Selling to CIOs is a difficult process and getting tougher

He reached out to the CIO with resolute frequency almost like clockwork; his connects were based on the timeline given by the CIO on when to reconnect for the decision on the solution. The CIO on his part never closed the loop, kept him lingering in the background with a hope that he will someday be successful in getting the order. This continued for almost a year with distractions in the form of small activity that he had to engage in with the IT team to validate a use case or elaborate on technology integration, scalability, etc.

His organization was running out of patience with the prolonged engagement which for most of the year continued to remain in the active pipeline but failing to convert. The management wondered on the investments made over the year with the lure of a referenceable customer with high value business. The story was beginning to look like a stretch of belief with a growing feeling that the CIO will not be able to convince internally. It was a tricky situation where reaching out to the CEO could potentially make or break the deal, the relationship with the CIO would have anyway broken.

On his part the CIO – a veteran of years – would keep finding new clarifications or actions in every meeting, each sounding logical and never really answering the question on what will result in closure. The vendor systematically addressing each and every query, his team finally signed off the pilot and put the ball back in the CIOs court. The CIO sought help to present the solution to the Management which was promptly provided as time continued to slide. The vendor CEO cracked the whip and demanded closure either way in a defined timeline.

Agreeing with the direction set forth, the salesperson confronted the CIO and pleaded for closure citing helplessness in offering the enviable deal beyond the timeline. He hoped against hope that the fish will bite and was seemingly rewarded with an opening that promised closure with a foot in the door and conditional commitment to scale up should the initial engagement deliver to promise. This was taken in the spirit of partnership but he was cautious in his pronouncements internally. The wait appeared to have been worth the efforts invested.

The ordained time came and went; the order continued to elude him, the message from the CIO was that the powers that be wanted further evaluation of options. It was quite evident that the business was not really coming to fruition in the near foreseeable future. The inability of the CIO to push internally was quite apparent, in hindsight his demeanor was always defensive, lacking assertiveness required to push through a decision. With lost credibility the salesperson had nowhere to go except to grin and bear it and keep the CIO humored.

Why do CIOs not come clean on the need, process, decision making hierarchy and metrics, timeline, urgency, and finally the budget upfront before engaging the partner ecosystem ? What keeps them opaque to the external world, at times even to their teams ? Is it power that they enjoy or they try to hide their insecurities behind the bravado and resultant activity with occasional outcomes ? Are their successes random occurrences of chance or the teams’ hard work that happens because or despite the CIOs interventions ? The broad brush that I paint applies to a large cross-section !

Why don’t vendors ask tough questions on the need, the timeline in which the decision will get taken and allocation of budgets ? I know some who do and some CIOs who give straight answers; in many cases the sales teams hear but don’t listen in their desperation to close a sale driven by period end pressures and targets indulging in wishful thinking, running towards a mirage. Then there are CIOs who are uncomfortable elucidating a clear and crisp no thereby resulting in long periods of courtship and eventual breakup.

For the vicious circle to break it requires change on both sides; the change begins from sales leadership who need to be ruthless in their pipeline management moving off when they don’t see traction. They push sales teams hard resulting in wasted efforts. Internal and external expert facilitated sales training and mentoring are required to imbibe and sustain the sales process using experiential training rather than templated workshops. Changing your customer is going to take a long time and then again it may not happen.

My sales pitch: Workshops on “Don’t sell – help your customers buy” available to the interested !

Big customer of a small vendor, or small customer of a big vendor

The CEO was perplexed that despite his product having all the features and more when compared to the market leader, most enterprise customers were shy of giving him business. His product was priced at a discount to the larger and dominant players thus providing great business cases and ROI; the technology platform was current versus competition. Customers liked the product and agreed that it met specifications and requirements; however it did not result in business. His company was a young startup and had few customers.

The world of startups is exploding and they offer solutions for existing and imaginary problems that you may have never thought about. Consumer applications are finding their way into the enterprise while the choices for enterprise applications have increased manifold. Convergence across the differing use cases creates opportunities for IT to automate and/or create new process efficiencies. These are beginning to offer viable alternatives to the large vendor solutions with complex licensing models and maintenance contracts.

Meeting a few entrepreneurs exhibited the most prominent feature across all the discussions was the belief and the passion in their ideas. Everyone had a dream to challenge the big players, wanted to solve problems of the world, and almost everyone was born a digital native. For these individuals the pursuit of their dream overshadowed the difficulties they faced learning to survive in fiscal deficit. With loads of infectious enthusiasm they happily demonstrate the value of what they have or plan to build to anyone interested.

They have like-minded teams with great technology skills and ability to create solutions with velocity that puts many enterprise IT teams to shame. They are able to react quickly to market and demands of their sparse customers; the struggle is largely around creating a dialogue with business and IT leaders on how their solutions will benefit the enterprise. They are the advocates and the best salespersons for their companies and solutions and in an endeavor to get first few customers, it is highly probable that they are willing to offer bargain prices.

Most enterprise CIOs and business heads find themselves meeting these entrepreneurs more often, now competing with the larger well established local or global solution providers. The gorillas with loads of muscle power, large number of customers, and an ecosystem of system integrators create doubts in the minds of potential buyers on the stability and longevity of the minnows. Thus in the face of perceived risk most customers end up making the expensive choice of going with the well-entrenched players.

Good news is that there is a wave of fresh air wafting through the crevices in the enterprise fortress – the data center and the application landscape; some successful and early adopter CIOs have taken calculated risks and the call to work with startups. The benefits in almost call cases have been beyond compare with quick and unbelievable ROI; for the struggling beginners these saviors were embraced and they stretched to exceed expectations. The CIOs pleased with success built symbiotic relationships by mentoring them.

For the safety net seekers following conventionally long implementation cycles, the larger players provided rich functionality though with restrictive practices offering ROI over 2-3 years. They became victims of their choices when they could have taken an alternative approach and experimented with the newer generation solutions and enjoyed associated benefits. The loss of agility came with its own set of challenges considering the fact that rarely a solution change is undertaken after long cycle of implementation.

Startups nurture their customers who imposed faith in them; large enterprise customers bring them credibility. They contributed significantly to their revenues which in turn helps them raise money from interested sources. For the large players another customer is just another customer even if you are a dominant force in the industry; exception being companies who are larger than these large vendors and they are just a handful. Relatively size does makes a difference to the treatment the vendors give to a customer.

All things being equal the question is where do you want to be ? A big customer to a small vendor or a small customer of a big vendor ? Your choices will determine not just your success but also your ability to influence the product direction, shape industry solutions, and finally give you a financial advantage. Having been in all the three camps, I would say that being a big customer of a startup outweighs the perceived risks; the sluggishness imposed by big vendors can be a big challenge; finally as a part of startups now I love big customers !

If CIOs became Tech company CEOs

Before the turn of the millennium there was a trend with many conglomerate and large corporates wanting to hive off their IT departments to become independent companies. Some of the companies scaled up well and grew to become fairly sizable and tech services or product providers in their own right. Few retained their niche and did well for a while; in most cases the Head of IT or CIO equivalent became the CEO of the start-up. Then the CIO moved on and the reins were taken over by typical IT sales persons from the outside.

The past decade saw the economy on a roller-coaster ride triggered by black swan events; technology hype drove irrational behavior; acquisitions saw the small and mid-size companies being gobbled up. Quite a few leaders of the past too struggled to survive and sought white knights; in M&A most of them lost their identity, some went off into oblivion. The CIO typically the customer was challenged to keep balancing contracts and budget escalations triggered by the larger company wanting to improve bottom line.

With competition heating up and start-up companies innovating to gain market share, the companies of yore created Customer Advisory Boards (CAB) to seek input from CIOs towards the product road-map. They used these forums to stay connected to their customers which did not necessarily always impact their ability to squeeze every cent they legally could from the same customers; product engineering and development was far detached from commercial and sales divisions.

Through challenging times, quite a few tech companies saw CEOs being fired, sales structures redrawn, and alignments change from products to industry to logical groups to key account management, and many more. Consulting companies reformulated strategies to sustain market share and retain customers; beyond tactical results this did not deliver to promise. All through the process, customer frustration continued its organic growth faster than the growth realized by the tech company.

So companies hired domain experts across industries and sometimes also across roles within a function; for example a Warehouse Management Solution company hired warehousing experts who would be the users of the solution. Similarly across Retail, Pharmaceuticals, Banking, Finance and Insurance, or for that matter depending on the industry focus, it was deemed important to have subject matter experts to connect with the CIO and other CXOs to facilitate the sales and adoption cycles.

I often wondered as to why CIOs rarely joined technology companies ? There have been rare instances where a CIO transitioned and started selling products or services. These individuals were CIOs representing their past industries or a specific solution set; I remember one instance where the only thing such a CIO wanted to talk about is how her company had implemented a specific technology and she had lead the team towards creating the success story. She was not very successful in her pitch but told her story wherever she went.

Why is it that companies never think of taking on a powerful or marque CIO as their CEO ? Wouldn't it be better to have someone who uses their solution or service and knows how to take advantage of the technology also drive the company ? Aren't CIOs adept at selling technology internally to their users, management and the Board ? They also have their eyes and ears to the ground and connect to strong social groups within the industry where some influence opinions and drive adoption.

Discussing this trend with a few friends I realized that most CIOs love their position of power over the vendors; they do not see themselves in the same position where they normally end up putting their tech partners. The game has gone on too long now with boundaries being defined and roles cast. Their cynicism coupled with reputation of some vendors does not make this an attractive value proposition for CIOs who would rather join consulting companies or take up academic roles; join a tech vendor ? No way !

I personally believe that IT companies would immensely benefit from such a move; who knows the pains, opportunities and challenges of CIOs better than CIOs themselves. Sales cycles nowadays follow a predictable pattern of technology analysis and negotiation linked to period end. I think that while the broad design may not change, there would definitely be higher traction based on mutual empathy. Maybe this is the trend for the future; taking CIOs as independent directors on the Board could be a starting point.

Taken for a ride !

By design, omission or inadvertently, all of us have faced the situation where the vendor has declared the product “end-of-life”. This puts at risk legacy applications, instrumentation, automation, or in many cases plain old processes that have survived all attempts to change them. CIOs and IT realize that upgrades are expensive and in some case not as good as the earlier working versions in terms of stability and/or functionality. But then they have to do it lest there be no support when the software fails.

Many CIOs succumb to the pressure quickly, only to realize that the deadlines have shifted and they could have avoided the nasty dialogue with respective functions (normally finance). They could have saved the unbudgeted expense in the upgrade which wiped out buffers that were provided for some innovation. Sometimes this leaves a feeling that this was a ploy to move everyone along reducing the support costs for the vendor, maybe some incremental licences (new versions typically may have different breakup).

A CIO friend bought a software package that fit business requirements so well that it appeared to have been developed using the requirement specifications of the company. She loved it as it implied very little customization and a deployment timeline better than what the business wanted. Everything went like a dream, the solution went live with celebrations and everyone was happy. The vendor was acquired by one of the big IT product and services companies; the new CEO promised to keep old customers happy.

As it was time to scale up, the CIO approached the new entity for new licences. The offer for upgrade had her fall off her chair; it was twice of what she paid earlier. Reaching out to the old team she found no help forthcoming with them citing new policies of the acquirer. The big guy sales team explained the new investments into the solution justifying the increase. Left with no choice in the face of the earlier business success, the CIO felt cornered and frustrated though had to accept the new terms.

In another scenario recounted to me some time back, a packaged vendor gave a demonstration of a specialized solution to the business team who loved what they saw. They approached the CEO and the CIO with a claim of higher productivity and ROI. The CEO endorsed the purchase and the IT team got down to creating the project charter, implementation plan and timeline. Quickly they realized that the solution required significant customization to work in their environment.

The CIO got together with the Business Head to provide the reality which was quite different from the short trailer and demo. Since they shared trust, it was evident that the solution provider had only revealed the surface; they had pressed the right buttons and given the messages that created empathy. The resultant in high expectations created a feeling of being short changed; while there was no false information, limited revelations created desire and expectations that were unrealistic.

I could go on and on with many examples on how every day we face situations which leave us with a negative gut feeling and a sense of having been taken for a ride. Some of these are a result of our own naivety, inexperience, or overenthusiasm; also in many cases due to intentional concealment of facts and/or our interpretation of what is said. There are rare cases when mal intent has been the driver too; it is largely taking advantage of the gullibility of the buyer. And every time I hear of an incident, I feel restless.

I do not believe for a moment that this situation is unique to the CIO; at times all CXOs face situations that leave a feeling that we are being taken for a ride, sometimes during the journey, sometimes after we have been gypped. Is there a solution to this ? I do not have a silver bullet to resolve such situations; I believe that tactically the CIO has to work on each case to address the issue at hand. Due diligence and contracts go some distance, the rest falls into risk zone and have no easy answer. 

Building a partnership

It does not matter if the vendor is big or small, local or global, domain centric or broad based, custom solutions developer or provides package implementation services, hardware products or software licences, or any kind of service provider; they all want you to believe that they all are worthy of being anointed as a preferred and trusted partner to your IT and business initiatives. Everyone without exception believes that they imbibe behaviours that qualify them for this elevated position.

I am not sure when the transition happened but sometime in the recent decade the term partner replaced the vendor or provider. I think people went back to basics in the early part of the millennium driven by the slowdown, started focusing on leveraging existing ones and building new relationships. Business was tough to come and choices plenty which is where people made the difference. This subtle transition eased into our way of working and no one objected to the new reality.

Today we have partners providing total outsourcing, specialized domain specific or business process outsourcing, desk side support, apart from the various categories listed above. Many of these who have put in their heart and blood into delivering products/services irrespective of the contract or commercial arrangement are truly partners to a CIO and the enterprise; my respects to them. We also have partners providing toner cartridges, USB sticks, printing paper where price is typically the determinant factor !

Recently a CIO friend narrated a story where she met a new vendor where the discussion started with the intent that we would like to be your partners in success and not keep it transactional. The CEO and the team downward demonstrated high passion and commitment at the discussion table. They got engaged in a few projects as a precursor to what could be bigger things and achieve the status of a trusted partner. With many vying for the same business, it was seen as a prestigious win.

The slip between intent and execution has many horror stories spread across the industry. Senior teams from vendors attempt to build relationships with the CIOs, the sales team works with the domain specialists and the next level, and the delivery team which typically has no connect with the process starts discussions with the project managers and the users of the proposed solutions. And that is what transpired here too; one project was delivered well enough, the other killed the relationship.

What appeared to be a dream run became a moon race with surprises all through the journey ! The initial effort estimates did not fit the project reality; either the team who did the initial study did not understand the complexity and expectations or her inputs were ignored in the proposal. So there was an attempt to restrict scope to fit the resources allotted. That upset everyone involved; the CEO made a visit, so did others involved in the initial discussion. Much water had flowed and a dam was essential.

Restoring some sanity to the project with the vendor CEO approving the additional investment and some hit on the CIOs side too, the project looked like being back on track; but that was a false positive. The lack of trust made success elusive; the potential partnership gained adversarial tones with each pinning the blame on the other. It took some effort to bring everyone to a common understanding and move ahead.

Partnership is built over a period of time and is a function of delivering to promise consistently across the layers. It takes effort to sustain it and requires investments and transparency from everyone. Everyone hates escalations which result due to lack of communication and assumptions. In my experience I have found partnerships that have stood the travails of time when there is no gap in expectations on both sides. Sales transactions do not build partnership, they only address tactical need.

The long and short of IT

People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. This has never been so true in the current economic uncertainty; companies struggling for growth put their employees in peculiar situations. They are expected to deliver monthly and quarterly targets whereas the discussions are expected to be strategic and long term. This is challenging for the CIO and the IT team where typically projects do last beyond a quarter (with agile exceptions) and investments require a 3-5 year horizon.

When I met with the management team of a large enterprise vendor selling applications and technology solutions, there was a paradoxical discussion on my long-term needs and their short-term requirements. They wanted me to present the Business and IT roadmap for the next 3 years and initiatives where technology was a critical component, which I did leading to discussions on technologies and partner solutions that would become projects in the future. They had their team and many partners listen in.

The sales team and some of the leaders from partner companies wanted to know who they should connect with in my team and when they can come over for a detailed discussion. They came in different avatars, confident, cocky, arrogant, tentative, all types made up the discussions on the possibilities. I intuitively liked some, was intrigued by a few and did not see value in the rest keeping in mind my priorities.  Their interest was to strike at the opportunity and if they can meet their monthly or quarterly targets.

I don’t mind helping when I can, however the gap between the talk and the walk was evident. How can a discussion at two different planes be aligned and create value ? My timeline was not aligned to their urgency to sell. So I advised them which some took in the right spirit while a few found it difficult to accept that I did not want their solution/technology. They espoused the efficiency, potential saving, the best in class nature of their wares showing incredulous surprise that I was rejecting their pitch.

How do we align expectations that all stakeholders have the same shared vision of the future and the direction being taken ? What should CIOs do to set the groundwork ? It is a difficult discussion in many cases with hierarchical selling that puts pressure on the CIO while s/he has to balance the set of internal priorities and needs. Balancing tactical with the strategic is a fine skill that very few are adept at. To have a bird’s eye view with ability to pick the target like an eagle separates the good from the best.

I have found that in most cases plain speak is the best option; be upfront with what are your priorities, what you need, how you will evaluate the options across different vendors; essentially what is the decision making criteria and the timeline, who will be involved etc. you get the point. Most vendors find this transparency a great starting point and they are willing to work with you. There will be exceptions when they try despite the open communication; they need to be managed with a firm hand.

So coming back to the discussion that transpired; it took some effort to not get upset with the blatant disregard for the stated intent and objectives. I could finally prevail upon the recalcitrant vendors to align to my priorities and reality. Over a drink later in the evening there was camaraderie between us and everyone acknowledged the candidness though they had found it difficult. Does it mean that CIOs do not always do this or vendors need to learn how to listen better ?

Stop Selling !

Recently I had interesting discussions with a couple of “technology experts” separately brought in by their respective companies to help us design the best possible solutions. There was no correlation between the two opportunities or the technologies that represented the solutions; the behavior of the experts representing very large companies was indistinguishable like they were twins separated in early childhood but grew up to mimic each other in their approach to providing a solution to an opportunity.

After months of “engaging” on various opportunities to create new innovative differentiators for the enterprise with many vendors, the narrowed down list comprising the two vendors decided to bring in their technology architects. They needed to hear the expectation from the horse’s mouth and clarify the requirement before proposing the solution. I do not believe the problem or the solution is relevant here but the overall approach, methodology and intent is the focus; so I will restrict to the human side.

Now when you have a set of experts in the room, the expectation changes; for the benefit of everyone I repeated the proposition and outlined the need and the want. Everyone nodded and the expert asked a few pertinent as well as tangential questions. Addressing them and moving on to the framework of solution design the patience level of my team started waning until the experts decided to present the final solution using a set of slides. Very quickly the dam broke and …

The experts knew the subject and how their solution works, its limitations in real life situations. The discussion and clarifications were to validate if the solution would fit in, which is fair. Having said this, the direction the dialogue took was totally different. Instead of working with the team to flesh out the solution, the experts started a sales pitch on why we should choose their solution ! Any interruptions were brushed aside with an air of “I know what is best for you and let me tell you why”.

The relationship managers sensed the total disconnect and tried to intervene without success. The experts in overdrive mode bulldozed ahead ignoring body language and voices of protest. It took some effort to close the meeting which was making no sense or headway. Trying some steps in damage control, the account managers separately mentioned that they will revert to the team with options to take the initiative ahead.

With no acceptance or alignment of the solution a discussion on the Bill of Material (BoM) is a sheer waste of everyone’s collective time. The ROI or TCO matters only when the customer acknowledges that the solution is appropriate for the enterprise. You don’t sell until you know that your solution has acceptance and that it meets requirements and business goals. Was the need to sell so desperate that they risked alienating a reference customer or professional arrogance that consummates such behavior ?

In the current economic scenario the pressure to sell is evident on almost every company; that does not condone such tactics and behaviors  their pervasiveness scares me. I believe that vendors need to work with their customers to evolve any solutions and gracefully walk away should there be a stretch to fit their wares. It would be an undesirable situation where their key customer the CIO is not willing to come to the table or shuns these meetings. Maybe it is time to start exploring vendor-IT-business alignment ?

Stop Selling Part 2

Good CIO, Bad CIO

The front page of a business newspaper carried an interview of some of the big 5 IT services company CEOs that had me engrossed as these industry captains shape the direction for the industry, influence decision making and are consulted by global CEOs on IT strategy and direction. Thus the interest was high to gain from the collective wisdom as they talked about their experiences with global CIOs, decision making process, budgets, successes and finally their perceptions of where CIOs could and should be.

There were some clear messages; the global economy will continue to remain under pressure for the next couple of years. Outsourcing deals will be smaller and of shorter duration as IT budgets will see a lot more rigor in the discussion. Talent shortage will squeeze growth for IT companies and Cloud computing will keep the hardware industry challenged. The CIO role will change again with technology evolution; the difference between the good and the challenged CIO will widen.

They outlined the differences on how CIOs across geographies and industries outsourced core and non-core activities to focus on what matters, i.e. you guessed it right, the business. But then they also mention in the same breath that CIOs that did not outsource remained challenged to align the IT objectives to business. Whether it is Remote Infrastructure Management, or Application maintenance and everything in between, the message was clear, outsource or perish, get relegated to reporting to the CFO.

Huh ? Now that is simplistically stretching a facet of the CIOs role to create a perception that outsourcing can be equated with strategic intent. If you don’t outsource, then you and your team is busy with things that do not matter to the business and thus you are likely to remain alienated. Was there a vested interest in the words from these CEOs who have been struggling to grow their business ? Some had taken over from ousted CEOs with a clear mandate to bring back the old days of high growth.

While I am a proponent of outsourcing and have partnered with IT service companies big and small to give away the technical or operational activities, in my experience there have also been cases of outsourcing not delivering to promise. CIOs connected with the pulse of the business draw the line on what needs to be given away and what should be retained. The company’s focus, perceptions of core, and finally the financial health determine what operating model should be adopted by the CIO.

The CEOs went on to talk about CIOs need to engage their stakeholders on what matters. People in a glasshouse do not throw stones at others. My plea to the same CEOs is to introspect a bit before preaching to their customers, the CIOs. The sales heads of the same companies want to engage with the CIO on nitty-gritties of technology that even the next level in the IT department rarely gets involved in (OMG I saw a data center). They do not practice what they preach. A few CIOs I met the next day agree !

So what separates the good from the challenged ? I do not for a moment believe that it is as simple as outsourcing operations or infrastructure or total outsourcing; a good CIO is a well-rounded leader who manages people and perceptions while ensuring that the delivery of promise is consistent with quality that is visible. S/he communicates effectively in all situations and is able to challenge business and IT partners/vendors in a discussion on the right solutions to business problems enabled by technology.

Is this the finite list ? No again, there is no checklist that determines the difference; you have to find your balance.

Negative Selling

The pitch was passionate enough to keep the audience awake. The speaker and his assistant were animated in professing the virtues of their products. They kept on imploring the CIO to consider their wares instead of the market leader, even though they had only 10% market share in comparison to the leader’s 60%. The CIO who had listened patiently for more than 30 minutes thanked them for the presentation signalling an end to the meeting. The entire sales team was aghast ! No questions ?

It was a large deal that had every vendor wanting to show their wares with a hope of getting the business. The company had embarked on a major transformation after many years of hibernation. Thus there was a sense of expectation in the market and rightly so since whosoever bagged the order would become the standard supplier for a long time to come. The total business potential was very large commercially as well as from market visibility perspective.

For the vendor having discussed the architecture and the overall strategy with the IT team, the final stage to qualification was expected to be the meeting with the CIO. So the vendor pulled all plugs and brought together the best possible team for the presentation to the final decision maker. They knew that they had a chance of making the cut since the market leader had no presence as yet in this account. The CIO was also known to be fair in his approach and that added to the expectation.

The meeting started well with the setting of expectations and illustration of the approach, product features, open standards, and recent wins across industries. So far so good, but midway something broke and the fervent pitch turned awkward; rather than discussing merits of their product, approach and solution, the sales head started talking about the problems the CIO is likely to face if they selected the leader’s products. Now it was not about what they did but what the leader did not do.

It was not evident to them that they were no longer connected to the audience and had lost. The CIO patiently heard them out through the leader bashing; he proceeded to closed the meeting with a polite remark that once the decision was finalized, it would be communicated to everyone who participated in the evaluation. As they left there was a sigh in the room; the CIO and team sat quietly trying to shrug off the negativity. Nothing needed to be said; everyone unanimously agreed that this was curtains.

Why do some people resort to negative selling ? Why do they not sell on merit ? Don’t they realize that it puts off the environment and has an adverse impact on the outcome ? Is it the desperation of targets or month/quarter/year end, and the need to sell at any cost (ends justifying the means) that brings to fore such behaviors ? Despite losing almost every such deal (I am sure CIOs can see through this clearly), the tendency remains to put down others to show superiority.

I believe that good is not always relative to something else where the other has to be proven not good. This maxim has to be understood for the behaviour to change. A product or service can be classified superior by illustrating the benefits or features; let the recipient of the information decide in his/her frame of reference whether it is a better fit than others. Everyone does not use the same yardstick neither does everyone compare the same products/services every time. It would be great if our IT vendor community understands this and starts creating better services and products.

As a CIO I would love to do business with such a company, wouldn’t you ?

Legally Illegal

Last year was a very difficult year for most software companies with slowdown in new licence sales that brought in a negative trend in new business revenue. This happened very quickly after the globally experienced slowdown a few years back compounding the issue. This had all software vendors almost like acting in unison deciding to engage their existing customers in licence audits. If you cannot get new revenues, let’s squeeze some juice out of existing lemons.

So these engagements began to look all over the place; the data centres, servers hidden under tables, desktops converted to servers for a simple test or proof of concept, users created though inactive, resigned employees not deactivated, it did not matter what the event was, if there was an user identity or a database, or an instance of the application, it needed to be licenced. Office automation and other fringe app vendors joined the fray and added to the already harried CIOs blood pressure.

No debate that licence compliance is non-negotiable; licences for software or product or package used for the enterprise that in any way impacts a business process. Most vendors allow disaster recovery to be setup at nominal or no extra investment as long as it is not used conjointly with the production environment. That looks like a good principle though some complicate matters based on number of days used even when the primary was down and not operational.

Some also allow test and development instances to be setup; interestingly most do have a licencing policy that charges the customer, however most sales teams shy away from highlighting this fact during the pre-sales discussions or even when the purchase order is received. Instead they give the CIO a fine printed legal document to sign without pointing out to the salient points that the customer needs to be aware of. I don’t know of CIOs who read those wonderful documents; it’s like pressing “I accept” when we enrol to a new website or app.

So far still so good as each instance expects the customer to get into an engagement with eyes and ears open; the principle being we gave you the full documents, you read and sign or you don’t read and sign, that is a choice. The discussion gets interesting when new or additional licences are required even if a line of code is changed or added to any screen, form or report or an add-on deployed. This now attracts additional investment, sometimes a lot more than bargained for. Now that is hitting below the belt !

If I may add, the same vendors participate during the pre-sales gap analysis and bid and quote for customizations through their consulting arms vying for implementation business. But no mention that if the customer did end up customizing, then … This aspect of licencing is rarely discussed if at all and mostly comes up during licence audits leaving the CIO gasping for life. The management demands that the CIO know all this as it is his/her job to know and manage the vendor.

Page number XX, clause YY, sub-clause ZZ in the sales agreement is cited as the reference for the new demand. Read it and if you can figure it out differently let us know; else here is the bill of material and the timeline in which you need to buy. Consequences you know are not something you want to talk about. Sheepish acceptance and wows to be more careful and read all the fine print is normal behaviour; the management takes a not-so-kind view but goes ahead with the devils choice.

Why does this charade repeat itself globally with many vendors, some more than others ? It does not matter which industry, which country or geography, size of the customer (in fact the bigger the better as they are averse to the publicity it draws), this is becoming one of the relationship breakers between the impacted CIO and the vendor. Stories of these are rarely published by publicity shy individuals and enterprises. Is there a way out ?

I believe there isn’t an easy way out; negotiating from a compromised position does not get any great deals; neither does it do wonders to CIOs careers. Whether they like it or not, CIOs have to get more diligent in their approach to legalese and contracting. As the markets saturate and mature, read changes to changing end user contracts and/or licensing terms. You never know what impact it has on your company.

Whine, Wine, Win a deal

I don’t know how I stumbled across this blog and hundreds of comments but it had me thinking with a gaping and wide open mouth. Not that the scenario I read about does not play itself ever so often in the corporate circles; it was an open discussion on strategies to entrap the CIO to meet the next target, to close a deal, to shorten the sales cycle. There were experiences shared, discussed, fortunately no names mentioned of the vendors or the CIOs. I did pick up some good recommendations on fine dining though.

Trappings of power bring with it responsibility; with large budgets and the ability to decide in favour of one against the other, the CIO sits in a position where every vendor big or small attempts to find the winning formula to gain a good book and business. The exalted chair is expected to make a fair decision (the loser may think otherwise) to award business to the deserving and not be swayed by the drama or influenced by ill means. CIOs I know across this globe practice unshakeable integrity in decision making.

From time immemorial those wielding financial power have been sought after for favours. In the old days, after the technical evaluation, the purchase executive could turn down a decision and no one could challenge that. The power of veto was a feared weapon. Over time driven by trust and increasing penetration of IT, a shift occurred with the CIO empowered to work independently. Economic cycles shifted the decision making to where the monies lie, and the elastic nature swinging it back and forth to equilibrium quickly.

So as I read through post after post, it was an uneasy feeling to see tips and trick that have worked to snare a deal. Golf course priority bookings, tickets to matches, free vacations, gourmet dining, you name it, they had tried it. Some more than others, they found what works for whom not leaving many who resisted all temptation. Feeling queasy about this, I called a few old colleagues to chat and discussing this with them, one toppled my wine by adding anecdotes of his own.

Are decisions so easily facilitated with the lineage and vintage of wine determining the steps and time required to close the deal ? Is this working at the conscious level or the sub-conscious even when there is no coercion ? Is it wider in its reach and influence than we believe it to be ? Are we becoming slaves to a system without realizing it ? Or have we become immune to the system and now factor it in to our decision making criteria ?

I love my red wine and some good food to go with it; I have enjoyed many evenings out with friends and family. Occasionally vendors seek relaxed meetings “outside of workplace”; I know many have been careful to take a few colleagues along for comfort and keep the meeting a strict business one. It keeps the discussions easier and the environment lighter with no obligations being created on either side. A few CIOs also pick up the tab rather than leave even an iota of doubt. I would assume that each vendor would have classified data on what works and what does not for every tagged CIO.

The play now is universal; every vendor uses some leverage or other to go beyond the normal decision making cycle. Direct or indirect, these influences are here to stay as long as there are multiple vendors offering similar solutions or products. Wine and dine is part of corporate culture, the CIO and for that matter other CXOs have to work the fine line between undue influence and socially acceptable behaviour keeping their personal and corporate values above everything else.

Rotten Eggs

The craze for new gadgets and devices appears to be growing day by day. Emotions run high for some iconic devices and brands where people are willing to endure cold nights and mornings waiting for the store to open. The queues are visible across countries, so it is a global epidemic. These are normal consumers vying with the technophiles to be the first to own the product !

I own multiple devices including a few from the company in discussion, but never stood in queues to be amongst the first, though I know a few who did. I have always waited for a couple of revisions or generations to pass by before acquiring the new iconic device; the primary purpose seems to be to be seen displaying it prominently or announcing it by the footer in the email.

I get carried away; this is not about new devices or the long queues, but about rotten eggs. In China, fans threw rotten eggs at the stores when the company announced to teeming crowds who queued up for long hours that they will not be selling the much awaited device; for the security of their customers who turned up in large numbers, proclaimed the announcement. Did they come armed with eggs waiting for the store to open ?

The incident triggered many wild thoughts. Is the idea extensible to other irritating behaviors from say IT vendors who take the community for a ride ? What if every time there is a breach of trust, can I shower the vendor sales or support teams with choicest tomatoes (I am vegetarian you know) ? Is this a feat worth emulating when projects do not meet timelines or when basic requirement misunderstanding by ignorant consultants becomes a change request ?

It does have finality to the statement it makes. If I don’t like the outcome I am going to demonstrate my ire.  Sil-vouz plait, it may aggravate the situation, but it does create a warm, fuzzy and a lighter feeling to have vented out the frustration and anger. Will the slinging match create a better relationship between the CIO and the other parties ?

Last week, working on a post contract changes to some service delivery benchmarks, I had an urge to pelt a lot of stuff on the negotiating party. My primal fantasy had to be suppressed to stay within defined corporate behavior and work on the issues step by step steering it towards desired outcomes. Civilized acceptable behavior does not provide latitude to hurl objects when events do not take the turn we desire; even when the consumerization of devices brings unwelcome distractions.

Relationships are built over a period of time, but they can be strained for a long time in an unguarded moment. This applies to any relationship, peers, bosses, team, vendors, family, and friends. CIOs forge relationships possibly with a larger set in comparison to some of their peers. Success is highly dependent on setting and managing realistic expectations. Service delivery and change management are key tenets of the IT agenda.  

After all we don’t want to be at the receiving end of the rotten eggs.

Language curriculum for CIOs or ...

The Chairman of the Indian entity of a leading global IT vendor addressing a gathering of CIOs stressed on the (now so obvious) fact that CIOs should speak in business language. Everyone in the audience agreed and appreciated this repetition like the fact that “sun rises in the east”. The senior statesman then went on to present a dozen slides on why virtualization and consolidation should be on the CIO agenda.

A group of CIOs visited an international event hoping to learn from interactions with their global peers and gain different perspectives. While the IT vendor companies represented in the event were somewhat similar considering the global nature of the IT industry, the speakers were different providing a local flavour of the country. Majority of the sessions stressed on the same fact “sun rises from the east”, I mean CIOs need to speak the language of the business. They however presented in complex detail the technology solutions that they wanted the CIOs to buy.

Excuse me ? Did we (the CIOs) miss something? No, we did not doze off during the presentation and neither did we see you skip some slides in your presentation which may have connected to the obvious fact. We were attentive and so was everyone until the tech stuff started. There were many messenger, text, and email messages flying in the room to check that we were all in hearing the same thing. Excusez-moi or should I say Entschuldigen Sie, maybe if you like I can try another language. But where is the connection ? How many of the CIOs in the room were part of your sample size ?

Over the years, IT was nudged, pushed and coerced to discard techno-speak in favour of what everyone else speaks in the enterprise; the quick compliance and transition surprised many and helped bridge the perception about individual and team capability. Projects were no longer about the next big technology or the latest versions of the fancy devices, they embodied holistic discussions around internal process and external customers. On the other hand for some reason the industry refuses to acknowledge the change continuing to cite examples of a shrinking minority of change averse IT leaders.

So how can this perception be changed ? How do CIOs ensure that what they say is what the IT vendors and consultants hear ? I believe that it is time to start challenging the well-wishing speakers to cite examples when they talk about the language course CIOs need and not hide behind the global research reports of named companies to justify their spiel. Can they speak more from personal experience ? For them to be heard, maybe they need to talk business, unless this is a ploy to hide their inability to speak the new language of the CIO.

For the CIO, the sun indeed rises in the east, but maybe just maybe it needs to rise from the west for the vendors and consultants to notice that the CIO has passed the language course with flying colours; maybe it is the vendors and consultants who need the course after all !

Doing business with startups, due diligence and lessons

Every CIO gets many calls from startup IT companies wanting to bounce their million dollar idea—to seek the CIO’s advice and understand whether it makes sense in the enterprise. Some of these are self-funded, while a few may have angel investors or private equity already in place for growth. The steady growth of such small startups in the recent past has created an interesting problem for the CIO. Why is it a problem?

In quite a few cases, there is not much to differentiate one startup from the other. So how does the CIO separate the chalk from cheese? What is the due diligence required before getting these vendors on board?

A majority of these startups are seeded in institutes like IIT and IIM (globally pertinent equivalents may be the Silicon Valley or MIT kind of institutes), where the idea takes shape fuelled by the entrepreneurial bug. Most such ideas take a while before they gain traction with their target audience. These are the real gems, and being an early adopter of such startups provides an immense advantage.

Having worked with a few such companies, I realize that it does take a lot of effort to get the product/service aligned to enterprise processes and direction. As the first or amongst the first few customers, the value proposition is almost always attractive. Their reference checks largely depend on their mentors (professors or others) who are able to provide the details behind their continued support to the new entity.

The second category of startups comprises breakaway groups from existing companies, where a group of people have decided that their ideas have higher value than what they currently see within a large entity. This group typically specializes in services for a specific technology, domain or application. Such companies do well to begin with as they are patronized by existing customers (supported by them) who see a price advantage with a smaller startup. Such entities pass the tipping point within 12-18 months by either reaching a steady state, or falling apart. The due diligence is thus largely dependent on the team’s leader and its past track record as they continue to offer similar services.

A variant of the second category is a group being lured by an investor who believes that unlocking the potential has good upside for everyone. The service offering is thus no different from the above. A private equity institutional player invests in existing entities that needs funds to scale up or laterally, but in this case the carving out was initiated by the investor. How does one ensure that the entity will survive and make it to the tipping point? The team comes with impeccable credentials; the unknown factor is the investor who may pull the plug. In such a case, it is critical to conduct diligence on the investor and his past track record. Search engines come to your rescue in such cases, as past footprints cannot be obliterated.

Either way, put in safeguards to protect your enterprise’s interests with financial, legal or even escrow accounts to address sudden disruption. Work with your legal team for once, ask all the questions even if they make the other queasy; at least you will be able to sleep with ease.

Strategic vendor meetings, slip between intent and execution

I met the CEO of a global market leading hardware and services vendor recently – he’s from an organization which has been engaged with us for many years. He was earnestly seeking customer feedback on how is his company contributes to the success of customers and what is required to sustain or improve the mutual value. My submission to him was that all is well and hunky dory; we think of their company when we needed something. Once the transaction is over, the Account Manager as well as my team part ways until the next requirement comes up.

As a purely transactional arrangement, this works well, but many other value added opportunities get missed as this vendor is not our first recall. The CEO was aghast and promised to remedy the situation quickly through a strategic meeting with solution heads and domain experts; this was to be repeated every quarter, or on demand.

Six months passed, and nothing happened. Another chance meeting, and this time the CEO turned crimson on hearing the progress. In the interim, some more business went to their competitors. The chastised managers began the chase attempting to fix this meeting, which materialized after another three weeks. Time requested and granted — 1½ hours, scheduled start 2:30 PM.

D-day arrived, and this is how events unfolded:

2:30 PM came and went with no sign of the delegation; No call, no SMS, nothing. The audience comprising of the CIO and a few General Managers waited with some concern and amusement.

3:00 PM: Account Manager turns up. After 10 minutes, the second person ambles along. Meeting starts at 3:15 with a presentation on how the vendor sees the current market. They shared their beliefs about our challenges, and thus the opportunities for engagement. He talked about services that we have tried unsuccessfully with the vendor as the key unique selling points.

3:30 PM: The Sales head joins the meeting while the discussion was on an organizational matrix—a model that would support us in the collective quest to take engagement to the next level. As we started tabling issues, the vendor team had reasons for all that had nothing to do with them. An ERP upgrade, change in account managers, shift of support personnel, I am sure you get the point. But there were only fleeting regrets that they did not update us on open issues or orders despite multiple reminders.

3:45 PM: “What are your priorities and projects for the next 12 months?” and we quipped “To explore new and alternative vendors”. My colleague whispers that this meeting is worth a mention on Oh I See. Saving grace for them came in the form of an urgent phone interruption.

4:00 PM: The reception announces arrival of the last person who was to join the meeting. I get up and walk out of the meeting.

I wonder whether the vendor realizes what they (did not) achieve with the strategic meeting scheduled by their CEO with intent to enhance business with our company. Why does the IT vendor fraternity not teach its sales force to listen, engage, empathize and show some patience – the four tenets of retaining your customers? All of them (except a handful) are interested in talking, or presenting the great slides provided by their local or global HQ with inane survey data that normally has no connect in the local dynamics of business. Like every other business, retaining customers is all about creating a differentiated experience, unless you always compete on price.

The evolving IT service provider

IT service providers are evolving, and at quite a rapid pace. To take a case in point, I was invited to a gathering of more than 100 IT service providers and channel partners to talk to them about “How to sell to a CIO”. This is not the first time that I have spoken on this subject; earlier, it was to sales teams of large Indian and global IT companies, but it was different this time. The group comprised of mid and large sized companies who vie for business from the small and medium enterprise (SME), as well as large enterprises. This segment has to balance between different types of businesses — right from owner driven organizations with no formal IT organization as such, all the way to CIOs of large companies. And a lot of such service providers classify the SME business in terms of people, revenue and process.

It was interesting to observe that the audience comprising largely of CEOs and heads of sales (or service), listened with rapt attention. It was eerie in a way — there was absolutely no cross-talk, buzzing of mobile phones, or anyone getting up during the hour long talk (I am used to, and also guilty of, such behavior during conferences). The audience could associate with most references to vendor behavior — their wins and losses, joys and frustrations, ups and downs. It was as if their lives were being subject to scrutiny, at a scale never done before.

On the flip side, the participants had many questions on why CIOs ignore them, and at the same time want the CEOs to visit even for a small transaction. According to many, the CIO egos were a big put off. There were also many questions around the lack of transparency in decision making, the inordinate negotiation timeframes, and then expectations of how the services, goods or solutions should be delivered in super crunch time.

As I made an attempt to answer some of these concerns, it was evident that the CIO’s evolution is still an ongoing process. Not every CIO has evolved to a level of maturity where almost every business transaction is a win-win situation (or every interaction is looked forward to). There are no universal answers that can be applied to every situation, since the CEOs agreed that there is a serious need to impart skills within their teams in order to more easily manage the situation.

Governance applied to IT procurement was another heatedly debated aspect. While vendors like to work with the CIO towards long-term relationships, being the lowest price vendor is not the best criteria for selection in such a scenario. According to the vendors, value additions offered as proof of concept, training and education, post implementation handholding, and technology advisory should be given due weight while taking a decision on awarding the business. The channel partners also expect clear decision making cycles, so that they do not end up in the hands of “purchase departments” who measure only on the basis of savings over the initial offer or budget.

The relationship between IT service providers, channel partners, and the CIO is at best, symbiotic. We need each other to be successful, in our quest for achieving our objectives. A partnership built on shaky ground will not withstand the travails of time and pressure from internal as well as external forces. Trust has to be built upfront and sustained, for each others’ success. To quote my favorite management thinker (at least in 2010), “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself” – Peter Drucker.

As the IT service providers and channel partners evolve to understand their customers, the industry in which they work, the opportunities open to their customers, and work towards creating success for the CIO, it will be a challenge for some CIOs to now engage with them at a new plane of maturity and understanding. It the CIOs fail to achieve this, they may alienate themselves into a situation that will make success difficult.

Are CIOs up to the challenge? It still remains to be seen.

Irrelevance of vendor presentations

Let me start with a quote from Peter Drucker — “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Last month, I was invited to a a marquee publication house’s three day offsite CIO event to discuss the coming year’s IT agenda. Topics on the agenda looked good, the attendee list was glowing, and a long standing relationship with the Editor propelled me towards attending this event. So I packed my bags and decided to give it a shot.

Almost all such events invite a couple of CEOs and thought leaders to share their insights and provoke some thought within the audience. And the CEOs did not let down on that promise. They had the audience eating out of their hands, listening with rapt attention to every word, absorbing it, taking notes, discussing with their neighbors, and in the end asking a lot of relevant questions. The act was a tough one to follow, but the CIOs were charged.

As a result, they (the CIOs) did not mind a few vendor presentations. To their credit, the CIOs did attempt to follow these sessions, but it was a difficult proposition to keep the lids from drooping.

The following days had everyone unanimously wondering what hit them. The torture began with inane presentations ranging from the usual suspects — virtualization, green data centers, cloud computing, outsourcing, intelligent cabling systems, network rationalization, and so on. A few consultants tried to revive the audience by raising questions about CIO reporting and their efficacy. The audience was too numbed to be provoked, and let it go with a mild reprimand similar to “Don’t disturb my sleep”.

The icing on the cake was a presentation on “What is a Data Center”. Yes, men are from Mars, and in a predominantly male crowd, by association CIOs could be classified to belong to Mars. But telling a CIO about what a data center is like is rather akin to teaching Michael Schumacher how to ride a car! I wanted to insert an analogy on Golf, but decided against it.

Without exception, every sponsor had a slide deck (with a minimum of 30 slides) to be displayed to the captives. They ranged right from very basic elementary stuff and all the way to one which wanted CIOs to learn how to move virtual partitions across servers. To be subject to such a score of presentations over two days beats the torture that even the famed Nazi inflicted on their poor captives.

Despite being advised against it by the organizers and post event feedback by the audience, it beats me as to why vendors insist on subjecting CIOs to repetitive presentations with nothing new to talk about, and preach their version of religion. To top it all, these activities are dished out by sales and marketing folks, who are not even subject matter experts (these people could potentially be challenged by the listeners).

The last straw (in a few cases) is the substitute junior staff member reading out slides with no eye contact with the audience. Such a person is typically in a hurry to get off the stage in order to avoid any cross-questioning from the few members who suffer from insomnia. I would rather withdraw the slot than be the subject of “How to reduce your exposure to this vendor”.

Has the IT vendor become a slave to these habits? Has their thinking has become clouded (a side effect of cloud computing?)? Is the scene so bad that IT vendors are unable to explore alternatives to engage their prime customers — the CIOs? Whatever happened to good old case studies, panel discussions, and interactive sessions in the form of a Q&A? Are vendors unable to stand tall without the crutches of slide decks which no one wants to see? Why do vendors continue to alienate themselves from their customers?

I guess it’s time to get back to basics. To quote Peter Drucker once again, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” Will a publishing house donate some Peter Drucker books to all the Marketing Heads of IT companies?

How should vendors engage with the CIO

For IT Vendors, CIOs are a very sought after audience. As a result, they always solicit face contact with the CIO to pitch their wares, hoping to get a foothold in the company. These vary from license sellers (paper licenses or shrink-wrapped), hardware vendors, consumables, networking, security, applications, custom development, maintenance, testing services, manpower augmentation, staffing services, consulting, strategic alignment, and so on.

If I were to create a comprehensive list (which I will do some day), it would probably run into multiple pages! CIOs endeavor to keep these individuals and companies at bay, as they seem to be interested only in selling, and nothing else. Also, consider the fact that CIOs would only be listening to vendor pitches and groveling through the week, if vendors have their way.

Vendor pitches range from “the cheapest”, “cutting edge”, “better than the other”, and in a few rare cases, “solve business problems”. The majority fail to engage in a dialogue or listen, as if they have the entire routine by rote — the moment they are in front of the CIO, the Play button is activated! Unfortunately, only a handful of vendors understand the realities of your company or industry. The typical vendor repeats stories that may be out of context (based on experiences with companies or geographies, where the challenges are dissimilar to those faced by you).

With IT budgets either about to lapse (in a few cases) and new budget preparations (for most of us), vendors endeavor to wrangle their way into our minds. These heightened pitches tire the CIO, and in many cases fail to gain traction of any kind. The story repeats itself many times over, with the results remaining the same.

Albert Einstein said it very well, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. Vendors should stop selling, and start listening to their prime customers — the CIOs — on what they are working on, and then help them succeed. According to the Peter Drucker quote, “A customer never buys what we sell”. This is more so in the case of IT.

Every time a vendor approaches a CIO, his understanding of the CIO’s need should supersede the need to sell. Just the fact that you have a solution, does not imply that I have the problem!

Non Disclosure Agreements

In not so distant a past, I had an interesting set of meetings with four of the top 10 global IT vendors and consultants who were bidding for a large engagement. Without exception, each party wanted the deal badly enough, considering the scope of work and the market expansion it may create. However, at the end of the evaluation process, I was feeling really nervous, not about the project, but about client confidentiality and what it means.

In the early part of the century after the recession brought about by dot-burst and 9/11, the IT industry had a lot going well for them. Many traditional industries started outsourcing and offshoring, and in one case, an inadvertent mention of a client name in a small newspaper column resulted in a written apology from the vendor CEO to the client PMO and VMO. It also resulted in a reduction in future business prospects.

Fast forward to the present, where vendors do not put in the customer name in presentations, but the words and context gives away the customer to anyone who can use a bit of market intelligence. This is obviously to protect the customer identity. So you may get referred to as “Top 3 FMCG company in India”, “Global 5 retailer” or “Large merchant banker in UK”. The case study that follows almost gives away the name, but still leaves a little room for guess work.

Going back to the incident, all the above mentioned safeguards were present, and guess what! Without exception, each presenter mentioned the customer names, stating that it was confidential. Talk about various non disclosure agreements that lawyers may have spent months preparing! Or warnings given by the CIO, PM or the business head!

Are NDAs worth even the paper they are printed on ? And in India, they are indeed printed on non-judicial stamp paper. When I asked some of them on this “slip”, there were no convincing answers. I’m not sure if there are any measures that you can take to address this situation.
Have you seen similar behavior? How do you protect your and your company’s interest in such a scenario? I would be very skeptical in doing business with such vendors, especially if it was something that brings competitive advantage in the mid-term.

This post was written for TechTarget.In and can also be seen at http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/Oh-I-See/

Vendor Feed Forward (not feedback)

I have been inactive for a while, wondering what is it that I should write about. There were a few instances when a burning issue or something I felt about strongly, but that urge passed quickly.

Surprise (not really), corporate blogs are becoming big with companies putting up blogs which talk about their products and services. These use broad based trends to promote their solution and why you as the CIO/decision maker should be running to them to help solve your problem.

After attending a few events in the last 3 months and having been subjected to a barrage of vendor pitches, I wonder why they never learn from their past mistakes ? Almost every event has a technology vendor as a sponsor and by virtue of the money spent, they get a few slots to address the audience.

Guess what do they do with their valuable time ? Talk about their products, which anyway everyone in the audience knows about, wasting precious time which could have been used to engage in a dialogue or seek their participation to explore opportunities. You will find 80% of the audience busy with blackberry phones or doodling away; some brave ones walk out while a few interrupt the speaker with their snores ! And to add to the misery, they want feedback !

So I requested a few organizers to create a forum for feed forward (as opposed to feedback) to help the poor things understand what we want to hear from them. It would be a great service to the IT fraternity if vendors listened and used the information gathered in their planning on what to do with the timeslots.

But then we are not rewarded for going against conventional wisdom. Marketing and Sales organizations will want to make presentations on what they have or will there be wind of change ?