Dive Brief:
- Enterprise technology buyers prize solutions that improve organizational efficiency, productivity and effectiveness over other considerations, according to a Forrester report. The analyst firm surveyed more than 800 tech business buyers who were involved in a purchase in the last year or planned to make a purchase in the next 12 months.
- Buyers also valued customer experience enhancements and product and service creation capabilities. Corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability influenced tech buying behavior, as well, most prominently among the 561 younger respondents, identified by Forrester as Millennial and Generation Z buyers.
- Enterprise customers seek out vendors with substantial domain and technological expertise, as well as the capability to handle end-to-end implementation, according to Forrester. Brand reputation and customer experience competence were also important to respondents.
Dive Insight:
IT spending is expected to surpass $5 trillion in 2024, growing 8% year over year according to Gartner projections. While SaaS price hikes and the expansion of existing cloud deployments will no doubt consume much of that spending, generative AI and related innovations are driving additional tech investments and procurements.
AI capabilities impacted software buying patterns last year, according to a survey of 1,700 enterprise tech buyers by software marketplace G2. More than 4 in 5 respondents said AI functionality was a decisive factor.
The stakes are high for CIOs and their procurement teams. The time, talent and resources required to implement software can be a drag on budgets and morale, especially if buyer’s remorse sets in.
Cost overruns, user training hurdles and implementation hiccups led to disappointing software purchases for more than half of 3,400 businesses surveyed by software marketplace Capterra.
However, companies that made procurement decisions in three months or less and brought IT and business stakeholders together in the process had fewer negative outcomes.
While providers commonly have to overcome budget and pricing concerns, Forrester found that a lack of internal consensus and support for solutions had a larger impact on delaying purchases.
Procurement teams relied heavily on vendor websites for initial product research, the report said, but were influenced by product experts and information garnered at industry conferences, trade shows and seminars as the decision-making process progressed.
This article was written by Matt Ashare from CIO Dive and was legally licensed through the DiveMarketplace by Industry Dive. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.
