Line of Business buyers are taking an increasingly important role in the enterprise technology buying process.
Sharing findings from a recent survey, Jay McBain, principal analyst global channels at Forrester, stated that “two thirds of every tech or telco decision today flows through line of business, or they’re the lead influencer on that decision. They block internal processes, and the internal IT department a third of the time.”
What is more, the direction of travel would suggest this line of business influence will continue to increase. For example, a Gartner survey back in 2016 showed that more than half of the respondents from functional areas other than IT are involved in technology purchase decisions.
These new buyers have a different idea of what value means to them, and they bring new expectations of the technology buying process. As McBain explains, these new buyers “don’t like the due diligence, don’t like the delay, the bureaucracy”.
Indeed, according to Derry Finkelday, research director at Gartner “technology and service providers that continue to target only IT departments are likely to be leaving money on the table.”
What does this mean for you?
Make sure you can reach the VPs of finance, operations, marketing, sales and HR, who are making the vast majority of decisions today. They are happy to bypass traditional IT procurement methods and to move quickly.
This is both a challenge and an opportunity. Are you speaking their language? Are you marketing and messaging them the right way? Are you even reaching these people at all?
Clients of Rhetorik’s NetFinder™ database are, and they love it.
“We are using Rhetorik to rebuild our database and refill our pipeline. Our outbound marketing is much more targeted, enabling us to engage the correct person with a relevant message.”
If you’d like to learn more about executing on your LoB strategy, click here and we can walk you through the steps to add the LoB to your funnel, fill your pipeline and win at business.
