How networking pros can help make better IT buying decisions

IT采购团队的业绩惨淡，部分原因是他们面临许多障碍。少数偶尔报到的团队成员的不当影响。未能包括多元化的利益相关者。过分关注供应商对自己产品的评价。没有给予应有的保障。

So what can IT pros do to improve things and ensure successful purchases when they're members of buying teams? Plenty, according to Gartner.

这家调查公司调查了来自全球大中型企业的1464名受访者，发现他们平均每年为包括基础设施软件和数据中心设备、托管服务、安全和应用软件在内的产品做出26项购买决策。2020欧洲杯预赛

他们的成功率取决于他们是否达成了Gartner所称的高质量交易，这些交易实现了客户最初的雄心壮志，实现了采购的顺利进行，并涉及到购买优质产品。

The rate of landing high-quality deals is startlingly low, just 27% on average, according to Hank Barnes, who did the research. And nearly 40% of those polled registered "high regret" with the decisions they made.

Barnes spends most of his time advising vendors on how to improve the way they sell and market their enterprise products, but what he's discovered reveals a lot about how purchasing teams work and what IT pros might do to improve their winning percentage.

Define success

企业采购团队需要从确定与新技术产品或服务相关的预期业务结果开始。问：“这次购买的目的是什么？”并将答案与提高公司收入、风险或声誉等因素联系起来。”巴恩斯说：“我们认为，在成功发生之前审视它应该是决策过程的一部分。

The task, for example, might be updating network infrastructure to support edge computing at regional sites. The technical goal would be having IoT devices report with no latency. The business goal might be supporting revenue growth by 10% as a result of the update. The question to ask is, "What would that mean in practical terms?" Perhaps the answer is optimizing 25 sites per month for the next six months. That means having a migration plans in place by a certain day to do cutovers on time. "Effectively it’s reverse-engineering the project plan," Barnes says.

As part of what he calls the pre-mortem, teams should also define failure. For example, what if they make a good purchase but no one adopts it? Think ahead to user training so the purchase has buy-in.

Tip for IT pros:清楚地了解购买的原因，并确保团队其他成员理解。在整个过程中，保持目标的焦点，忽略可能出现的次要问题。

Team size matters

当组建采购团队时，参与者越多越好，只要他们是能够提供相关投入的人。例如，业务线代表可以提供有价值的见解，了解最终用户是否会购买所选产品，还是需要经过大量培训才能使用它。巴恩斯说，这些业务部门职能部门的代表提供了团队核心决策者可能缺乏的背景。

The more of these functional groups that are involved, the fewer the delays in the buying process, Barnes says.

Tip for IT pros:当你在一个团购委员会里选址的时候，想想购买会影响到哪些用户，并促使这些用户的代表提供意见。

核心决策者群体——实际决策者——接受职能小组意见的人——有一个最佳人数：3到5人。根据巴恩斯的研究，这样的尺寸能获得最好的购买效果。这些成员应参加所有团队会议，接受职能小组的意见，并加入讨论。

购买团队必然也有偶尔的合适的婚姻对象cipants – executives overseeing the project from a distance, power users and the like – who Barnes calls drop-in decision makers. By authority of their positions in the corporate hierarchy or force of personality, they can sway the direction the team takes.

Because they don't attend all the meetings, they aren't there to hear all the factors considered in making recommendations. As a result they may unduly reject recommendations out of hand based on personal preference, Barnes says.

Tip for IT pros:准备自临时参与者上次参加会议以来团队所做的总结，并向他们简要介绍情况，使他们了解最新情况。

"I call it how-we-got-here guidance," Barnes says. That way, their recommendations will be better informed and less likely to lead to bad decisions. Also, IT pros can help by evaluating how occasional participants' suggestions are likely to affect business outcomes, which can rein in any recommendations that are off-point.

If possible, it's best if occasional participants are kept to a minimum, Barnes' survey found. The best success rate was 52%, and that was for buying groups with three to five active participants and zero occasional participants. The worst performing groups were those with one or two active participants and more than one occasional participant.

Consult outside sources

Buying teams that use outside resources to inform their decisions wind up making more high-quality deals, Barnes found. For those that rely only on information supplied by vendors, the rate is 20%. The more different perspectives brought to bear on a purchase, the more potential issues come to light and can be addressed. "That's the power of diversity," Barnes says. "When I go into buying with a very narrow perspective, biases can really get in the way, and independent validation helps me fight that."

Tip for IT pros:拜访外部消息来源，包括独立测试和审查、分析师和同行。IT专业人士反过来可以通过向公共评论网站提供他们对特定产品的体验来帮助他们的同行。

涉及security

Security concerns account for the biggest delays in making IT buying decisions, yet, unbelievable as it sounds, only 29% of those who cite security as a delay factor bother to involve security, risk and compliance pros on their purchasing teams.

这可能是因为团队中的功能组可能了解他们自己的安全问题，并相信他们可以解决这些问题，但他们也缺乏全面的安全专业知识。然后随着购买过程的推进，有人要求咨询安全专家，当他们这样做时，他们的分析可能会导致延迟。

包括安全专家不仅可以减少延迟，还可以改善结果。巴恩斯的研究发现，当涉及到安全问题时，对最终购买的后悔情绪急剧下降。例如，当数据中心硬件买家未能将安全专业人士纳入团队时，53%的买家对购买的产品表示非常后悔。当涉及到安全问题时，高后悔率下降到18%。”我们看到较少的遗憾，因为安全涉及一切，”巴恩斯说。

Tip for IT pros:Make sure your security colleagues are drawn in to help evaluate potential purchases, and do it early. The later in the process that security teams are consulted, the more the entire process will be slowed down.

管理时间和优先级

为采购团队工作并不是日常IT职责的一部分，而是与全职工作竞争的额外工作。许多IT专业人士发现自己同时在多个购买团队中，因此他们的注意力可以被吸引到多个方向。

Team members should rank the importance of their varying tasks and assign the appropriate resources to them.

Tip for IT pros:征集足够的有相关领域知识的相关方来考虑采购的具体方面并进行汇报。这种授权责任减轻了个人的负担，同时也扩大了项目的知识面。

Working on an IT purchasing team is a weighty responsibility and a significant time commitment. The primary strength of IT pros' involvement is their technical expertise, but they can expand their contribution by helping the team function with more clarity, focus and efficiency to produce better outcomes.