Who Do You Trust? Not Information Technology Vendors Apparently

As I have been listening to senior technologists, I have repeatedly heard they don’t trust vendors anymore. This sentiment is remarkably, surprisingly consistent across individuals, geographies, job responsibilities  (e.g., Architects, Directors, CISOs, VPs, Senior Project Managers), industries, and technologies (e.g., IT security, identity management, virtualization, help desk). On the one hand, having been a software vendor for a number of years, this stings. On the other hand, it is in part what led me to launch Wisegate: the belief that there had to be a better way to serve information to people, to customers.

Here are direct quotes I have heard of late (names removed, of course.)

“I have given up on vendors.”

“It’s all PR and marketing these days.”

“I can’t get unvarnished information on what the product really does today and how long it will really take to deploy.”

“I have a lot of angst from disinformation from salespeople and vendors.”

“Now I ask vendors how many successful deployments they have instead of how many customers – there’s a big difference.”

The pain that this disinformation causes is real, including higher purchase risk in an environment that many senior technologists characterize and “zero tolerance for failure.” Also, unexpected problems popping up during implementation and much higher costs than planned are very real pain points that disinformation in the sales cycle causes.

What about you? Do you trust your technology vendors? I’d like to hear your story.