We’re clueless about IT, says RBS Board director
Chris Sullivan, head of RBS UK Corporate Banking, told the Northern Ireland assembly this morning that RBS would commission an independent review of the IT failure:
“I don’t think any of us are IT experts, so the board of RBS has commissioned independent consultants to look at the whole incident, tell us what went wrong and what we should do.”
Perhaps if RBS handn’t sacked hundreds of experienced and skilled IT staff, it wouldn’t be so clueless about IT, what went wrong and what it should do? One of the world’s largest banks shouldn’t need to commission McKinsey (most likely) to tell it what went wrong, when highly paid consultants were probably behind the idea that IT wasn’t at the heart of the business and the subsequent decision to sack experienced staff and offshore and outsource support of RBS’s business critical IT systems. One of the largest banks in the world should know more about banking IT than any consultancy firm. Of course, it suits the consultancy firms for clients to be this clueless, as they can sell more of their latest fads and services. Sure, IT isn’t what being a bank is about, is it? RBS probably did know more than the consultancies, before it decided to sack its most knowledgeable staff.
