The Divide: CIO's and Technology Vendors

Got back after an interesting session on "Candid Advice to Product Companies from CIOs", held at Nasscom Product Conclave, Bangalore.

It is interesting because this was perhaps the first time when there was a collective meeting of the IT sellers and IT buyers, in a situation where there was no specific agenda to either buy or sell. This was a purely consultative event, though an event with a lot of possibilities of doing just that - buying and selling.

It became even more interesting because there were so many view-points that I saw there, some from CIOs and some from the Product vendors - many of them vehement, some defensive, and may I add, some even desperate. What is clear that none of the two sides sees each other clearly. There is mistrust, and some amount of derision too. Not healthy.

Some of the comments I caught from the CIOs:
(1) These guys only talk technology. And how they go on! Pshaw........ and a long suffering sigh goes with this one
What does the CIO mean: Technology, for the sake of technology, bores me. What can "I" do with it? What can my "business" do with it? What have you done for other businesses that I can replicate for my business? Why does'nt this man talk about that?

2) Oh my God, they are so small!
What he means: I do like them, and wish I could propose them in my business. But they as so small - just 10 people! What if they shut down tomorrow? My users will kill me!

3) I haven't heard about you.
What he means: I have no idea of who you are, and whether you can be trusted. I haven't heard any of of my peers talk about you, nor are you talked about in the circles that I move in. Just who the heck are you?

4) How different are you from XYZ - the current incumbent for this technology within my company
What he means: There is no point of you telling me about the technology unless you can give one strong compelling reason why I should switch from my current incumbent vendor to you. You think it is only about software cost - but for me the cost is much more - the cost to me is the cost of change. I have to retrain my users, migrate my data, re-engineer processes, and explain to hundreds more people why. I need to know why it could be worth my while. Faster, better, cheaper is just not reason enough.

Some comments from the Product Vendors
1) Just how do I get an appointment from you, Mr. CIO?
What the Product vendor means: You are so busy with the biggies, the people who you pay TOP dollars to - you do not even give me time to come and tell you what I can do for you. For heavens sake, let me in! Please listen to me, just once!!

2) I think they are just dumb pompous people who do not want to change.
What he means: Why cant they (CIOs) he see that I have a cheaper, better product? Why go to SAP/Microsoft/Oracle when I can sell it to them for much lesser? Can't they see it? Just why cant they change for the better? What do they he know about technology anyway?

3) I would rather go to the business people
What he means: The CIO is a man who is in a fixed mindset. Heck, he does not even like innovation! He is stuck is some weird time wrap him. I will go over his head, and meet the business people directly. They will tell him....

4) They will just make go through a song and dance routine, and waste my time
What he means: The buying cycle is so tortuous for me a small new vendor, I am asked to do a POC, a pilot, a six month long negotiation, and at the end of it, I am just given peanuts for my new path-breaking technology, while the biggies walk away with millions.

5. If Microsoft can not do it, why expect it from me?
What he means: These CIOs expect me to give them something that is entirely bug free. If they find a bug, they rubbish my technology and call me worthless. Worse, they expect me to jump up and down every time they find a bug, and make my entire support team dance to them hold their hands. Arrey, the biggies are much worse, they don't even give them even an hour of support, and here, with me, they are not happy even when I dedicate one support person to them for a week! Grrrr.....

6. They will take things free from me, and expect me to make money out of their account using their reference?
What he means: They know I need their reference - they know my weak spot. But my, how much will they make me bend for it? They expect me to fill my stomach with empty words, while they would expect me to make money elsewhere from using their account? Hey, I need the money to fill my stomach today - and I need it from you! I am giving you my hard earned work, am I not?

As it obvious, both the sides have much bridge-building to do between them. This acrimony and mistrust will not get them anywhere - as truth be told, the CIO needs the Product vendors as much as the Product vendors need them. The CIOs need them to keep themselves and their businesses innovative and cost effective. CIOs also need them so that they can remove the shackles of the biggies, and work with people who would provide solutions that are unique to their businesses - never mind if they solution is not required elsewhere in the world. And Product vendors can invest in that innovative research and prototyping focused on local needs. Product vendors need the CIOs so that they feed their engineers and themselves, and become the next Microsoft/Google.

There was one more thing I noticed - CIOs have built and deployed many innovative solution themselves, and some of them have solved business problems within their organization themselves, as they would not find any solutions out there. Many of the Product Vendors could actually learn from them. Innovation is not a birth-right of Product companies - innovations, many many a times, far more often than what Product companies are comfortable about, happen right inside organizations. And contrary to what many engineers believe, CIOs can and do make them happen on the strength of their technical prowess. Some solutions could actually be productized!

So, how do we build bridges between these two worlds? Most often, people from their side of the table cannot see the views of the other side at all. I can. I have been on both the sides, and I know first hand of what it looks like.

And I can clearly see that these two groups need to talk to each other, learn from each other, and lean on each other. And the time to do it is now. Indian companies need ways to compete within the global arena, and indian technology companies can help them get there, in unique homegrown ways, that do not come easy to biggies, or are too expensive.

On how could they do that? Here are some ideas:

1. Just like Nasscom invited CIOs to listen to Product companies, could we have CIOs present their innovations to the technology world? How about instituting the "Most Innovative Solution of the year, deployed by a CIO" award, which could be judged by a panel of CIOs and core technology people? This would give CIOs the recognition they deserve in the local technology geek mind, and also provide a food for thought for the local geeks?

2. For some of us, we have worked with CIOs who have rolled up their sleeves and have worked with us, in the trenches, as we have co-innovated to create solutions for their enterprises. Could we, as Product vendors, celebrate such stories, and let the CIOs tell the story to the geeks? When a CIO speaks, all CIOs listen, but when a geek speaks, CIOs thinks he is just another seller!

3. Could we, as a community, work with the IBMs of the world, and have them celebrate their domestic SI/ISV stories, in their flag ship events, here and abroad?

I am sure more ideas will come to me - but all of you who attended that session, ideas anyone? What could be done to ensure that CIOs and domestic product vendors become partners?

Lets start at the very beginning

I did that start a few months back, and then stopped. I got completely embroiled in the hurly burly of the business, and this business called life.

In the meanwhile, during the intervening months, the boom has gone bust, the economy is reeling the way it had'nt for years and years, the business outlook is much worse than one had ever imagined - and some. Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, AIG - the underwriters to the worlds insurance has to be underwritten by the US government, the stock markets lost more money in weeks than they had made in several years, the stock markets in India more than halved, pink slips rather than job hops are getting discussed over coffee, the US got a new prez - Phew - its been a very momentous few months! No wonder I could not catch my breath and blog!!

Ok, so lets begin again. At the beginning.

What has business got to do with IT?

It is amazing that even now, when the entire business landscape is awash with technology, and technology has made an impact on business far greater than what the earlier technology pioneers has dreamt in their wildest dreams - even now, this questions gets asked, every so often, on every wave, for every new front that technology opens.

And it is right that it should. There is so much change around us that just figuring what it means and what it could mean, and what it could'nt mean is an extremely difficult task, and even the best can sometimes miss it by a mile.

So, here goes my take on the question. IT is the plumbing of the business. And the new brave thing quivering on the horizon for the business - and it is both simultenously. It is boring - and it is spectacularly exciting.

As soon as we IT to run efficiently within the company, it turns into the plumbing of the business, and then, it needs to be treated the way plumbing is. How important can plumbing be, you ask? Let your toilet plumbing break down for a day!!

And if new, all new, completely new technology, this quivering, yet-to-be-stabilised technology is not offered to the new hordes of customers, for all you know, you may be out of business - or you have a whole new business created by some cheeky enterprenuer, right under your feet, without you even realizing it was happening. Yes, it used to happen to businesses earlier also, but increasingly it is happening quite a lot due to information technology reasons, and you can ignore it only at your peril.

Business must take technology very seriously, and mostly it does. It is only with the new technology it really dithers about - to do, or not to do. To run or not to run....

In the current conditions, businesses must look at ways of leveraging technology like never before. Use technology to collaborate like never before. Reach for younger consumers who have grown up on the staple diet of technology like never before, build technology based community like never before..... the list goes on.