Business units (BU) outside of IT are increasingly playing larger roles in technology purchasing decisions, according to a recent study by Gartner.
According to the analyst firm, 74 percent of technology acquisitions are funded, at least partially, by non-IT business units. Meanwhile, only 26 percent of technology investments are funded entirely by the IT organisation.
“As technology becomes more critical to and embedded across the business, buying team dynamics continue to evolve. In the past, it was relatively easy to predict who buyers were, but all that has changed,” said Derry N. Finkeldey, research vice-president, Gartner.
“Gartner research found that 41 percent of employees are business technologists, creating technology or analytics capabilities for internal or external business use and reporting outside of IT departments. In a world where most technologists work outside the corporate IT department, literally anyone could be a technology buyer for their organisation.”
The survey found that across large purchases in every major technology category, organisations take varying approaches to funding. It noted that the most common funding approach for hardware, technology services and managed services is for IT to fund the entire purchase, followed by funding coming from multiple departments or BUs and IT.
Subsequently, the most common funding model for software and integrated solutions flip these two: funding by multiple departments and IT is most common, followed by IT-only funding.
Gartner also revealed that IT is providing at least part of the funding in 70 percent of the purchases studied. Additionally, 75 percent of respondents using shared funding approaches experienced delays reaching agreement on the budget allocation between groups.
“High-tech providers need new approaches to identify not only whom to engage, but also how to engage B2B buyers across all BUs, with confidence that their approaches will be effective and their roadmaps compelling. Product leaders need to coach teams tasked with discovering budget availability to extend that research to also include the funding approach,” said Finkeldey.
Even as the role of business technologists grows, product leaders should not bypass central IT representatives even when addressing an industry- or line-of-business-specific use case with an identified business champion, because in nearly every case, IT will continue to provide at least partial funding.
