SURVEY The 2012 IT Buyer Experience Survey: Accelerating

S U R V E Y

T h e 2 0 1 2 I T B u y e r E x p e r i e n c e S u r v e y : A c c e l e r a t i n g t h e N e w B u y e r ' s J o u r n e y

Gerry Murray

Irina Zvagelsky

Kathleen Schaub

Michael Gerard

Richard Vancil

I D C O P I N I O N

Making an IT purchase is a huge time commitment. On average, survey respondents spend 44% of their work week on pre– and post–IT purchase activities. This time strain impacts an increasing number of senior leaders as buying teams continue to grow in size, adding an average of one person each year for the past two years. As a result, IT buyers are desperate to reduce the amount of time it takes to make IT purchase decisions, and more than a third of them are willing to change vendors to do it. Buyers are asking for a very simple set of actions by vendors to achieve this reduction. However, it requires that vendors become far more buyer centric in their marketing and selling practices. In addition:

 Be prepared for changing perceptions of value: To continuously deliver value along the buyer's journey, you must know how value changes by role, the stage of buying cycle, IT purchasing expertise, the type of sale (new versus replacement), and so forth.

 Focus on solving problems: Content and conversations must center on customers' perspectives — whether it's adding flexibility to their infrastructure or increasing process efficiency or driving revenue. Your solution is only interesting to the extent it addresses their needs.

 Respect the buying process: Some companies make many IT purchase decisions every year for millions of dollars. Their buying teams are significantly smaller, their cycle times shorter, and their expectations of vendors substantially higher. Even if an account does not do a lot of business with you, you must respect its process or put yourself at higher risk of losing the deal.

 Accelerate responsiveness: The speed at which IT buyers require support from vendors changes dramatically over the course of the buyer's journey. Many vendors do not keep pace on the final and most important part of the process. As you approach the close, your responsiveness must increase dramatically.

Filing Information: October 2012, IDC #237207, Volume: 1

Sales Advisory Service: Survey

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

P

In This Study 1

Methodology ............................................................................................................................................. 1

Situation Ove r vi ew 3

Embracing the New Buyer's Journey........................................................................................................ 3

F u t u r e O u t l o o k 24

The Trusted Advisor — It's All About Extra Effort ..................................................................................... 24

Essential Guidance 24

L e a r n M o r e 25

Related Research ..................................................................................................................................... 25

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L I S T O F T A B L E S

P

1 Most Valued Vendor Content During the IT Investment Decision-Making Process by Job Role ................................................................................................................................. 16

2 Motivation for Vendor Outreach by Job Role................................................................................ 17

3 Top Influencers for IT Purchase Decision by Job Role and Company Size in the Past 12 Months .................................................................................................................. 19

4 Value of Key Sources of Content by Type of Decision Maker ...................................................... 21

©2012 IDC #237207

L I S T O F F I G U R E S

P

1 Value of IT Investments in the Past 12 Months ............................................................................ 1

2 Involvement in IT Purchase Decision by Company Size in the Past 12 Months........................... 2

3 Involvement in IT Purchase Decision by Job Role in the Past 12 Months.................................... 2

4 Internal IT Purchase Decisions Made Before Talking to a Sales Rep by Job Role in the Past 12 Months .................................................................................................................. 4

5 Internal IT Purchase Decisions Made Before Talking to a Sales Rep by Company Size in the Past 12 Months .................................................................................................................. 4

6 IDC's Customer Creation Framework........................................................................................... 6

7 Amount of Time Spent on IT Purchases by Role ......................................................................... 7

8 Number of People on the IT Buying Team by Company Size, 2010–2012 ................................. 8

9 Typical Versus Preferred Time Taken by Buyers to Buy Enterprise IT Solutions,

2009–2012 .................................................................................................................................. 9

10 IT Buying Team Members by Purchasing Behavior ..................................................................... 11

11 Buyer Strategies for Reducing the Buying Cycle Time by Job Role............................................. 13

12 Specific Reasons for Vendor Replacement.................................................................................. 14

13 Factors that Influence the IT Buying Decision-Making Process ................................................... 15

14 Attributes Influencing Technology Buying Decision...................................................................... 18

15 Appropriate Time for a Vendor Sales Rep to Approach the CIO .................................................. 20

16 Impact of Social Networking on Vendor Interaction...................................................................... 22

17 Leverage of Social Media Channels, 2011 and 2012................................................................... 23

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I N T H I S S T U D Y

IDC's Sales Advisory and CMO Advisory Practices provide research, insight, and guidance to help technology sales teams and marketing organizations improve the productivity and efficiency of their sales activities and marketing practices, respectively. The 2012 EAG Buyer Experience Survey, offered as part of IDC's Sales

Advisory and CMO Advisory Practices, analyzes IT buyer experiences when buying from IT vendors and guides both emerging and leading IT vendors on how to make the buyer experience more productive from a sales and marketing perspective. This study includes information collected from 204 companies in industries such as business or business professional services, manufacturing, finance, government, healthcare, and education.

M e t h o d o l o g y

A total of 204 companies responded to IDC's 2012 EAG Buyer Experience Survey.

(Please note that all participant answers are kept confidential by IDC, and all data is aggregated for the purposes of trend analysis. We do not provide company-specific data.)

About 54% of companies participating have over 500 employees, and 47% of participants are director level or higher. Survey responses represent a balance across many different IT buying profiles as shown in Figure 1. Roughly 51% of participants were directly involved with IT buying decisions exceeding $250,000 over the past 12 months (see Figure 1).

F I G U R E 1

V a l u e o f I T I n v e s t m e n t s i n t h e P a s t 1 2 M o n t h s

Q.

What do you estimate was the total value of your IT purchases in the past 12 months?

n = 204

Source: IDC's 2012 EAG Buyer Experience Survey

©2012 IDC #237207 1

Respondents make on average 25 IT purchases per year. Larger companies tend to make fewer purchases but spend more per purchase than their smaller counterparts.

C-level executives reported being involved in an average of 29 IT purchases per year, line-of-business VPs and directors in an average of 15 purchases, and IT respondents in an average of 49 IT purchases last year. That's a decision a week for the senior IT buyer (see Figures 2 and 3).

Note: All numbers in this document may not be exact due to rounding.

F I G U R E 2

I n v o l v e m e n t i n I T P u r c h a s e D e c i s i o n b y C o m p a n y S i z e i n t h e

P a s t 1 2 M o n t h s

Q.

How many information technology (IT) investment decisions have you been involved with in the past 12 months? Think of those that were for investments at the "group" level or above

— in other words, not those purchases made for your individual use.

n = 204


F I G U R E 3

I n v o l v e m e n t i n I T P u r c h a s e D e c i s i o n b y J o b R o l e i n t h e


Q.

How many information technology (IT) investment decisions have you been involved with in the past 12 months? Think of those that were for investments at the "group" level or above

— in other words, not those purchases made for your individual use.

n = 204


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S I T U A T I O N O V E R V I E W

E m b r a c i n g t h e N e w B u y e r ' s J o u r n e y

New buyers operate independently. They have their own devices, blogs, communities, forums, and peer networks. They are now capable of getting much of what they need for their journey through their buying process without regard for a vendor's marketing and sales cycles. The desires and behaviors of this powerful new buyer must become the impetus for restructuring marketing and sales as we know it.

Today, everything marketing and sales professionals do must be constructed around the customers and embedded in their world in terms of timing, format, and messaging. Vendors should stop and think carefully about what is going on during each step of the buyer's journey before they desperately bombard prospects and customers with unwanted or untimely marketing and sales activities.

Changes in IT buyer behavior start right at the very beginning of the buyer's journey.

Buyers conduct much of their buying activities before formally engaging with a vendor. Consider the way a car is purchased today. You don't walk into a car dealership and depend on the salesperson for all your information about buying a car.

Before walking into a dealer, you decide what type of vehicles you want to consider, which dealers to go to, and how much you can spend and determine what you know and what you want to verify or learn. You want to be confident that you have your own command of the facts so you can parse the seller's bias and ask intelligent questions that will help you make the right decision for your needs. This exploration represents a very large part of the decision process. Probably 50–75% or more of your purchasing effort is completed before you even walk into the dealer. IT buyers are driven by these same objectives and operate in a similar fashion. IT buyers may be in this pre-engagement phase for as much as six to nine months before the explicit buying activities begin (see Figure 4).

However, this does not mean that IT buyers have abandoned vendor interactions by any means. They still rely on vendor support for more than half of the purchase process (see Figure 5).

©2012 IDC #237207 3

F I G U R E 4

I n t e r n a l I T P u r c h a s e D e c i s i o n s M a d e B e f o r e T a l k i n g t o a S a l e s

R e p b y J o b R o l e i n t h e P a s t 1 2 M o n t h s

Q.

Thinking about your biggest purchase in the past 12 months, what percentage of your decision regarding which vendor to use has been made by the time you first speak with a salesperson?

n = 204


F I G U R E 5

I n t e r n a l I T P u r c h a s e D e c i s i o n s M a d e B e f o r e T a l k i n g t o a S a l e s

R e p b y C o m p a n y S i z e i n t h e P a s t 1 2 M o n t h s

Q.

Thinking about your biggest purchase in the past 12 months, what percentage of your decision regarding which vendor to use has been made by the time you first speak with a salesperson?

n = 204


The question is: How can vendors appropriately engage with new buyers on their journey?

This study provides insight into what the new buyer for technology products and services really thinks about marketing and sales today. To help B2B companies meet the needs of the new buyer, IDC has developed a customer creation framework (see

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Figure 6) that takes into account these changing requirements. This framework advises marketers and sellers to advance in three important ways:

 Buyer centric: Instead of the sales-centric orientation of the past, today's customer creation process must put the buyer front and center. Vendors must act like a concierge, providing services that guide buyers through their "buyer's journey." This buyer's journey describes the cognitive process buyers go through as they make a purchase decision.

 Integrates marketing and sales: Instead of the baton-like handoff between marketing and sales silos, the IDC Customer Creation Framework calls for an orchestrated collaboration between the two functions. This collaboration still involves a transition of engagement leadership, but it is typically more gradual, it can go in either direction, and it takes place within the context of overlapping involvement.

 Smart, data driven: The entire customer creation process contains data that can be harvested to use as a feedback system and provide buyer-intelligence insight.

By analyzing this data, barriers and opportunities will be revealed. Companies can then use marketing and sales tactics like knobs and levers to tweak the behavior and outcomes of the pipeline.

For more information on this, see CMO Advisory Service Best Practices Series:

Realizing the Vision of 21st Century Lead Management (IDC #236396, August 2012).

©2012 IDC #237207 5

F I G U R E 6

I D C ' s C u s t o m e r C r e a t i o n F r a m e w o r k

Source: IDC, 2011

Buying IT Is a Part-Time Job on Top of a Full-Time Job

IT purchasing is a huge strain on a buyer's resources. Survey participants reported that on average they spend 43% of their time on pre- and post-purchase activities, while IT resources spend 54%. As a result, being part of an IT purchasing team requires extraordinary commitment. Buyers are desperate to reduce the time it takes to make these decisions and get through the implementation phase of their projects.

Vendors must be extremely cognizant of this strain, especially with respect to executive and line-of-business buyers who just want to address a business need and move on (see Figure 7).

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F I G U R E 7

A m o u n t o f T i m e S p e n t o n I T P u r c h a s e s b y R o l e

Q.

If you could condense the next 12 months into one work day, what percent of your typical work day would you spend on the following activities?

n = 204


This stress affects an increasing number of people. Buying teams, especially those in midsize and large companies, continue to increase in size. Vendors, therefore, must help coordinate more contacts — each of whom have different perspectives, levels of education on the solution, and agendas. Marketing and sales must work together to better identify key influencers and help move the buying team along its journey. More customer intelligence is needed. For example, marketing can help communicate how new contacts are related to known members of buying teams. By measuring whether a new lead is likely to be connected to an existing opportunity or to meetings coming up on a rep's schedule, marketing can add significant value to the sales effort.

Salespeople, for their part, must make their customer touch points visible to marketing to ensure high levels of coordination and enable marketing to provide new contacts at exactly the right time (see Figure 8).

©2012 IDC #237207 7

F I G U R E 8

N u m b e r o f P e o p l e o n t h e I T B u y i n g T e a m b y C o m p a n y S i z e , 2 0 1 0 – 2 0 1 2

Q.

How many people were on your buying team including yourself — that is, the group actively involved in influencing the short list of vendors considered and making the purchase decision?

n = 204


How IT Vendors Can Help Shorten the Buying Cycle

As buying teams have expanded, so has the decision time line, leading to a 44-day gap in the actual versus preferred time it takes buyers to buy enterprise IT solutions

(see Figure 9).

Overall, respondents put responsibility for about one-third of that delay on their vendors' shoulders. Buyer recommendations on what vendors can to do reduce their share of the delay fell into three broad categories:

 Responsiveness: "Provide faster response when information is requested."

 Preparation: "Be more prepared to offer innovative ways their products can solve problems."

 Solve problems: "Interact more with our internal teams at a functional level to understand where our pain points are, and then be ready to provide solutions that will improve our revenue and/or profitability."

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F I G U R E 9

T y p i c a l V e r s u s P r e f e r r e d T i m e T a k e n b y B u y e r s t o B u y E n t e r p r i s e

I T S o l u t i o n s , 2 0 0 9 – 2 0 1 2

Q.

How long is your typical purchase process for an enterprise-level purchase when multiple vendors are competing for your business? Please respond in terms of months.

n = 204


There are some important differences in the buying efficiency and expectations among certain kinds of buyers. To delve more deeply into these differences, IDC classified the survey respondents into four categories based on buying behavior:

 Hurdlers: Customers make fewer than 20 purchases per year for a total spend of less than $250,000. They average 4.4 people on their buying teams and take a relatively long time to purchase (4.9 months).

 Sprinters: Customers make more than 20 purchases per year for a total spend of less than $250,000. They have the smallest buying teams and make decisions the fastest.

 Decathloners: Customers make fewer than 20 purchases per year and have a total spend of more than $250,000. They have the largest buying teams and take the longest to make decisions; there will be multiple key events and obstacles in the sales process .

 Marathoners: Customers make more than 20 purchases per year and have a total spend of more than $250,000. They average 5.7 people on their buying teams and take 4.6 months to purchase. They don't take the longest to make decisions because their processes are much more efficient than Decathloners.

©2012 IDC #237207 9

Companies that make more than 20 IT purchases per year are much more efficient at doing so — they have smaller teams and make decisions faster. Importantly, the

Marathoners have the highest expectations and blame vendors for a much higher portion of the delay in their purchase cycles. This means that vendors must be much more responsive and prepared when dealing with these accounts. Marathoners may or may not represent large opportunities for your company, but you must be aware that their purchase process and expectations are distinctly different from other large accounts.

Attributes and Sales Strategies

 Hurdlers:

 Key influencers: IT (20%), CIO (18%), CEO (16%)

 Buying factor profile: Value (67%), relationship (25%), cost (7%)

 Propensity to replace vendors: Low (31%)

 Percentage of decision before engaging vendor: 46%

 Sales strategy: Channel as much as possible to low-cost approaches such as chat-enabled ecommerce sites, peer communities, and resellers. Provide thought leadership coupled with technical details and easy-to-use RFP and

ROI tools.

 Sprinters:

 Key influencers: IT (31%), CIO (21%), LOBs (13%)


 Propensity to replace vendors: Medium (41%)


 Sales strategy: These buyers have the smallest teams and the shortest average decision cycles — responsiveness is critical. Simplicity is the most important issue in all three phases of the customer creation process — easy to find information, expert telesales, and Web-enabled ordering.

 Decathloners:

 Key influencers: IT (24%), CIO (18%), BUs (17%)


 Propensity to replace vendors: Medium (39%)


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 Sales strategy: Require "high touch" support through all phases of the customer creation process. References to third-party sources for content and expertise will be more important, technical sales will play a critical role, and the consensus building process will depend on artful translation between the technical and economic buyers.

 Marathoners:

 Key influencers: CIO (31%), IT (21%), BUs (14%)


 Propensity to replace vendors: High (52%)


 Sales strategy: Trust is a significant issue. Buyers are often betting careers on multimillion-dollar, multiyear IT investments, and although reliability and problem solving are very important, no other segment values trust as highly.

For a breakdown of IT buying team members by purchasing behavior, see Figure 10.

F I G U R E 1 0

I T B u y i n g T e a m M e m b e r s b y P u r c h a s i n g B e h a v i o r

Average people on buying team

Average months to make enterprise purchase

Preferred months for enterprise purchase

Percentage of delay caused by vendor(s) n=

Hurdlers

4.4

Sprinters Decathloners Marathoners

2.9

7.2

5.7

4.9

2.9

34.4

83

4.2

2.3

35.7

17

6.7

3.8

34.6

71

4.6

2.8

43.9

33

Customers that buy more frequently have more efficient purchasing processes.

They can be your best customers, but they put more blame on vendors for delays.

Hurdlers = fewer than 20 purchases per year

Sprinters = fewer than 20 purchases per year

Decathloners = less than $250,000 IT spend

Marathoners = more than $250,000 IT spend (more than half spend $1+ million)

Source: IDC, 2012

©2012 IDC #237207 11

Buyer Strategies for Reducing Purchasing Cycles

The penalty for not respecting the buyers' requirements for how they want to buy can be severe! More than one-third of respondents are willing to change vendors in order to cut time off their purchase process. This willingness to switch is especially true for those executives and external IT consultants that you may have to engage as part of the marketing and sales process. More than 40% of executives are willing to change vendors to save time. For savvy challengers, this lack of loyalty represents an opportunity. As an incumbent, this willingness to switch is a very high risk.

Incumbents need to improve their marketing and selling practices to defend against a takeout. Executives and external influencers can be strong allies if you can make the case for a takeout (see Figure 11). On the other hand, IT is generally your friend when defending a takeout as IT is least likely to endorse changing vendors.

When asked "what is the most effective action a rep can take to influence the process in his/her company's favor if another vendor's product/solution is favored," respondents recommended:

 Differentiate: "Present the differences between products from the engineering and price perspectives." (Sales reps should better leverage their presales engineers.)

 Solve problems: "Make sure they [vendors] understand our business and relate how their solution fits better than the competitors'."

 Price: "Lower the price; show how his company has more value than the competitor's (all other things being equal)." (However, do note that this is specific to situations in which another vendor is favored or entrenched in the account.

Otherwise, cost is the lowest factor in driving buying decisions [refer to Figure 13].)

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F I G U R E 1 1

B u y e r S t r a t e g i e s f o r R e d u c i n g t h e B u y i n g C y c l e T i m e b y J o b R o l e

Q.

For those purchases that you are currently making through your IT vendors' direct sales teams, please indicate which of the following you are willing to do in order to get to your preferred buying cycle time by distributing 100 points.

n = 204

Note: Mean scores are based on a scale of 1–100, where 1 = least preferred and 100 = most preferred.


Why Buyers Will Replace Their Current Vendors

The number 1 reason for switching vendors cited by more than half of buyers was lack of follow-up — the cardinal sin of customer service. The buyer's cadence in the purchase process is one of "wait, wait, wait, then hurry up and get back to us or we'll take our business elsewhere." So be prepared when the dialogue makes that critical transition from evaluation stage to purchase stage because the pace increases rapidly — don't be caught flat-footed on the final sprint (see Figure 12)!

©2012 IDC #237207 13

F I G U R E 1 2

S p e c i f i c R e a s o n s f o r V e n d o r R e p l a c e m e n t

Q.

What was it specifically about the rep's behavior and actions that influenced the switch?

n = 204


Value Is the Key to Influence

Buyers desire value. Obtaining value far outweighs the influence of relationships or even cost. However, delivering value to IT buyers is an art that requires an understanding of how context changes the perception of value. Some important context to consider includes the role of individuals on the buying team, the stage of buying journey, and the purchase condition — new system versus replacement, size of investment, and so forth. For example, in replacement situations, cost is a more significant factor; buyers expect the rival vendor to provide demonstrably better value at lower overall cost (see Figure 13).

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F I G U R E 1 3

F a c t o r s t h a t I n f l u e n c e t h e I T B u y i n g D e c i s i o n - M a k i n g P r o c e s s

Q.

Which of the following factors play the biggest decision in your organization's IT buying process? (Please choose one.)


Here are some examples of how buyers described the value that a sales rep added to the sales process:

 " First asked what problem we are trying to solve, then worked to provide a solution. Don't start with a solution."

 " Kept in touch and informed us of changes and advances in products being offered."

 " Did a follow-up check to see if the proposed solution worked or functioned the way it was supposed to."

 " Provided a good demonstration of the product."

 "The rep met with us to tell us about products that would be released in the near future. We had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to hear about these products, and knowing about them is most helpful in our decision-making process."

 "Brought new technology to the office to demonstrate to all involved."

 "Rep came in and helped me create the bill of materials needed for a project."

Most of the leading sales methodologies in use today will help ensure that your sales teams are addressing these key issues along the buying process (see Best Practices in B2B Sales Methodologies, IDC #236236, August 2012).

©2012 IDC #237207 15

Delivering Value to Different Roles

Executives and line-of-business buyers are remarkably well aligned in terms of the content that they value most in supporting their IT decisions. Financial justification is the number 1 issue. IT staff on the other hand is primarily concerned with product features that actually work. This presents a challenge for IT vendors in terms of developing and delivering the content that is most relevant to each buyer type and getting the two camps to understand why each set of priorities is important. This is especially true in terms of helping IT present the financial case to executives and lineof-business influencers (see Table 1).

T A B L E 1

M o s t V a l u e d V e n d o r C o n t e n t D u r i n g t h e I T I n v e s t m e n t D e c i s i o n - M a k i n g P r o c e s s b y J o b R o l e

Q.

What types of vendor content do you most value during the IT investment decision process? Please select the top 3 in order of priority.

C Level/VP LOB IT

Financial justification

Product/service reviews and test results

Product demo or proof of concept

Product features

Competitive comparisons

Peer/customer references

Vision/thought leadership

Customer case studies

21.0

16.0

14.0

14.0

12.0

10.0

5.0

3.0

20.0

15.0

14.0

14.0

10.0

9.0

6.0

6.0

Industry trends

Other

2.0

3.0

6.0

0.0

7.0

0.0

n = 47 81 41

Notes:

Percentage of total points assigned is weighted by rank (1 = 3 points, 2 = 2 points, 3 = 1 point).

This list pertains to the investment decision itself (the purchasing stage of IDC's Customer Creation Framework only).


13.0

16.0

18.0

18.0

6.0

14.0

1.0

6.0

What motivates people in each role to respond to vendor outreach varies. Overall, gaining value in return for their time and attention is the number 1 answer, and this is accentuated for line-of-business and IT staffers. For executives, however, the number

1 motivator is demonstrating an understanding of their issues and challenges. Insight

16 #237207 ©2012 IDC

into their business is what they value most. They don't care about the specifics of the solution or who provides it. They are not charged with building the case for the deployment, only making the decision in the context of their business. IT and line-ofbusiness influencers are much more oriented to "deliverables" as they piece together the business case for making the investment (see Table 2 and Figure 14).

T A B L E 2

M o t i v a t i o n f o r V e n d o r O u t r e a c h b y J o b R o l e ( % o f P o i n t s A s s i g n e d )

Q.

What motivates you to return a reach out from a vendor's sales rep? (Please distribute 100 preference points across these options.)

C Level/EVP/VP LOB IT Internal

22.5

The reps clearly indicate that they have done research on my organization and my challenges.

The reps have provided me with some type of value in return for my interaction with them (e.g., Webcast, white paper).

29.3

27.0

25.8

35.4

The rep mentions an internal referral (i.e., a person inside of my company).

The rep mentions an external referral (i.e., a person outside of my company).

Other

20.0

13.3

18.4

10.0

10.4

10.4

n = 47 81

Note: Mean scores are based on a scale of 1–100, where 1 = least preferred and 100 = most preferred.


31.0

24.2

9.4

12.9

41

©2012 IDC #237207 17

F I G U R E 1 4

A t t r i b u t e s I n f l u e n c i n g T e c h n o l o g y B u y i n g D e c i s i o n

Q.

Please prioritize the top 3 vendor sales rep attributes in terms of how they most influence your technology buying decision. Please prioritize 1–3.

n = 204


Influence by Job Role

Overall, IT staff still commands the most influence over most IT purchases. However, this varies greatly by company size. At smaller companies, senior executives exert more control. At larger companies the influence of not only IT but also business unit leaders rises dramatically. However, vendors should not take this as a sign that the sale becomes exclusively more technical in nature at larger accounts. The business unit essentially assumes the role of the economic buyer with the same profile for value and vendor responsiveness of senior executives (see Table 3).

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1

2

T A B L E 3

T o p I n f l u e n c e r s f o r I T P u r c h a s e D e c i s i o n b y J o b R o l e a n d C o m p a n y S i z e i n t h e


Q.

Considering your largest purchase you were involved with during the past 12 months, please indicate the level of influence each of the following people/teams had on the final purchase recommendation and decision.

1–99 Employees 100–999 Employees 1,000–9,999 Employees 10,000+ Employees

CEO

CIO

CIO

IT

IT

CIO

IT

BUs

3

4

IT

LOBs

CFO

CEO

5 CFO BUs n = 47 46


BUs

CFO

LOBs

12

CIO

LOBs

Consultants

99

CIOs in particular can present a tricky challenge for IT vendors. CIOs may or may not have deep technical training, but they do manage the IT cost structure of the company and report to other C levels and the board on IT strategy from a business point of view. This makes them a key conduit between technical and economic buyers. Knowing when and how to approach the CIO is therefore a critical part of the customer creation process. Generally, respondents indicate that vendors should approach CIOs only by invitation. This represents a major qualifying event in the sales process as a significant vetting process must be accomplished to get the invitation. Interestingly, the number 2 answer was never approach the CIO — the buying team delivers its findings to the CIO, and the gateway discussion on the next step of the buying process is an exclusively internal one (see Figure 15).

©2012 IDC #237207 19

F I G U R E 1 5

A p p r o p r i a t e T i m e f o r a V e n d o r S a l e s R e p t o A p p r o a c h t h e C I O

Q.

During your buying process, when is it appropriate for a vendor sales rep to approach the CIO directly? Please rate each one on a scale of 1 to 5: 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.

n = 204


Value by Source

Technical sales teams are the most highly valued source of information (see Table 4).

There is a clear gap between the value of vendor content and that delivered by the technical sales team. The "other" category represents two main themes:

 References from other customers, peers, and communities

 Proof of concept, onsite testing, product demos

20 #237207 ©2012 IDC

T A B L E 4

V a l u e o f K e y S o u r c e s o f C o n t e n t b y T y p e o f D e c i s i o n M a k e r

Q.

As you gather information during the technology purchase process, how much value do you estimate you get from the following sources?

LOB C Level/VP

Vendor tech team

Vendor content

34.9

31.5

35.5

24.4

Vendor sales

Vendor execs

Other n =


23.4

9.9

26.5

47

24.0

14.4

32.8

81

29.8

11.0

13.8

41

IT

36.5

27.1

Social Networking Is a Strong Source of Influence … from Peers, Not Vendors

Social networks do not yet exert much influence over how IT buyers interact with their vendors. Buyers perceive that the value of interacting with vendors via social media is limited. IDC believes that this lack of vendor-interaction value is due to the relative immaturity of the way that vendors use social media. IDC's 2012 Tech Marketing

Benchmark finds that vendors spend less than 1% of their marketing budgets on social marketing and most are in the very earliest stages of learning to use this powerful channel.

IT buyers do use social media to develop trusted peers and information sources.

They particularly value networks where independent expertise can be shared.

Vendors should first listen to the conversations in the forums frequented by IT buyers, such as blogs, communities, forums, LinkedIn groups, twitter feeds, and other relevant sources, and then become part of the social discussion in a meaningful way, maintaining a presence and adding value to increase positive sentiment and nurture indirect influence ( see Figures 16 and 17).

©2012 IDC #237207 21

F I G U R E 1 6

I m p a c t o f S o c i a l N e t w o r k i n g o n V e n d o r I n t e r a c t i o n

Q. Has social networking influenced how you interact with vendors (e.g., gathering information on vendors, following them through social communities, interacting at virtual events, communicating with sales)?

n = 204


22 #237207 ©2012 IDC

F I G U R E 1 7

L e v e r a g e o f S o c i a l M e d i a C h a n n e l s , 2 0 1 1 a n d 2 0 1 2

Q.

Please indicate how you are leveraging social media channels to keep up with business and/or technology trends or to stay connected with peers and other business contacts.

n = 204


©2012 IDC #237207 23

F U T U R E O U T L O O K

T h e T r u s t e d A d v i s o r — I t ' s A l l A b o u t

E x t r a E f f o r t

IT buyers know IT sellers are busy too. They know reps have other accounts, many other pressures, and a lot of competition. That's why when they see someone go out of their way to do something for them, even if it's just communicating a status update on a question that's not answered yet, they greatly appreciate it. When asked to give two or three examples of what the best vendors' sales reps have done to achieve

"trusted advisor" or "preferred partner" status, the answer was clear:

 Extra effort: "Went the extra mile to understand my needs and those of my customers. That led to excellent communication and accurate quotes."

 Extra effort: "Gone out of their way to meet my needs (which are ever changing). Took the time to explain their technology and its benefits to me."

 Extra effort: "Follow-up, timely follow-up, letting me know they are looking into it and getting back to us regularly."

As a result, a lot is riding on the relationship and administrative skills of your sales reps. Train reps on these skills and make sure first-line sales managers measure and acknowledge their extra efforts.

E S S E N T I A L G U I D A N C E

IT buyers have expressed a clear agenda of wants from their IT vendors:

 Listen:

 "Listen to what we're asking and what we want before presenting a cookiecutter one-size-fits-all solution."

 "Listen first and don't try to upsell us in every conversation."

 Justify:

 "Help us write the business case."

 "Provide cost-saving comparisons and/or value-add to the company of the solutions (i.e., provide innovation as part of your value-add to buyers)."

 Be honest:

 "Put everything about your product on the table, including shortcomings."

 "Don't tell buyers what they want to hear. It's detrimental to the sale when it comes out that it's not true."

24 #237207 ©2012 IDC

 Rethink pricing:

 "Be more proactive on pricing negotiations. Bring a reasonable price to the table to begin with instead of making the negations drag out."

 "Provide all available options with associated pricing up front."

 "Provide best-they-can-do pricing in the 'first' quote rather than after negotiations."

Throughout all of these requests is the need to save time. Listening is about quickly focusing on the problem and not wasting time on generic product/corporate pitches.

Justifying is about quickly meeting the needs of the economic buyers. Being honest is about optimizing the discovery and due diligence processes. Pricing is about avoiding protracted negotiations at the end of an exceedingly long process. Absolutely there are many other issues on the agenda in the IT purchase and much value to be exchanged, but the overriding issue is saving time. Buyers are asking vendors to do these things with them quickly and completely the first time. Of course, it can't always be done. But these are the things that customers will remember about their experiences with you and your brand, which will greatly influence the nature of your relationship with them over the long term.

L E A R N M O R E

R e l a t e d R e s e a r c h

 CMO Advisory Service Best Practices Series: Realizing the Vision of 21st

Century Lead Management (IDC #236396, August 2012)

 IDC's Best Practices in B2B Sales Methodologies (IDC #236236, August 2012)

 Emerging Issues: The New CMO + CIO Dialog: Building a Productive

Relationship (IDC #236397, August 2012)

 Data-Driven Marketing: A Survey of Marketing Automation Maturity in Global

High-Tech Companies (IDC #236289, August 2012)

 Sales and Marketing Leadership Meeting Highlights, June 5 and 6, 2012: Sales

Rep Panel, Sales Enablement, Pipeline Management, IT Buyer Insight, and SFA

Optimization (IDC #235656, July 2012)

 Becoming the MI Organization of the Future — Lessons from Leaders (IDC

#235038, June 2012)

 Increasing Sales Productivity Through Innovative Technology: A Case Study of

SAP's Deployment of iPads (IDC #233842, April 2012)

 Best Practices in Channel Marketing (IDC #234367, April 2012)

©2012 IDC #237207 25

 Despite the Hype, B2B Social Marketing Is Still in Its Infancy: 2012 Guidance for

New Investment Dollars and Staff (IDC #234025, April 2012)

 2012 CMO Tech Marketing Barometer Study: Trends, Forecast, and Essential

Guidance for Tech Marketing Executives (IDC #234292, April 2012)

 IDC Sales Leadership Board Meeting Notes, February 29 and March 1, 2012:

B2B Sales Methodologies, 2013 Sales Operations Planning, Sales Operations and IT Alignment, and the RFP Process (IDC #233678, April 2012)

 Vendor Profile: Demandbase Identification and Personalization Solutions (IDC

#233859, March 2012)

 IDC's 2012 B-to-B Sales Barometer Highlights (IDC #WC20120322, March 2012)

 Social Collaboration for Sales: Cutting Through the Hype (IDC #233340, March

2012)

 The Failure of Marketing ROI (IDC #232661, February 2012)

 What's Killing the Traditional Funnel?

(IDC #232511, January 2012)

 Vendor Profile: Qvidian Sales Enablement Playbooks and Proposal Automation

(IDC #231889, January 2012)

 Leveraging Sales Enablement to Improve Sales Productivity: A Best Practice

Case Study at T-Systems (IDC #232490, January 2012)

 Top Action Items for a New VP of Sales (IDC #232588, January 2012)

 A Cohesive Sales and Marketing Strategy: Real Key Performance Indicators to

Assess Your Investment and Process Alignment (IDC #WC20111208, December

2011)

 Sales and Marketing Leadership Meeting Highlights, October 2011: Customer

Panels, Sales Enablement, Lead Management, and IDC Productivity

Benchmarks (IDC #231281, November 2011)

 Transforming Lead Management: How the New Buyer Is Killing Your Funnel (and

What to Do About It) (IDC #WC20111117, November 2011)

 IDC's Worldwide Sales, Marketing, and Market Intelligence Taxonomy, 2012:

Guidelines for Cost Control and Resource Allocation (IDC #231252, November

2011)

 Sales Enablement — 90% Process, 10% Technology: A Best Practice Case

Study of Sales Enablement at Oracle (IDC #230546, October 2011)

 Best Practices in Customer Data Management and Customer Record

Management (IDC #229931, August 2011)

26 #237207 ©2012 IDC

S y n o p s i s

This IDC study describes the 2012 EAG Buyer Experience Survey (offered as part of

IDC's Sales Advisory and CMO Advisory Practices), which analyzes IT buyer experiences when buying from IT vendors. This guidance provides the foundation for changes that need to occur across both sales and marketing groups in order to make buyers' experiences with sales reps more productive. The analysis provides answers to the following questions: How do IT buyers spend their time? Who makes the IT buying decision? What vendor content is most valued by the IT buying team? What can vendors and their sales teams do to impact the buying cycle and reduce delays?

How are IT buyers using social media and social networking in their IT buying decisions?

"IT buyers want vendors to cut 16 days off the purchase process," according to Gerry

Murray, research manager, IDC Sales Advisory. "There are four simple things vendors can do to achieve this. First and foremost, respond more rapidly as the purchase process goes along — waiting a day or two for a price change or contract detail is unacceptable. Second, be prepared as needs change over the course of the buyer's journey. Third, stay focused on the customer's problem. Fourth, respect the buying process — some companies are much more efficient at buying IT and have higher expectations of vendors. It's not that much to ask, but the penalty for failure can be severe as a third of companies are willing to switch vendors just to save time."

C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e

This IDC research document was published as part of an IDC continuous intelligence service, providing written research, analyst interactions, telebriefings, and conferences. Visit www.idc.com to learn more about IDC subscription and consulting services. To view a list of IDC offices worldwide, visit www.idc.com/offices. Please contact the IDC Hotline at 800.343.4952, ext. 7988 (or +1.508.988.7988) or sales@idc.com for information on applying the price of this document toward the purchase of an IDC service or for information on additional copies or Web rights.

Copyright 2012 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved.

©2012 IDC #237207 27

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