A Businessman's View

Recap In the first part of this topic , I described my views on the impact you can have on your ability to successfully communicate value to a CIO if you approach it from an IT strategy perspective rather than a feature / functionality perspective.  This is the way a CIO thinks (and has staff that is responsible for making their vision become reality) so matching this modus operandi allows you to get past the barriers that they naturally have because they feel you cannot empathize with what they feel is important to their success. Before we can begin to understand IT strategy, however, a few concepts need to be defined.  Most of this is common sense, but you'll see how we build upon these later. The Real Purpose of IT A common, humorous statement goes something like this:  if you ask 10 [insert profession] the same question you'll get 10 different answers. This is especially true if you ask them what the role of IT is in the business - some will say "keep ...

Introduction When I made the transition to a sales role in 2005 after 18 years of sitting on "the other side of the table," I was part of a team that sold a single, highly technical product.  After some time had elapsed, I had a lot of trouble comprehending how a product that had immediately recognized value by the target user community also had such a high degree of difficulty getting a check to be signed. What I discovered started me on the journey from technologist looking at the business and trying to attach myself to anything that would allow me to demonstrate value to a businessman looking at technology as a means to accomplish one or more strategic goals.  Along the way, I began to understand that if you want to catch the ear of the person signing the check, you have to be able to demonstrate financial relevance.  After all, if they are going to spend $500,000 on your solution they are going to need to believe that they will get an equal or greater amount of q...