MidWest IT Survival

Whether you are working in a complete custom software development shop with little vendor interaction or a technology integration shop with vendor solutions integrated with other vendor solutions on top of yet other vendor solutions, you will have to manage vendor relationships to some degree as an IT manager in a MidWestern company.  This series looks at the complex arena of IT vendor management and offers some tips to make the arduous process a bit less arduous and possibly discover some additional benefits along the way.

Vendor Management Categories

• Role of the Sales Rep

You want to get to know the shinny suit

In the previous article, I concluded thoughts on vendor service integration challenges.  I made a cavalier reference to the “Vendor Sales Cheese” role.  This article will explore this role more deeply and how, as an IT manager in a MidWestern company, you need to partner with this role to be successful in delivering you and your team’s services to the company.

I don’t think there are more diametrically opposed roles in business than the IT engineer and the IT vendor sales representative.  One of the best descriptions of the complex persona that is the IT engineer is The Nerd Handbook.    IT engineers look at the world as an ever unfolding flow chart of logical constructs built on top of more logical constructs.  They are constantly learning and building.  They prioritize human interactions based on a peer level of technical appreciation and comprehension.  If someone isn’t at their level of knowledge on the subject at hand, the value of the exchange diminishes rapidly in their mind.  On the other hand, the Vendor Sales Representative or as I’ve affectionately relabeled as “Vendor Sales Cheese”, as viewed through the IT engineer lens, couldn’t be worth even a nod in the conversation spectrum.  If you align yourself more with the IT engineering mindset, I bet you are getting ready to HTTP 302 yourself off this article and on to something more technical.  I beg you to continue reading in the hopes I can influence you to consider a logical argument for the value of the Vendor Sales Cheese in your technical and/or management function.

So, as a typical IT engineer or engineering manager, your initial interactions with the Vendor Sales Cheese have you thinking: “This person is way too positive and friendly.  That sure is a slick and way too shinny suit.  I need to get outta this conversation and back to my keyboard ASAP.”  Yes, the Vendor Sales Cheese meets new people every fifteen minutes of every day.  Those people could be the tier one HelpDesk technician or the president of the company.  Hence, they error on the side of potentially meeting the president and bust out the shinny suit.  In meeting people, they need to quickly determine your role in the customer vendor relationship ASAP since there is going to be someone new to meet in another fifteen minutes.  Thoughts going through the Vendor Sales Cheese’s mind:

• How do you align in the organization against the product or service the Vendor Sales Cheese represents?
• Are you an end user that is going to be a source of complaints?
• Are you a decision influencer that won’t make the final purchase decision but could influence the decision maker and possibly tank the deal?
• Or are you’re the golden role, the decision maker that is the person between the Vendor Sales Cheese and closing the deal to get the big compensation bonus?

The Vendor Sales Cheese is trying to determine this as quickly as possible in the limited interaction time they are given.

Sure, you can return to the safety of your keyboard and the logical and controlled in order to avoid the seemingly unpleasant and awkward conversation.  But is another five minutes of conversation really going to kill you?  My recommendation is make this five minutes tactically productive by immediately describing your role within the organization and how it aligns with the product or service the Vendor Sales Cheese represents:

IT Engineer: “Hi, I’m Bob and I am the lead engineer in ABC Company that has the job of taking your FlimFlam software product and cramming it into our enterprise IT environment.  I can’t sign a PO and can’t buy anything.  But, when there is a tough problem with the FlimFlam software here, I get the call.  I’ve been working with it for X years.  So when I need tech support, I don’t need the 1-800 number level 1 tech.  I need access to the guy who, like me, knows how FlimFlam works inside and out.  How do I get that tech access so I don’t waste your company’s time?”  (Note the clever use of language to suck the “vsc” into the need to solve a problem for his company and help a customer at the same time.  How can the “vsc” resist this?)

IT Manager: “Hi, I’m Sally and I am the manager over the team that integrates your FlimFlam software with the rest of the technology here at ABC Company.  Let me start with the fact that I am not the guy that signs the PO, but I have the Director’s ear does.  We’ve had great success with FlimFlam but we know there is plenty of competition in this product space.  My biggest challenge with your company is X.  What is the best way to improve the X situation?”  (Again, sucking the “vsc” in by creating a scenario he/she can’t possibly walk away from since they are ever so relationship positive focused)

For the IT engineer, you have given the Vendor Sales Cheese exactly what they need to know:

• Bob = tech guy at ABC Company that can sing the praises of FlimFlam or make a lot of noise when we drop the ball failing to supporting his priority support needs.  Check.

For the IT manager, the Vendor Sales Cheese knows:

• Sally = manager at ABC Company that shouldn’t get the loge tickets to Sunday’s game at the stadium, but he needs some above average attention because she could tank the current/next deal by pitching to the VP/Director/Other that another company with a competing product could be integrated quicker/faster/cheaper is giving her more respect and support.  Check.

Ok, you are scratching your head … “ok, I see how the stage has been set for some tactical value from this Vendor Sales Cheese exchange, but what does this really do for me?  Doesn’t this just lead to more annoying conversation?”  I’ll dive into this value proposition in the next article with more MidWestern IT perspectives on the topic of the “Role of the Sales Rep” in the spectrum of vendor management.