Special Focus
What do they want?
 We talked to a few CIOs to find out what they really want from systems integrators. Their wish list was surprisingly simple
By Varun Aggarwal
CIOs today are under pressure to improve the efficiency of their organizations without much incremental costs. They are also grappling with a mix of managerial and leadership issues. While this poses an opportunity for partners to help them out, it is also important to understand how partners should deal with CIOs. If you want to leverage the increasing budgets of CIOs you need to keep in mind the following points before approaching them.
Unsolicited telephone calls/e-mails
Mass mailing is always a bad idea because most of these mails end up in junk or spam folders. Next, most of the sales reps call the CIOs on their direct numbers or cell phones. Repeated calls and e-mails can become a nuisance for the CIO.
“Sales people should send personalized e-mails and seek permission to call. If the mail is not answered, so be it. Direct calling, calling without permission, and starting to speak without preparation are sure ways to turn off a CIO,” says Ajay Dhir, Group CIO, JSL.
Another issue is telephone etiquette. Many calls are made in an intrusive and aggressive manner, which just puts one off immediately and closes the door on future interactions as well. Vendors must have their sales people or tele-callers trained in soft skills and telephone etiquette. This is the first impression and touch point with a CIO, and can make or mar the impression and the relationship.
Lack of awareness and research
Many sales people focus on just pushing their products and do anything to fix a meeting with the CIO. They often appear to be selling a great cost-cutting solution, but what it ends up being is something completely irrelevant for the CIO. The requirements of each industry vertical and company vary, so the sales rep needs to understand the requirements of the CIO and have at least some degree of understanding of that particular vertical or company.
Says Shirish Gariba, Director, IT, Cnergyis, “Partners need to do their homework and need to understand the company they are pitching to. With the Internet becoming easily available, there are high chances that they’ll get a lot of information about the company they are pitching to. For example, things like what systems the company is using; if their systems are compatible with the partner’s offerings; what business the company is into; and the company’s business or strategic plans. This information is invaluable while doing the first case discussion and then presenting your value proposition. It may interest the CIO and make him feel you have spent quality time in knowing more about his organization; such an approach could be more productive than a blind call.”
Most CIOs will agree that they don’t do business based on what a vendor thinks is good for them or what he wants to sell. Rather, the company’s business is done based on a clearly articulated strategy.
Lack of referential cases
CIOs are certainly influenced by reference case studies where the proposed solution has been deployed successfully. It has often been seen that a good product is unnoticed simply because it lacks the branding or the endorsement of a senior professional CIO or an organization which is known and respected in the industry.
Comments Anwar Bagdadi, CIO, CFC, “The CIO community is closely knit, and references make a lot of difference. CIOs love to see reference cases before going in for any implementation. If you’re able to offer the right references, your chances of getting the deal increase.”
Agrees Prakash Pawar, CIO, Intrex, “The first thing I ask the partner is to give me the endorsement of leading CIOs or senior representatives of organizations where the partner’s products or services have been successfully deployed. Rather than listening to a long sales pitch by the partner, I prefer to call up these CIOs and get their views on what the partner can deliver.”
Lack of a quantifiable case
One of the biggest gaps between buyers and sellers is the difference in their respective definitions of value proposition. CIOs tend to see it as a framework enabling them to quantify their potential ROI, while some partners think it’s a pitch or a positioning statement.
Pawar says that even today many partners approach him offering a break-fix AMC service though the world has moved on to SLA-based infrastructure management. “I don’t want the partner to tell me that he can deploy 10 engineers at our premises. I want him to tell me how he will deliver 99.99 percent uptime for my infrastructure.”
It is important to listen to what the CIO wants and then explain how your products or services would help the CIO and his organization to achieve their specific business and IT goals. Careful research and listening can help create an outside in point of view. Try to understand the CIO’s business and strategic IT goals, and then align the solution offering with a quantifiable and measurable ROI.
Ethics, conduct and integrity
Any breach of the written or unwritten code of conduct related to ethics, conduct and integrity is absolutely taboo—it must not be attempted at all. Besides breaching trust, this is also a sure way to be disqualified in future.
“It is common to see partners trying to kill each other while competing for a project on price. This price undercutting creates problems for us because the partner is not able to offer timely delivery due to price pressures. After-sales service is extremely critical for any CIO, so don’t promise what you cannot deliver,” warns Pawar.
Another irritant is when partners observe that the CIO is not accepting their products or services. They then try to bypass him by accessing other members of the organization, trying to either do an independent push or trying to get pressure applied on him from above or across. No CIO will appreciate such behavior or tactics.
Never breach the code of conduct while engaging with CIOs. This is a respected and close community. Word travels real fast, and any attempt at trivial tactics will only boomerang and create havoc—for the partner.
Understanding the ethics policy of the CIO’s organization as well as your own will prevent a lot of the pain and suffering that comes in later when things go wrong. In your quest for a sales deal, respect the hierarchy of the CIO and the sensitivity of the relationship. At no point should this be compromised or bypassed—it will never work out.
Advises Dhir: “Learn to lose a deal as gracefully as you would if you had won it. Who knows, you may get a call from the same CIO or the organization at a later date. Remember, good impressions always last long.”
Even after adopting the tips above, many partners may feel that any large organization would still prefer only top SIs such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro. While it is true that most CIOs still prefer going with the large SIs for any large-scale deployment, partners who can convince CIOs of their strong financial capabilities can also get some share of the pie.
As Gariba says, “We want to give a chance to tier-2 SIs, but they need to be financially strong otherwise it gets difficult to get service if the partner shuts shop tomorrow.” |