Monday Morning Impact – April 3

New Research Reveals the Power Players Behind Technology Purchases

Spiceworks, an Austin, TX-based company that functions as a type of marketing channel for the IT community, has released a survey intended to identify the primary gatekeepers involved in the purchase of IT products and services.

The survey results show nearly 90 percent of IT decision makers evaluate and recommend technology solutions while less than 50 percent of business decision makers do the same. However, 47 percent of business decision makers give final approval for technology purchases compared to 22 percent of IT leaders.

The study also shows that business decision makers are more reliant on insights from IT decision makers than their business partners and peers. This is likely because IT people tend to spend more time conducting labor-intensive research, which often leads to more purchase influence during the decision making process. This is found to be especially true of major infrastructure purchases like servers, virtualization, networking, and security solutions.

When examining the most effective ways for marketers to reach either type of decision maker, the results show IT people are more receptive to webinars, online forums, and conferences where they can find educational content during the technology research phase. Business decision makers, on the other hand, tend to be more receptive to physical mail and phone calls.

Both groups are largely in sync on the most important factors in the decision-making process with reliability, security, business relevance, compatibility and cost each receiving high marks.

The survey was conducted in the fall of 2016 and included 584 IT decision makers and 305 business decision makers from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Channel Impact^®
The study can be useful in helping sales strategists to identify points of entry within the client organization. It also demonstrates the need to pursue a comprehensive approach that targets IT leaders and business leaders alike.

Survey: Healthcare Data May Be Safer in the Cloud

Healthcare IT professionals believe their data is safer in the cloud than on premises according to a survey released by Evolve IP, a Wayne, PA-based cloud services company. The survey also revealed a security preference for private over public clouds with about 60 percent preferring private cloud infrastructure. The survey of more than 180 healthcare professionals also revealed that 85 percent of all healthcare organizations now have at least one service in the cloud.

“As evidenced by their currently deployed services and planned adoption trends, healthcare organizations have recognized the significant benefits of the cloud,” said Dave McCrystal, healthcare vertical marketing manager of Evolve IP.

Other key results of the survey showed that, on average, healthcare organizations have between two and three services (2.75 average) in the cloud. Data backup, servers/data centers, other SaaS and Microsoft Exchange and Office were cited as the top deployed cloud services. Additionally, the survey indicated that adoption will continue to be strong, with 81 percent of respondents planning on adding new or additional cloud services in the next three years. The top services targeted for deployment over the next three years include data backup (48 percent), Exchange or Office (27.5 percent) and phone systems (27 percent).

Channel Impact^®
The data demonstrates that partners may be well motivated to pursue cloud-based technology sales in this important vertical market.

Siemplify Expands Strategy and Business Development Leadership

Siemplify, a New York-based security orchestration and automation company, has named Miguel Carrero as its new executive vice president of strategy and business development.

Carrero previously served as worldwide head of product and solutions at ArcSight; a business unit within Enterprise Security Products at HP Software. In his new role, Carrero will oversee strategic partnerships, drive key client relationships and help drive global enterprise and MSSP adoption of the Siemplify ThreatNexus platform.

Siemplify ThreatNexus is an integrated security operations platform to support management, investigation, and automation of effective threat response from a single pane of glass.

“Over the past years I have seen firsthand the challenges facing Security Operations as the number and sophistication of attacks increased dramatically,” said Carrero. “I believe Siemplify fills a critical void in the security landscape by meeting the diverse needs of security operations teams to orchestrate and automate threat management and response.”

Channel Impact^®
Security has become such a powerful industry phenomenon that it is often difficult for vendors to be heard above their competitors. With business development more important than ever, it becomes imperative for key players to fully understand the threats and their product lines.