Executive Summary: Behind Closed Doors

How many times have you wished you could be a fly on the wall in your customers' IT planning sessions? In this issue, VARBusiness goes behind the scenes, bringing you exclusive end-user research that reveals what your customers want from you, what they're planning and how you can win their business. VARBusiness helps you do the impossible: be a fly on the wall in 400 end-user organizations,all at the same time.

To do that, VARBusiness commissioned exclusive research to get to the heart of end users' expectations in IT and e-business projects. Among other facts, the research reveals that end users are generally (69 percent) satisfied with their current e-business strategies. But, they say, that doesn't mean the door to e-business work is closed. Seventy-one percent of the users queried handle some of their e-business work in-house and outsource the rest. Read "What's Next?" to uncover new opportunities in the e-business space.

And new opportunities do exist. Besides solution development and enterprise deployment/integration, a surprising 60 percent of users who outsource say they would most likely outsource the creative design and branding work of their e-business projects. That may be an opportunity solution providers are missing; In VARBusiness' State of the Market 2001 survey (Dec. 18), only 3 percent of solution providers queried said their primary source of incremental revenue with existing clients was coming

from creative design and branding. For other IT-oriented opportunities, read "The IT Game Plan".

IT Spending Will Continue

While 2001's economic slowdown is a cause for concern, the good news is that approximately half of the end users polled are poised to continue their IT spending. Even if their own sales decline, 48 percent of the end users queried in VARBusiness' IT Spending & Strategy survey say they would not change their IT spending investment, and, in fact, 12 percent said they would actually increase their IT spending in the face of declining sales. For tips on how you can stay in the game even if your customers' sales decline, read "Stress Busters".

Meantime, competition in the solution-provider market is fierce, particularly because your competitors are doing a good job at keeping their existing clients happy. Most of the end users surveyed (81 percent) are satisfied with their current IT providers, and only 32 percent of end users questioned are considering bringing in a new IT consultant during the next year. Of those considering bringing in someone new, only 6 percent say it's because they're not happy with their current provider. That finding agrees with VARBusiness' State of the Market research, in which solution providers reported working with a typical customer for three to five years. Find out more about the customer/solution provider relationship in "Hear Me Roar".

Turf Wars

When end users select an outside IT service provider, their No. 1 criterion is the provider's technical expertise (38 percent). Cost (15 percent) and being a one-stop shop (13 percent) are second and third on the importance scale. Want to know how to convince end users to outsource their IT work to you? Read "Breaking the Barriers" and "Selling Strategies".

Winning the work, however, is only half the battle,knowing how end users want you to work with them is the other half. Take customers' billing preferences, for example. According to VARBusiness' survey, users chose fixed-price/fixed-time arrangements as often as service-level agreements as their primary billing method. Not surprisingly, billing by time and materials, which solution providers prefer most, is end users' least preferred method. To explore billing options and preferences, read "Money Madness".

In the following pages, we'll unravel the mystery of end-user IT spending, giving you the kind of strategic insight only a fly on the wall could get. Not only is this issue a must-read, it's one you can't afford to put down.

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