Nintex today announced the results of its first channel-driven survey of third party partners, who hold senior roles within systems integrators, reselling/value-added resellers or managed services firms, which finds when it comes to the buying process of technology solutions that leaders from Sales, Operations, Marketing and HR, also referred to as lines of business (LOB) leaders, have a real—and growing presence and influence in the sales process among their customers.
Survey respondents report that LOB leaders (from HR, Sales, Marketing, Operations, Legal, etc.) are present 37 percent of the time in the sales process for software and technology purchases, with Finance and Procurement present in nearly a quarter of the deals. For those who have encountered LOB leaders, Sales and Operations (68 percent for each) executives lead the way but Marketing is involved nearly 45 percent of the time.
A notable percentage (nearly 40 percent) of those surveyed indicate the buyer in the sales process has changed over the last year. New players have come into the sales process across all roles from Owner/CEO/President, CIO, IT professionals, Finance, Procurement, to Sales and Marketing leaders—according to roughly 20 percent of respondents.
“As organizations continue their digital transformations, channel partners must expand their engagement with customers to focus their effort with LOB leaders and others outside of IT as these stakeholders have a much greater impact and influence on buying decisions than ever before,” says Nintex’s VP of Partner Strategy & Programs Josh Waldo. “There is a significant and growing opportunity for the channel to act as the broker between the Sales, Operations, Marketing, and IT departments within their customers’ organizations especially as these customers navigate through digital change and work to make their businesses more autonomous rapidly.”
Rising IT Interaction Across the Business Affects the Channel
Almost 70 percent of respondents indicate there is moderate to significant interaction between IT and other departments within their customers’ businesses. Nearly 45 percent report that this interaction is increasing. While, 60 percent of those surveyed say the interaction between IT and the rest of the business has an effect on them and their business. And of those:
– 51 percent see a positive effect on the channel’s approach to sales/service
– 40 percent play a role in facilitating the interactions (an opportunity for channel partners to drive value)
– 26 percent of respondents are seeing fractured relationships between IT and other departments which further emphasizes the opportunity to be a broker while focusing on driving value for LOB quickly
2016 Technology Trends for the Channel: Security, Cloud, and Workflow Automation
A third of respondents believe security (47 percent) and the cloud (26 percent) will have the greatest impact on both their business and their customers’ businesses. Interestingly, 26 percent believe mobility will have the most effect on their customers’ businesses, but only 16 percent believe mobility will have the most effect on their own business.
Additionally, of the cloud-based solutions, nearly 38 percent of respondents predict workflow automation and employee collaboration/messaging are the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) capabilities likely to experience the greatest growth in the year ahead. More than 50 percent of those who selected workflow automation expect to see automating human-centric processes to experience high usage next year.
“Lines of business managers are driving demand for process automation software and services,” said Aragon Founder and CEO Jim Lundy. “Business leaders recognize that empowering staff to better engage with their teams, partners, and customers is a competitive game changer. LOBs, who now control much of their own IT budget, are self-activating to create their own solutions for digitally automating analog processes and bringing order to data chaos.”
The channel-driven survey by Nintex was conducted by Research Now and completed by approximately 150 leaders from channel organizations in the United States. These individuals hold senior roles in leadership, sales, and IT primarily. More than half of the respondents work at organizations with more than 100 employees and revenues ranging from $11 million to $100 million, with their businesses focused on project-based services/system integrations (59 percent), reseller/VAR (35 percent), managed services (27 percent), and packaging their own intellectual property (16 percent).
Nintex sells its technology predominately through a global partner channel of more than 1,500 organizations and recognizes solution and technology partner models. Nintex solution partners are partners that resell or refer business to Nintex, while Nintex technology partners are product-oriented companies that integrate with the Nintex platform.