Part 1 of 3 on IT Procurement
A lot of companies we buy from, want to be our partners or form a collaborative partnership. Having been on both sides, this means, please focus all your spend on us and don't buy anything from our competitors. In return, they offer better pricing, more technical and pre-sales support, ability to influence their roadmap, etc.
The incentives of most sales groups are based on closing deals in a given period. A salesperson is focused on closing deals while preaching long term partnership. The pitch is about long term goals, understanding where we want to go, and helping us get there. In reality, the only things that goes up the chain and is asked for, is how many unit are we going to buy.
From sales perspective, buying IT equipment is not very different than buying a car. Our salesperson plays the good cop by seeking to form a long term relationship. His boss or boss's boss is the bad cop, demanding immediate sales.It becomes a game just like the one played at a car dealership. Salesperson makes numerous unnecessary trips to their supervisor "helping" us get the best deal possible because they are on our side and want us to recommend them to our friends or buy our next car from them.
Purchasing teams and savvy IT purchasers are very familiar with this tactical approach. They leverage it to their advantage by waiting for the deals at the end of the month, quarter, year. For every deal, competitors are pitted against each other. A lot time and money is wasted by everyone in the ecosystem chasing after the deal. In a large deal the number of entities involved and therefore hours spent is very significant. Besides the customer and manufacturer, most deals include a value added reseller, system integrator, hosting, and financing/leasing. Each group is using business development dollars to win the business. There's only one winner, if you don't count businesses that specialize in business entertainment!
Is there a better way to do this?
