Richard FoutsIn this blog we discuss issues facing technology marketers and sales people. For example:
I just reviewed a pitch from an IT service providers that opens with the famous statistic – that 70% of the typical IT budget is consumed with keeping the lights on. Haven’t we been looking at this statistic for at least 15 years? Or maybe even longer?
The dismal numbers in the Standish report haven’t changed much either. Granted, some of the Standish numbers have improved, but there is still a shockingly high statistic that continues year after year: that 50% projects don’t meet original requirements.
If you sell IT services, you liklely use these statistics to boltser your selling arguments – that if IT shops could do things like “free up cash for strategic projects of a transformative nature” that would be a good thing (and you’re just the partner to help them fulfill such a dream).
But my question: why do these numbers remain unchanged year after year? If IT services vendors claim to do the same thing — free up cash for projects of strategic value – shouldn’t these statistics be improving?
If you sell IT services and have an answer to why this circa 1985 statistic that 70% of IT spend still goes toward keeping the lights on – or whatever metaphor you choose to show we’re standing still – isn’t changing - you could have a mighty powerful differentiating message.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Ian Rowlands April 30, 2009 at 11:53 am
Software vendor alert! I am a Director of Stratgey (which includes a lot of repsonsibilities for Product Management) for an ISV, and I do use statistics such as those cited …
With the disclaimer out of the way, a couple of quick thoughts (which may not be related to each other) … With all the years that the auto industry has been around, how come traffic in major cities has not significantly accelarated in the last 100 years?
If the gross volume of production work managed increases is a proportionate reduction in maintenance necssarily a reasonable expectation?
I’m not sure the comparison over time holds good … maybe it’s not apples to apples … if all that was happening was that better tools and more resources were being devoted to addressing the same workload, I’d expect improvement. If those resources are being used to address an increasingly diverse, ever growing, and more complex workload I’m not so sure … But of course I would say that, wouldn’t I …
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