The Golden Rule in the Services World
One of life’s realities is that he who has the gold makes the rules. I mention this because it’s now affecting the global services world and providers need to be aware of how the rule impacts their business.
Over the last three years we’ve seen companies task their CIOs and shared services organizations with cost-cutting and demand that they deliver more services at a lower price. At the same time, we’ve seen companies give other stakeholders responsible for growth and customer satisfaction access to large discretionary budgets. Thus they’re placing the gold — or budgeting power — in the hands of the business unit leaders, chief marketing officers, and other stakeholder groups.
With their increased access to capital, these business leaders and stakeholder groups now exercise the golden rule. Since they have the capital, they influence how to spend the money.
This influence is rising at the expense of the traditional stakeholder groups that are the custodians of purchasing, IT and shared services. As I’ve blogged before, provider sales and marketing teams need to understand how to avoid being bitten by this paradigm shift in IT spend decisions.
Photo credit: Boullion Vault
