Survey: IT Department Dominance of Tech Purchases in Decline

One tech trend we've been hearing a lot about over the last few years is the idea that the IT department's dominance of the technology purchasing process is declining.

Nintex added some data points to the argument Wednesday in releasing results of a survey of about 150 of its 1,500 channel partners. Nintex sells business productivity software and cloud services that work with Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft SharePoint and Salesforce.com, among other platforms.

Among the survey's findings:

• 40 percent say the buyer in the sales process has changed over the last year.
  
  
• Line-of-business (LOB) leaders are present 37 percent of the time in the sales process for software and technology purchases, with finance and procurement present in nearly a quarter of the deals.
  
  
• The marketing department is playing an increasing role.
  
  
• 26 percent see fractured relationships between IT and other departments.

This infographic summarizes its other data:

"As organizations continue their digital transformations, channel partners must expand their engagement with customers to focus their effort with LOB leaders and others outside of IT as these stakeholders have a much greater impact and influence on buying decisions than ever before," said Nintex VP of partner strategy and srograms Josh Waldo in a statement. "There is a significant and growing opportunity for the channel to act as the broker between the Sales, Operations, Marketing, and IT departments within their customers' organizations especially as these customers navigate through digital change and work to make their businesses more autonomous rapidly."

Posted by Scott Bekker on December 16, 2015 at 9:01 AM