Let’s campaign for results not sales

Over and over again CIOs tell me they are just not being served properly by IT vendors. A disconnect exists in our industry between the claims of the sales teams and the delivery of the product. This is not to say that all the products out there in the IT industry are second rate, far from it, many are conceived by people who truly have a vision of how technology can improve the processes of organisations and therefore the lives of customers and employees. The disconnect is that CIOs are being pestered all the time by the sales side of the vendor community. In a week I have spoken to a CIO of major high street brand that is being badgered daily by a “VP” of this and a “director of that” to buy a new product as part of his relationship with that vendor, yet the same vendor has still not completed the delivery of the four projects the CIO has currently placed orders for. As a good CIO with a level business head, he of course refuses to move forwards with this vendor until some projects are completed and set in stone. It gets worse, on one of the projects the CIO has helped the vendor by placing an industry expert inside of the vendor’s business to help them understand the business needs of the sector they are trying to address. At the CIO Summit, held just before this issue went to press, there was an underlying emotion of discontent with the treatment CIOs receive from vendors. Like CIOs, I am passionate about what technology can do to improve lives and processes. But like my readers, I have little time for fools that misrepresent the facts just to hit a target. Show me real results; show me working examples; show me products not concepts and “paradigm shifts”. So following on from the community spirit exhibited at the CIO Summit, I’d like to propose that CIO will campaign to improve the service you receive from IT vendors.