There can be few organisations more competitive than the football clubs that make up England’s Premier League. The goals of sporting excellence and playing success make obsessives out of players, managers, administrators and fans alike.

It is a competitiveness that many business leaders would recognise. As technology becomes increasingly central to business success, the role of IT is essential to meeting such demanding corporate objectives. And so, few IT leaders are encouraged to share the secrets of their best practice.

You might think that the same applies in that ultra-competitive football environment – but far from it.

Computing visited Anfield last week, home of Liverpool FC, England’s most successful team – surely the epitome of that win-at-all-cost spirit. Yet it turns out that, behind the scenes, the Premiership’s IT managers are a totally collaborative bunch.

They attend regular get-togethers, discuss their experiences of technology and vendors, and share best practice on the key systems needed to support the booming football business.

Liverpool’s IT manager, Ken Webster, is a perfect example. When he found what he thought was an interesting new vendor, a company called Backup Technology that provides online data backup and restore services, what was the first thing he did? He rang his counterpart at Everton FC – Liverpool’s deadly local rivals.

Somehow you cannot imagine Liverpool team manager Rafael Benitez ringing his Everton equivalent, David Moyes, to say: ‘Dave, we just worked out this great new free-kick routine. Do you want to try it?’

If football clubs can work together for mutual benefit, yet still compete as fiercely as ever on the pitch, there is surely benefit to anyone in IT of taking a similar approach.

Many IT directors already join user groups and networking clubs for just that reason, although their discussions tend to be kept in secret to maintain exclusivity to members only.

Increasingly, people in IT are turning to the web to share opinions and debate the hot technology topics – the recent redesign of our web site, computing.co.uk, was aimed at fulfilling precisely that need.

So there is clearly a prevailing trend towards greater collaboration – but wouldn’t it be good if that became more widespread?

Clearly, the IT director at Barclays is not going to ring his counterpart at HSBC and tell him about the company’s great new innovation in online banking.

But there is enough best practice going on in IT departments everywhere that can only help everyone improve the service, and the image, of technology in any organisation.

The message to IT managers is, after all, sung from the Kop at Anfield every game – work better together, and you will never walk alone.

Read the blog: www.computing.co.uk/comment/editor