Partnering With the CIO: The Future of IT Sales Seen Through the Eyes of Key Decision Makers

“You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat”

Information technology has become the indispensable tool of our age. It would be extremely difficult to imagine our society functioning at its current level of modernity without the capabilities routinely provided by IT. It would be impossible to imagine our interconnected global economy functioning without IT.

Information technology already surrounds us. It has achieved ubiquity. Like indoor plumbing and central heating, IT is now universally accepted and expected. It’s not going away.

Over the next three decades, IT will become so thoroughly woven into our lives that the boundaries between biology and IT will become essentially meaningless.

Barring some worldwide cataclysm, the demand for IT will continue rising for the rest of the twenty-first century.

So why aren’t IT suppliers jumping for joy? Because their lives are harder than ever! Despite rising demand, it’s more difficult to sell IT products and services than ever before. Here are two primary reasons for the sense of discomfort felt by IT suppliers:

1. Unyielding downward pressure on pricing.

2. Steadily increasing expectations.

Put those two reasons together and you get an environment that makes selling downright difficult. Even as demand skyrockets, IT has become a buyer’s market.

There’s a third reason for the pain experienced by IT suppliers. This third reason is far more complex than the first two, and that’s why we devote the rest of this book to examining it. Here it is:

3. A fundamental ...