The technology consultant sits between the institution's problems and the vendor's solutions — a structural position that creates specific conflicts of interest.
The Structural Position
The technology consultant occupies a structurally awkward position. Their formal role is to provide independent advice about technology choices. Their actual interests are more complex: they are typically compensated through implementation work rather than advisory work, which means their income is correlated with the complexity of the solution adopted and the length of the implementation engagement. They maintain relationships with specific technology vendors whose products they specialise in, which makes them more likely to recommend those products. And they are evaluated on client satisfaction, which may make them more responsive to client preferences than to the technical merits of specific choices.
Managing the Relationship
Managing the technology consultant relationship effectively requires institutions to understand the consultant's specific interests and structure the engagement in ways that align those interests with the institution's own. Separating the advisory engagement from the implementation engagement reduces the complexity bias. Requiring presentation of multiple vendor alternatives with explicit assessment of each reduces the vendor preference bias. And maintaining independent technical capability within the institution reduces the information asymmetry that allows the consultant's structural biases to influence institutional decisions without adequate challenge.
The technology consultant's advice is shaped by their structural position as much as by their expertise. Understanding the structure is the precondition for using the expertise well — and for recognising when the structural interests are speaking louder than the technical judgment.
Discussion