Technology
is an enabler for change, and technology will help deliver the business
strategy, but it should not lead it. Business strategy is about outcome based
decisions, not the technology to get you there.
Traditional
sales people in the technology space are very good at selling tin, and large
vendors have grown revenues consistently over the past couple of decades. But
the way companies buy and consume technology has shifted. Cisco is proof of
this. Cisco has stated that they are moving from a hardware manufacturer to a software
and services business. It will not be easy for a company of Cisco’s size to
make this shift and it will need change from the very top to help drive it to
success, and they will do it.
If you
have been in the technology sector for ten years or more, you will have seen IT
departments buy new servers, switches or routers from their vendor because they
have become bigger, faster, with more RAM, storage space, providing larger
routing capabilities and proving to be much more energy efficient. These are
all good reasons to buy new kit, but as a business, the better and smarter
approach is to understand what the business requirements are for information
and operations before you start to think about technology.
Old
buying habits followed old IT rules and industry habits. This type of buying
leads to technology silos in the business, and servers that were not used to
their full potential to deliver benefits to the business. There is a ton of
information on this out there, McKinsey & Company have written articles on
it, as have Gartner, so why has it taken so long for people to catch on?
I think
it’s because in a lot of cases the technology was purchased before the strategy
or business case or requirements had been understood. This leads to IT telling
the business what they could or could not achieve. It should be the business
telling IT what it does and does not need, and IT finding the technical
solution to deliver it.
The
world of cloud has helped change this model, but so did the downturn in the
economy. Businesses have had to think smarter about the way they spend their
money and the technology they invest in, but most importantly, how much ROI
they are going to achieve as a result.
Now we
are coming to the other side of the downturn, businesses have cash and budgets
to spend and upgrades are required, so the market is growing and there is money
to be made. Companies, vendors, suppliers and partners need to show real added
value to their customers in term of business transformation and commercial gain
to take advantage of this shift.
Work on
outcome based models and help drive real value into your customers. Become a
real business partner, not just a supplier, those days are gone, and will be
long gone before we know it, which is a powerful thing. Working with customers
and understanding what their business drivers are will help drive a business
case and strategy. It may have a longer sales cycle, but in the long run,
revenues will be greater and the technology will fly off the shelves easier
than it did before.
For
companies to be successful, they need to change how they reward their sales
teams and how they sell into customers. The current models just don’t fit the
new world, and this will make change to the new way of selling very strenuous.
