New breed of IT buyer ready to bypass channel, Forrester warns

Forrester's Jay McBain says two-thirds of every tech or telco decision today flows through line of business, rather than IT department

The channel needs to adapt to a new generation of IT buyer, according to Forrester.

Speaking at RingCentral's Connect Central event in San Francisco last month, Jay McBain, principal analyst global channels at Forrester, warned of a "big swing of new buyers" that are not only bypassing traditional IT procurement methods, but are willing to side-step the channel in the sales process.

"You've got VPs of finance, operations, marketing, sales and HR making the vast majority of decisions today," said McBain. "Two thirds of every tech or telco decision today flows through line of business, or they're the lead influencer on that decision. They block internal processes, and the internal IT department a third of the time."

The reason for this, he said, is that they "don't like the due diligence, don't like the delay, the bureaucracy".

He explained: "If you're the VP of marketing, if you don't think you're going to generate new leads next week, you're going to get fired. You don't have two years to wait for an IT project. They're going out to do it on their own."

Referencing a Forrester survey of 100,000 line-of-business tech buyers, McBain said: "They're starting to look a lot like consumers," doing their research online before approaching vendor selection.

"Seventy-three per cent of new buyers are looking to buy direct," he pointed out, adding that they are likely to buy through an app store or marketplace.

"The new type of buyer doesn't need 'one throat to choke'. In their world there will be multiple people. They don't need a single bill - especially buying 'as-a-service', their personal departmental credit card is their single bill."

The analyst also noted that more than half of the new buyers' time is now spent on tech: "Their day job has now become their night job," adding that more than half their budget also now goes on tech.

McBain added that there is an opportunity to partners, if they approach these new customers correctly. "Are you speaking that person's language? Are you marketing or messaging them the right way?" he said.

He also said that channel partners need to be 'hyper-specialised' to succeed in today's environment.

"We've talked about verticalisation for years. That's not good enough," he said, adding that partners now need sub-industry experience - in addition to vertical expertise they need to specialize further based on customer size, geography or any other permutation.

"Customers will pay more because they are guaranteed success," he said. "If they hire Larry in the white van that fixes the PCs, Larry's going to have to learn on their dime."