New Influencers

CRN has always had a large number of pure consultant readers who make their money primarily by recommending which products should be part of a solution and then letting the network integrator or the customer take title to the product. But in the maturing market we face today, more of our readers are flipping their business model toward the influence model and away from the take-title-to-product-for-peanuts model. The product in some cases may come from eBay, CDW, Best Buy or any number of other places, including the gray market. But the technology buying decision was made by the influencer.

Many vendors make the big mistake of looking at the product revenue posted by a CDW or another high-volume product mover and then assuming the product selection was made by the end user. Wrong. The product sale may have been fulfilled through CDW, eBay or the gray market, but nine out of 10 times the product selection was dictated by one of these influencers or by a solution provider who is sick and tired of spending valuable time shuffling sales papers for pennies and is more interested in charging several hundred dollars an hour as a consultant. Vendors that don't recognize that this influencer ultimately is deciding whether their products sit on a shelf or are deployed in solutions are in for a rough ride.

CEOs and channel chiefs have to get a lot smarter about tracking where the product buying decision is made. That's starting to happen more and more as a result of the current IT spending climate.

As pointed out recently in a cover story by CRN Senior Writer Jeff O'Heir and Industry Editor Craig Zarley (Sept. 16, CRN), and supported by our own internal research, these influencers are becoming more prominent.

In fact, a number of vendors are digging deeper to get to these influencers. Those that dig will be rewarded. Those that don't will wither.

Which vendors are digging deeper? Let me know at (781) 839-1221 or via e-mail at [email protected].