Enterprise Tech players – All change (please)

Enterprise technology players have a problem. Big ticket multi-year implementations no longer make sense given the accelerated clock speed of the market. Utility based IT services which are increasingly driven by the whims of the user will lead to the retail brands eventually dominating this space. This plays well for those enterprise players that have a hand in the consumer space. But only if they can synchronise both businesses.

In the short term the enterprise IT players need to do the following:

• Stop selling products and start selling business relevance.
• Rebuild the business around what customers care about as opposed to what products are for sale.
• Commit to forging long term partnerships with CIOs rather than trying to sell to anyone who happens to have a business check book.
• Admittedly work needs to be done on both sides here.

We need the juggernauts because they have the R&D budgets to create the technology advances that drive both business and society. And clearly the juggernauts on the buy-side need partners with scale.