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“It’s not about the technology”: the shameless practices of IT suppliers.
“It's not about the technology. It's about how you use it.” One of the most manipulative statements that costs many companies a lot of money. On the one hand, it's true. Nobody pours a foundation because concrete is so beautiful. You pour a foundation so that your house stays standing. Technology must serve a purpose—it must not become an end in itself. But... isn't the T in IT precisely that of... technology?
In IT, we are increasingly going too far these days. The argument “it's not about the technology” is used as an excuse to neglect technology. With all the consequences that entails. Houses that don't stay standing. Roofs that leak. Systems that become slow, unstable, and unsafe.
It gets even worse when you engage multiple external suppliers. One works with wooden posts, another with concrete, and the next with steel. All with a different mixture, a different reinforcement. Without any coherence, without a common standard. Often, the concrete is even poured without it being clear what kind of house will ultimately be built on it. Bizarre.
Why does this happen? Because it sells better. Because there is more margin to be made by saving on technology. Because it is easier to talk about the goal—a nice dashboard, a new application, a shiny cloud environment—than about the foundation on which it must rest.
In construction, we would call this criminally negligent. It would be on the news. In IT, it's all allowed. It's everyday practice. Unpunished. And the bill always ends up with the customer, not the supplier who is largely responsible for it.
Technology without a purpose is a waste of money. And a purpose without solid technology is a pipe dream. If IT has to support your business, then the foundation must be solid. And that means paying attention to technology, even if it is not the end goal itself.
Why rules and regulations do not strengthen your foundation
For decades, IT was a free-for-all. Everyone built, connected, and delivered as they saw fit. No standards, no regulators, no fines. If it worked, it worked. And if it didn't work? Well, that was mainly the customer's problem.
Fortunately, this is slowly but surely changing. Europe is introducing rules such as NIS2 and DORA. On paper, this seems like a big step forward: more attention to security, more pressure on organizations to take IT seriously. But if you read the details, you'll see mostly vague wording. Systems must be “sufficiently secure” and “sufficiently fast.” So it's a step forward, but we have a few questions to answer. Because what is sufficient? Who decides that? And how do you test it?
The real problem is that responsibility lies with the user, not the supplier. As a company, you have to check whether your supplier complies with the rules. If they don't, you will be fined. Meanwhile, the supplier can often just carry on with business as usual. Great: the result is a paper reality in which checklists become more important than real quality.
And those checklists? They largely focus on just one aspect: security. Of course, security is crucial. But IT quality goes beyond plugging holes. Think of speed, efficiency, interoperability, usability. If your application is slow or your systems barely work together, that is also a risk. Not because hackers will break in, but because your business will grind to a halt.
Regulations that are only ticked off on paper do not serve the technology. They make administration more burdensome, but the foundation remains shaky. And as long as responsibility does not shift to the creators and suppliers, the incentive to deliver real quality remains too small.
The deadly illusion of “it works fine here”
Some IT errors are not only inconvenient or costly—they can be life-threatening.
Take healthcare, for example. If a nurse only receives an alarm notification after several minutes, it can literally mean the difference between life and death. Even if the patient survives, their quality of life may be permanently damaged. Yet I encounter this in practice. Suppliers point the finger in all directions: at the infrastructure, the equipment, the user, the “circumstances.” Anything but their own flawed software and technology.
Or look at the financial sector. A bank's payment system must be reliable and fast, always. But I see suppliers getting away with a foundation that is demonstrably weak. The excuse? “We have other priorities right now.” And by the time those priorities have shifted, there is so much on top of that shaky foundation that no one dares to change it. The result: an unstable core that continues to cause complaints for years. Who pays the bill? Not the suppliers.
The cause often lies in how software is developed: in a laboratory environment that bears little resemblance to real production. It works fine in the lab—fast connections, minimal load, controlled conditions.
But production is not a laboratory. In the real world, it is busy, chaotic, and unpredictable. Systems collide, legacy systems are involved, and performance plays a role that is never visible in a lab.
It's like pouring a foundation in a factory hall without knowing whether it will be placed in clay soil, sandy soil, or even in water. And then being surprised when the building cracks, subsides, or slowly sinks.
Quality that fails in practice shows that we cannot continue to build on laboratory illusions. Certainly not in sectors where failure is not an option. It is time for solutions.
The return of ISDN suddenly doesn't sound so crazy
As soon as you have multiple suppliers in your IT landscape, the trouble begins.
One supplier imposes requirements on the internet connection that the other cannot meet. The telephony provider points to the telecom supplier. The telecom supplier points back. And you? You're stuck in the middle, with no solution. At that moment, you almost long for the old ISDN-30: not because it was better, but because back then you had a single party that was responsible.
It's the same with applications. As soon as systems have to work together, the fault line emerges. A simple mandatory Excel upgrade and suddenly your plugins no longer work. The plugin supplier does not yet support the new version. The result: crucial functions fail, and the user suffers.
The more fragmented your landscape, the faster these kinds of problems pile up. An upgrade of one link can bring down the rest of the chain. And with SaaS, it becomes even more pressing: suppliers upgrade when it suits them, not when you are ready. Will that new version still work with the rest of your environment? There is no guarantee.
As long as suppliers don't connect with each other—technically or organizationally—you'll keep paying for the gaps they leave behind.
Does your foundation still look solid?
You can talk at length about goals, checklists, and suppliers, but ultimately only one thing matters: is your IT built on a solid foundation, or is there concrete rot at its core?
Want to be sure that your systems won't slowly sink, crack, or collapse? Make a no-obligation appointment. We'll show you if there are cracks and, if so, where they are. And how you can prevent them from costing you real money.
Make that appointment. It won't cost you anything, and it will always pay off.