Why is Buying Technology Services Such Hard Work?
Imagine sitting in an upmarket restaurant looking at a menu of dishes that all sounded when you read them out in your hungry mind amazingly good, but you had to choose, hopefully, enjoy and pay for just one. The ‘what ifs’ are endless!
Back in 2017, I penned an article called “Why is selling such hard work” Later in that article I suggested that it is actually the buyer looking for the right technology solution, who has the hardest job. To be frank, although the salesperson has a target to hit and whist they earn well if they do and not so much if they don’t, it is the buyer who has more at stake, If it turns out they make the wrong decision technology and supplier wise.
Consider this….
You and your colleagues off the back of a year of waiting for the end of the Covid pandemic are finally looking at the prospect of getting back to the office and removing call divert from the desk phones. But now you realise it is time to look at moving your communications to the cloud and learning more about this collaboration service idea. Which means looking at a plan for ditching calling from and to mobiles, plus the free limited versions of video conferencing services that you have been getting by with and buying your own UC platform that integrates into as many of your workflow processes as possible
So, what do you do? Well, I might suggest, not this…
I remember a year ago, I saw a LinkedIn post for a 30 employee estate agency business post on LinkedIn “we need a 30 extension cloud telephony service, can I get some quotes please?”
2,000 responses later, all suggesting to be the best solution with the most attractive price, I think the author went and booked a last-minute two week getaway to escape the mass scramble he had unexpectedly created.
Just this morning I saw a Unified Communications market guide offering 140 different vendors. So in fact, it could have been much worse. If each vendor had say at least 100 reseller partners for their service, he could have had up to 14,000 different responses, all suggesting that they are an ideal fit and their price is perfect for the buyer’s budget.
Regardless of whether the buyer is Head of IT, Managing Director, Office Manager or Head of Operations, it’s clearly not their job to understand the technology market for Unified Communications, the vendors their technologies and how they could benefit the business aims of their organisation.
It is however precisely the role of the Technology Advisor, who being independent (in other words vendor agnostic) is there to help the customer make sense of the connectivity/networks, data centre, security as well as the unified communications and collaboration services markets that they cover. Plus they are there to help customers understand and interpret their technology needs for their business and to make introductions to the appropriate suppliers and to accompany and advise the customer on their buyer selection journey.
Imagine now, instead of having to place a ‘from the hip’ post on LinkedIn and hoping for the best, or hitting Google and searching for ‘unified communications’ instead, you called your Independent Technology Advisor.
Now back to that menu, “Excuse me waiter, what’s good today?”
Stephen Hackett, March 2021
The thoughts and opinion of the author are not his own, They are the fabric of the advice, experience and industry observations that we like to share with anyone who has an interest.
