IT buying: All change, the bosses are on board

IT buying - five years ago, it was all so different. The techies could spend company cash with gay abandon and without interference from above. Now, according to new research, it's all changed - the top brass want to be involved every step of the way.

And, whether it's software or hardware, the execs want to be firmly at the helm. While external consultants and those in the know within a company still play their part in determining how and what gets the IT budget drained, senior execs are becoming involved in 70 per cent of the buying process.

When the execs were asked what they brought to the table, 83 per cent believed that projects in which they had input would be less likely to make poor decisions, and 78 per cent thought their objectivity was invaluable, the report, Understanding the Involvement of Senior Executives in the Decision-making Process during Information Technology Purchases, reveals.

The report's author, Ben Scott, told silicon.com that company culture and the senior execs' personalities are key indicators as to whether you can expect to see bosses taking a hands-on role in purchases.

The buying itself also plays a part in exec involvement. Talking about the example of spending £250,000 on IT, Scott said: "To a large corporate, that's not that much; to a smaller company, it's a large amount. The bigger the amount, the more likely the senior executives are to be involved." Those execs with a technical or buying background were also more likely to be part of IT buying decisions.

Simple, really. But when senior execs are wondering whether to stick their nose in, the first place they look is at the other decision-makers. If they feel confident that the other buyers around them know what they're doing and have the right experience to boot, they'll jump right in and give advice as well.

The execs aren't the only ones who've seen their positions change. Consultants have found themselves slipping "down the food chain", according to Rod Jones, international region MD of sales consultancy Executive Conversation, who published the report.

"In the late 90s, consultants were involved at the point when management were deciding 'is this an issue we should address?' and setting strategic objectives for the project. Today, senior executives agree the strategic objectives", he said, leaving the consultants the relative crumbs of overseeing implementation.

The volte-face in buying habits is hardly surprising given that similar research was last carried out on the crest of the tsunami that became Y2K and dot-com bubble. In the late 90s, when companies had cash to spare, CIOs and their ilk were put in charge of the day-to-day managing of tech purchasing.

A few years later, in an economy that's not so buoyant, the higher-ups have got their sights firmly set on cost-cutting - and it's IT in the firing line.

The top brass' renewed enthusiasm for IT spending has had a major impact on the number of IT projects getting off the ground, Jones revealed. "Up to 70 per cent [of projects] don't make it to the starting block - they die at the point finance starts to asses them," he said. So how do you get yours past the bigwigs? "There's a failure inside some companies to understand why they're accepted or rejected... Projects are rejected because people say 'give me the money and I'll finish the job', when they should be saying 'give me the money and I'll return it fourfold to the bottom line'."