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

Selling Up, Down, and Sideways

Bruce C. Barnes, the president and CEO of Bold Vision, learned the hard way that selling a new IT concept requires 360 degrees of effort, especially at a large organization.

Previously in his career, Barnes was the CIO at a global enterprise where a crucial IT project had languished for years under several earlier leadership teams. “Now it was my turn in the barrel,” recalls Barnes. Mindful of the project’s significance and aware that its high visibility would make it vulnerable to sniping, Barnes received permission to report directly to the CEO for the duration of the project.

With the CEO’s approval and support, Barnes swiftly made a series of changes in staffing, suppliers, schedules, and organization. “Clearly I had achieved legitimate power and was positioned for success,” he remembers thinking. “I figured intuitively that if the CEO was on board, I was golden.”

Then the roof fell in. While Barnes focused on implementing the project, an angry director caught the ear of the CEO and convinced him that Barnes’ plan was too disruptive. The director talked the CEO into purchasing a solution from a vendor whom Barnes had cast aside earlier. Barnes says:

I should have found a way to get the director more involved in the project. People have a way of getting even with you, especially if you try to run over them. What I failed to appreciate was that I needed the cooperation of many people in the organization who had been members of the prior leadership ...