As we reported in Industry News this week, a customer of IBM has cited the computing and services company in its bankruptcy declaration in a Delaware court, blaming a failed enterprise resource planning (ERP) application for the company's inability to complete orders.

American LaFrance (ALF), a US maker of firefighting equipment, developed a standalone ERP system with IBM when it was spun out from previous owner, Freightliner.

Almost immediately upon the changeover to the ERP system from Freightliner, so ALF claims, problems with the new system had a devastating impact on its operations, including an inability to reconcile data, and missing financial information.

ALF claims that IBM is responsible for the IT problems that precipitated its bankruptcy.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of this particular case – which it is for the courts to decide – such a comprehensive blaming of financial collapse on a technology and services supplier is not that unusual, and has lessons for us all.

• First, suppliers must manage a project properly, including by running new systems in parallel with the old and conducting extensive pre-deployment testing.

• Second, customers must also take responsibility for the project: outsourcing a project does not mean outsourcing responsibility for it, and close management of the supplier prior to, during, and after the go-live is essential.

• Third, business objectives must be mapped onto technology requirements at the most granular and detailed level – often the level that differentiates one company or product from another, in other words.

• Fourth, mergers, acquisitions, spin-outs and demergers swiftly become massive administrative, management, cultural and financial burdens, which means the inherent technology challenges are often relegated to being minor considerations.

This is important to understand, because an IT system is simply a networked and virtual representation of a company's business processes – nothing more, nothing less. If those business processes are in a state of transition or flux, then technology cannot accurately model them or represent them, and it should never be called upon to do so.

However, all too often internal pressures and financial imperatives force IT systems to the forefront and expect them to somehow fill the gaps in the administrative, managerial, cultural and financial processes the systems should be serving. The result is usually failure. It is vital that both supplier and customer recognise these risks from the outset.

The world of social networking has led many people to believe that technology is always something quick, easy, accessible and easy to implement. If only it were always that simple.

In other words, technology failures – like security failures – are often really failures of management, culture or policy, either at the customer end, the supplier end, or both. Many companies mistakenly see technology as an end in itself, and are quick to blame it for management failures; indeed, they sometimes expect it to replace good management.

Equally, project failures often arise when non-technical business executives do not fully understand the business ramifications of technical decisions made by the technology supplier, in tandem with the internal IT function. Clear and structured communications across each of these areas, coupled with strong project management, is always essential.

We wish all sides in this dispute the best of luck – that elusive quality which, so often, alas, stands in for good judgment.