IT Investment Decision Making Getting to “Yes” and Avoiding “No”

IT Investment Decision Making
Getting to "yes" and avoiding "no"
Many technology sales cycles get bogged down in the IT department. Whilst it is unlikely that a sale will get anywhere without buy in from IT management, their approval is no guarantee of final success. Getting to "yes" requires accessing and influencing other key decision makers especially those in the finance department. And along the way, there are plenty of others who can say "no"

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Information Technology (IT) sits at the heart of the majority of modern business Very few businesses consider IT as a peripheral activity, or even a burdensome cost, the overwhelming majority consider it as a core value add to their activities
- IT Managers are only the starting point for closing an IT sale When it comes to approving a major IT investment, the approval of the Managing Director will nearly always be required and when it comes to prioritising spending plans the Financial Director is omnipresent
- Most business managers like to keep up to date with technology developments Finance managers think it is at least as important for them to keep up to speed with technology developments as it is for IT managers, but they prioritise sources of information differently
- The internet, trade shows, press and business reports all have their place, but you can forget the blogosphere Peers and colleagues are considered essential sources of information; finance managers are more likely than their counterparts in IT to show up at a trade show, the latter are more likely to be sitting at their PC searching the internet with Google
- Don't let the lure of the business press lead you to overlook the IT trade press All managers consider the IT trade press to be a useful source of information ahead of the daily papers and other business press. Few consider the Sunday papers to be useful for keeping up to speed with IT. Most are more likely to read their favourite publications on line, rather than in print
- Few managers have subscription based access to the services of analysts, but their reports are valued The majority of managers are prepared to pay for analyst reports, whilst few have access to subscription based services. Many seek out free analytical content on the internet especially those working in the public sector or smaller businesses

The IT sales and marketing challenge
Few businesses consider information technology (IT) as a peripheral activity or even as a burdensome overhead. For the overwhelming majority it is seen as a core activity that adds value to their activities (Figure 1). This will not come as a surprise to most IT vendors, who find how critical their particular components of the customers IT infrastructures are when things go wrong.

These vendors will also have noticed this when getting their customers to adopt those components in the first place; IT investment decision making is not the sole preserve of the IT department, but requires the input of management from other business functions for all but the smallest purchases. Again, this should not surprise anybody ? the IT department does not exist for its own sake, but to serve the business.

Consequently most vendors find the sales process a tricky maze to negotiate and seek experienced sales people to help them to succeed. Even so, common and avoidable mistakes are made at all stages of the sales process leading vendors to lose business or waste time chasing sales they never stood a chance of winning in the first place. This is costly for the vendor and can be a disaster for the sales people who all too often end up with an unplanned career break.

The challenge of the sales-team is to identify the key influencers in the decision making process and make sure they buy in to the proposal. A common gripe of the sales-team as they go through this process is that the decision makers have never heard of the vendor being represented and/or the products being proposed. This is the challenge of the vendor's marketing team, whose job it is to prime the market so that the sales-people are wooing a receptive audience.