Jeff Bills

Working Together Teamwork Puzzle Concept

If you have a problem, do you want to be-labor it or solve it quickly?  Anyone who has been part of a major IT purchase (whether from the buyer or the seller’s perspective) knows just how slow, resource intensive, expensive and fraught with risk such an undertaking is.  Good Enterprise Architecture programs can expedite the process and deliver good decisions.

While there is a shared objective in understanding the buyer’s pain and seller’s solutions, there is not a common framework for exploring these. Enterprise Architecture can be this framework. Most approaches to enterprise architecture focus first on the business drivers (needs, expectations), have governance processes (principles, pains, roadmaps), and institutionally normalized vocabulary and artifacts.  If a major (or minor) purchase is moving forward, the drivers and artifacts surrounding it should already have been surfaced.

Tip: Make these Enterprise Architecture elements a core part of your selection process and model.  Leverage your Enterprise Architects and your existing EA program / process.

As discussed in my last article, sellers have a lot to gain by adopting good Enterprise Architecture programs.  Sellers will still have to apply their sales methodology, resources and acumen to the opportunity.  They still have to differentiate, but my experience has been that this type of “hard” content is much desired by buying organizations and would offer substantial differentiation.

Tip: Involve your pre-sales Enterprise Architects in your opportunites as early in the process as possible.

Sellers and buyers can use their respective EA practices and content as a communications and process bridge / catalyst.  This will provide for more transparency, reality, and less spin.  Additional benefits would include more predictable transitions from purchase through implementation.

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