Why can`t we all just get along?

This venerable rhetorical question must be asked with a certain amount of weary cynicism for maximum effect in social situations. The only thing is, the response in this case would more or less amount to: "Dude, dream on." And this is because today we recognise diversity.

One should always remember that the industry functions as a network of partners, amounting to a kind of IT ecosystem.

Carel Alberts, technology editor, ITWeb

Don`t cheer just yet. With cries of "vive la difference" come selfishness and intransigence. While selfishness, within a context of social and industry responsibility, is probably a most virtuous thing in business, I would like to argue the case for unity of purpose in the IT industry.

Times are difficult, the cracks are showing. But no matter how clever it is to look after number one in tough times, one should always remember that the industry functions as a network of partners, amounting to a kind of IT ecosystem.

One long look at this fabric of partnerships can get you thinking. It can be quite a complex study, but in summary, it looks like this. First of all, there is the end-user, who is king. The user demands quality product at a good price, and this is seen as the starting point for all business channelled through the industry.

The industry (excluding the customer) functions in a variety of ways to serve the market. At the top are the vendors, who may be large multinationals with a local presence, marketing product to end-users but using a "channel" to fulfil product and deliver services (such as integration of the different bits, maintenance, support and the like). Or it could go direct.

Going direct has worked exceedingly well for some (Dell being the most famous example), and increasingly, commodity products, such as PCs and printers, ones that a channel cannot add value to, are moved out of the channel and sold directly to the end-user.

The channel is under constant pressure to squeeze costs out of a sometimes multi-tier supply chain, and this not likely to end, ever. That is the first harsh reality.

The second tier is often made up of distributors. Vendors cannot afford to staff local offices too heavily, and on this very foundation of cost-cutting, they employ distributors who import, sometimes assemble kit locally, aggregate and distribute to the user.

Next in line in a typical three-tier channel comes the small to mid-sized reseller, who depends on distributors and vendors to provide training, financial assistance (in the form of payment terms) and logistics.

With the only constant for a reseller being change, they are faced with ever more commoditisation (and hence disintermediation); perceived competition from distributors (in isolated cases distributors have been accused of adding margin instead of just delivering specified product); competition from vendors; end-users who play multiple resellers off against one another in an open-tender process; ideas-theft; and a lot else besides.

Although the reseller model is a desirable institution in SA, with the general black economic empowerment drive taking on many forms, this has resulted in a trade-off between the need for skills (necessary to satisfy users and prevent vendor brand dilution) and inclusiveness. The inevitable result is greater vendor/distributor involvement in the tender process and drawing up of business plans, but a nasty side effect comes about when there are gripes about breaches of confidentiality and improper competition.

Furthermore, and aside from alleged abuse of open tender processes, the end-user is not entirely blameless either. End-user companies have sometimes also masqueraded as resellers, taking advantage of pricing differences at different levels of the value pile.

On top of and intermingled with this micro-reality, the greater reality is that of a need for financial conservatism in a maturing industry. Over-hyping of technologies (something the end-user community has wised up to in recent years) and international economic fluctuations all had a pernicious effect on the local industry, as will the war.

The IT industry is suddenly feeling the pressure from all sides to squeeze out delivery costs and to run a financially sound operation, something other industries, such as motoring and retail, have long known.

The maturing IT industry is probably ripe for the kind of regulatory body that aims beyond lobbying for any particular part of this ecosystem. It could, if run effectively and staffed by people who have the time, focus and leadership skills, draw a fragmented and recalcitrant constituency into peaceful coexistence and mutual benefit, transferring product knowledge and business skills, providing a forum to settle differences, exchanging mutually beneficial information, and, if need be, naming and shaming offenders of the rules.

The IT industry has long sold solutions that help other businesses run more efficiently and manage their partnerships in ways that suit everyone. Let`s take a leaf out of our own manual.