Five things I’ve learned about the effects of COVID-19 on IT Organizations (A Customers Perspective) Part One

“As I was writing this, I realized it was getting too long for a single blog post – so to keep it more readable decided to publish as a series.”

Table of Contents

• You are Here ->1. Find a business partner not a vendor (Value not Price)
• 2. Understand Supply Chain (be in tune with your partners business)
• 3. Explore XAAS Offering (as a service offerings)
• 4. Rethink your Architecture (evaluate your infrastructure)
• 5. Consolidate / Automate

Disclaimer: The opinions and perspective contained herein are completely my own and not of any Company or Organization.

I recently had the opportunity to take part in a roundtable with customers to discuss the challenges they are experiencing during COVID-19 and the how IT organizations are combatting these issues as well as changes they are making to plan for any future pandemics. The session provided me with a different perspective as I am usually only involved with engineering discussions and not IT Operations. This motivated me to speak to other customers and see how they were being affected by this crisis and how they were becoming creative to address this unprecedented situation. Here is what I learned:

1. Find a business partner not a vendor (Value not Price)

Probably the most fascinating perspective and at the same time perplexing thing I learned was that many organizations focus on the lowest price and not finding vendors that could be better business partners.

An example of finding a partner was a customer who shared this story with me:

Shortly after the beginning of the COVID-19 and due to the nature of our business, this crisis has completely halted almost all revenue and management decided to freeze all budgets until we understood the length of this crisis and overall impact on the organization. This became a challenge because our most critical security components (Firewall, A/V and Malware Protection) maintenance was expiring in March and the spend was significant enough that management asked me to explore what could be done to avoid any and all expenses until we know more because the crisis had put the business in jeopardy.

He continued to tell the story of the the original purchase:

I remember the original purchase cycle with this vendor (really a business partner) and management asked me to justify the purchase since they were significantly more expensive than another option. I told the business that they had spent the time to visit us personally (whereas the cheaper option conducted business from a call center), explained their architecture by whiteboard and even shared the roadmap which gave me the confidence and excitement of how the solution would continue to address my needs and align with my future IT goals. We ultimately chose the vendor despite the higher cost and I have never regretted that decision.

Now back to the problem…

I called my account executive and explained the situation. He was very understanding and said that he would make a call to corporate on my behalf and see what could be done. To my relief he called me back in less than an hour and told me they would continue to support my organization and defer any payments six months at which time we would reassess the situation and extend it further if needed. At that moment I felt completely validated in my decision to choose this partner and the business was absolutely amazed by the result.

I personally love hearing when companies choose partnerships over price because an investment in a good business relationship can have positive long lasting symbiotic effects on the business.

More to come…. Stay Tuned.

Table of Contents

• You are Here ->1. Find a business partner not a vendor (Value not Price)
• 2. Understand Supply Chain (be in tune with your partners business)
• 3. Explore XAAS Offering (as a service offerings)
• 4. Rethink your Architecture (evaluate your infrastructure)
• 5. Consolidate / Automate