what the vendor suggests. "But I don't go on tours or accept hospitality. The whole entertainment thing is a form of social seducing. Look, I have senior staff and I allow them to mix with vendors. For some people in technology it's seen as the perks - to get tickets to the Bledisloe Cup.

"It's a human characteristic and each individual has to take their own stand. But when you reach the senior roles it's too easy for these things to be misconstrued," he warns.

The need to get overseas and view international best practice first-hand is undeniable, but the question remains: Who should foot the bill?

"There is a level of understanding and experience overseas which is really valuable," says a CIO who has spent time abroad. "I'm lucky that I've worked in the US and Europe and it gives you access to a broader brain pool. It's not about finding someone who will say: 'Here's a product', but someone who says: 'This is how we did it'. I tell vendors: 'I'm not here looking to buy your product; I'm looking for someone to solve my problem'."

Over the years this CIO says he has "done to death" international tours to find out what is working well overseas, although he tends to arrange visits through personal networks rather than rely on vendors to find the right customers to visit. However, vendors do come in handy in terms of building those networks. For example, he accepts invitations to speak at conferences if he believes the other attendees might usefully extend his own network.

Sometimes the CIO feels some pressure from his own business units to go overseas, check out other users, and do due diligence before making an IT purchasing decision. At present the business wants him to go to Europe, look at some vendor reference sites and "crawl all over the vendor" before the business signs off on a new system. The vendor is keen and has offered to foot the bill for airfares and accommodation, says the CIO.

However, the CIO is disinclined. "It's a time thing personally. Earlier on in my career I'd have gone, but now I've got to find a smarter way to manage my time. Ten days out of my time here is hard to do; I'm looking for a smarter way to do that. It might mean sending someone else."

The fact that the vendor is offering to organize and pay for the trip is not what is holding him back. "Some vendors I'd run a million miles in the other direction, because they use these trips as a marketing technique to lock in the customer. And let's be honest, no one's going to fly you around the world for nothing. If the vendor is out there to sell a product I'm not interested. I only want to deal with the ones that solve my problems. The vendors have to understand my terms.

"Common sense says that there's no such thing as a free lunch. They are reporting into someone else who monitors the bottom line. There's nothing hyper-complex about it."