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Line of business decision makers working outside the realm of IT departments are
reaping more and more influence over technology purchasing at mid-market firms,
including in some high-growth areas, such as collaboration, social media and analyt-
ics, say Techaisle researchers. That could be seen as good news to sales personnel,
as line of business executives tend to have a wider and more optimistic view than IT
executives of how technology can drive overall business success, suggests the firm’s
study of SMB and midmarket decision making authority.
More than half of upper midmarket line of business managers, for example, say
it is very critical for IT departments to be able to identify and associate IT solutions
with efficiency, productivity and profitability compared to less than a third of IT exec-
utives who said the same. Twice as many mid-market line of business decision makers
as IT decision makers say it is critical for IT to understand how technology contrib-
utes to overall organizational success.
Line of business executives also have higher expectations for support in using
technology to build customer connections. More than 40 percent of business deci-
sion makers believe it is critical that IT has a grasp of solutions that enable beneficial
customer and supplier interactions. In contrast, only a quarter of IT department
heads say that business decision managers should have a grasp of such solutions.
“These business decision makers have specific objectives for technology usage,
clear perspectives on adoption drivers and impediments, and tend to be influenced
by information sources that are different from the inputs used by IT decision makers,”
says Anurag Agrawal, Techaisle CEO and analyst.
To those who sell into these midmarket firms, it certainly sounds like a nice ad-
vocate to have inside the building, and one that will be needed to persuade newly
strained IT departments. After all, there’s good reason IT is sometimes seen as the
“department of no.” They know the challenges and complexities of new tech deploy-
ments and integrations.
“This pressure from business managers leaves IT leaders scrambling to stretch
limited budgets to meet seemingly limitless requirements, striving to deliver predict-
able, secure systems that respond to the increasingly varied needs of their business
users and competitive environments,” says Agrawal. It’s not hard to envision mount-
ing animosity.
“Although it may be tempting to try to bring the various parties together, IT sup-
pliers cannot successfully act as intra-corporate matchmakers,” argues Agrawal; “they
have to come to grasp with the reality of selling to two different constituencies which
have different expectations.”
In other words, two sets of expectations and realities now can mean two distinct
sales pitches for every one account.
Talking to Both Business and IT
Alternate
Views
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