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

Tail Fins and Flashing Lights

“When I started in this business, they sold IT the way Detroit sold cars. The big difference was that computers were never equipped with chrome-plated bumpers and tail fins,” says Zazzera. “But like cars, computers were often sold on the basis of size and speed. The bigger, faster ones had to be better, right? It also helped if there were flashing lights. The standard sales pitch rarely included a discussion about whether all that additional size and speed would actually lead to measurable gains in productivity. Very few people really cared.”

By the middle of the 1980s, however, opinions and beliefs about the intrinsic value of information were changing. Spurred by a growing consensus that information should be treated as a valuable asset, companies began stocking up on IT. Suddenly the vendors couldn’t keep up with demand as companies raced to buy all kinds of IT products and services—whether they actually needed them or not.

The arrival of the desktop PC brought millions of new users into the IT universe, which accelerated the IT shopping spree that had begun a few years earlier. The unexpected popularity of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and e-mail sent IT budgets soaring to new and amazing heights. Everyone on the planet, it seemed, had become an IT consumer.

By the mid-1990s, the world was wired. Sober people spoke seriously about “the new economy,” in which global markets, ubiquitous computing, and 24/7 access to information would eliminate ...