IT Leadership Faces New Technology

New technology typically undergoes a long evaluation process before being adopted in the enterprise. One tech leader suggests that the process might go faster were it not for salespeople who are persistent to a fault.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — How do enterprise CIOs decide which new technology products and services to adopt? There may not be any one answer or template for all organizations, but a panel of executive IT buyers agreed the decision is rarely simple or quick.

“I see a see a lot of pure-play vendors who assume, for example, if they have a product that works with Google Docs that’s all they need,” Ralph Loura, CIO at the Clorox Company, said during the panel discussion here at the DEMO conferenceTuesday. “We are looking at using Google in some areas, but any solution has to co-exist with Office, PowerPoint and the other apps we’re going to continue to use.”

Loura and others on the panel offered advice, including a list of do’s and don’ts, to the entrepreneurs and startups in the audience who hope to sell to the enterprise. A key takeaway was that smaller and relatively unknown companies selling to the enterprise need to do their research, and shouldn’t expect big sales right away.

“You’d be surprised how many don’t do the homework to understand our business,” said Loura.

John Murray, CIO of Genworth Financial Wealth Management, agreed. “If [a salesperson] wants me to tell them about my business, the call’s basically over. We don’t have time for that,” he said.

Read the rest at CIO Update.