This study, which surveyed 271 IT leaders, was conducted to gauge which technology areas IT leaders will focus on over the next 12 months, and to measure the direction of spending within those categories.

Download this 8-page executive summary to learn:

• Budget expectations for ITDMs and where they plan to increase spending
• The top 5 technologies IT leaders are actively researching
• Tactics used for evaluating emerging tech vendors
• Tech deployment challenges IT leaders are facing in 2024

At ��dzܲԻ����’s event, ’s editorial team drew from their vast industry knowledge, constant dialogue with CIOs and recent industry studies to provide valuable insights into the ever-evolving landscape of digital transformation. Speakers included myself, CIO, Ken Mingis, Executive Editor, Computerworld US, Amy Bennett, Editor in Chief, CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World and Ann Bednarz, Executive Editor, Network World.  

“IT leaders want to make sure they’re on top of what’s happening in the technology world, figuring out how to get the right information to make the best decisions for the next five years.”

Ken Mingus, Executive Editor, Computerworld, US.

Here, we dive into the insights from CIOs on topics crucial for understanding today’s technology buyers and navigating a dynamically changing tech landscape: 

What are the everyday challenges or pain points that we might not be aware of in their roles as technology leaders?

Faced with such as security threats, economic uncertainty, and operationalizing AI, as well as a rapidly evolving landscape to navigate, the job of a CIO is no easy task. According to ��dzܲԻ����’s 2024 State of the CIO research, , increasingly leading business and technology initiatives. Additionally, 80% of CIOs agree they’re tasked with researching and evaluating possible AI additions to their tech stack.

CIOs everyday challenges and pain points: 

• CIOs are addressing issues such as constantly evolving threats, the specter of ransomware attacks, and the heightened attention from board-level stakeholders. 
• Faced with the technology skills gap and the erosion of traditional career paths, CIOs are challenged with building and retaining a skilled workforce. 
• In the realm of innovation, CIOs are pushing for digital and innovation agendas, all while facing hurdles associated with the implementation of generative AI. 
• Remaining current on happenings in the technology world is a top priority for CIOs, ensuring that they are well-informed and adaptable. 
• Budget alignment is a persistent challenge for CIOs who must find a balance between allocating resources to maintain existing systems and investing funds for new innovations. 

What are IT leaders and tech buyers reading, and how do they consume that information?

Tech buyers use a diverse range of sources to gather information on technology innovation trends and vendor options. However, 87% of IT buyers say it’s challenging to find high-quality content. The challenge lies in filtering through the abundance of information, emphasizing the need for curated, reliable sources. So, where are tech buyers turning to find their high-quality content? 

Types of content and information that tech buyers are consuming: 

• Tech buyers continue to rely on traditional sources such as industry conferences, publications, and established vendor relationships, recognizing their enduring importance despite the evolving landscape. 
• Online resources such as tech websites, blogs, and social media platforms play a significant and dynamic role in keeping IT decision-makers updated on the latest developments in technology. 
• Peer networks and professional associations contribute significantly to knowledge-sharing and provide opportunities for learning from industry peers, enhancing understanding of market dynamics. 

What are the most important pieces of data that IT leaders rely on while making a cybersecurity investment decision?

Faced with the pressure of demonstrating return on investment (ROI), IT leaders prioritize this key aspect when making investment decisions. Here are a few important KPIs and areas of information that IT leaders rely on when making cybersecurity investment decisions: 

• IT leaders prioritize ROI over price. 
• Their main focus is on achieving tangible returns with a clear timetable. 
• There is significant pressure on demonstrating ROI in IT product purchases. Vendors are expected to acknowledge and address the pressures involved in these decisions. 

“IT leaders are seeking successful purchases and a clear return on investment, with a growing emphasis on the need for meaningful customer connections and insights from real-world implementations.”

Amy Bennett, Global Editor-in-Chief for CIO.com.

Along with important pieces of data, the top tech initiatives driving investment are security risk management (45%), machine learning/artificial intelligence (AI) (44%), and business process automation/IT automation (44%). These initiatives represent a proactive response to the challenges and opportunities presented by the digital era. 

How do you undertake the buying process? The stages, the resources, and the teams involved?

CIOs play an important role in the buying process and in deciding on strategic investments for the organization. Working closely with other stakeholders, 79% of CIOs have a strong educational partnership with the CEO/board of directors. In 2024, there will be increased emphasis on working more often with line of business executives during specific stages of the technology purchase process such as determining business needs and evaluating products and services. 

The stages, resources, and teams involved in the tech buying process: 

• Stability and reliability in vendors are crucial, aligning with the long-term plans of organizations to ensure sustained effectiveness and support. 
• Operating in a global market, it becomes increasingly important for IT leaders to stay informed about global events as technology decisions have widespread impacts. Awareness of the global context is key to making informed and strategic choices. 
• Recognizing the trend of increased collaboration and shared processes between network and security teams, IT leaders are navigating a complex decision-making landscape. With an average buying team size of 25 people and months of research, decision-making involves thorough consideration. 
• IT leaders prioritize making sure new products work well with their current systems. They want to avoid buying something that ends up unused with features they don’t need. Understanding how a product integrates and its practical use is crucial for them. 

Challenges of messaging to the data audience while driving a business outcome viewpoint.

When it comes to reaching B2B and IT audiences, crafting compelling messaging is vital to business success. To properly tailor your messaging, this involves understanding the unique challenges and priorities of your audiences. 

Approaches used by CIOs in crafting messages to reach and connect with a data audience: 

• Prioritize understanding customer challenges rather than promoting a specific viewpoint in pitches. 
• Emphasize the importance of establishing a genuine customer connection in pitches. 
• Look for pitches that provide a realistic view, including both success stories and challenges faced by customers. 
• Actively seek customer connections and stories that offer valuable lessons to readers. 
• Recognize the value of connecting with companies that have deployed the technology, and sharing practical experiences. 

“It’s crucial to shift the focus from driving a specific viewpoint to addressing the challenges of customers, ensuring that the narrative resonates with their real-world struggles and aligns with the ultimate goal of driving meaningful business outcomes.”

Amy Bennett, Global Editor-in-Chief for CIO.com

What trends will we see in technology leadership and tech buying in 2024?

As budgets rise and the digital landscape continues to evolve, this year will be shaped by notable trends in technology leadership and tech buying. Security, rising costs, and investments in AI dominate the top three reasons budgets will increase in 2024. These trends highlight how important it will be for tech leaders to encourage growth and innovation.

Trends CIOs identified in tech buying for 2024: 

• Generative AI (Gen AI) takes the spotlight in 2024, introducing challenges associated with its adoption. 
• Tech companies are focusing on upskilling workers and making strategic investments in the existing workforce. 
• Amidst transformative shifts in the job market, a key focus emerges on skills development. 
• There will be a significant emphasis on sustainability-driven purchases reflected in the IT landscape. 
• Growing interest is observed in energy-efficient servers, and sustainability metrics are becoming integral to decision-making processes in the industry. 

Conclusion

CIOs are positioned to play a crucial role in driving growth and innovation amidst transformative changes in the digital era. In 2024, the CIO will face numerous challenges, including those around increasing security threats and AI adoption. Despite these, the role of the CIO is stronger than ever as their visibility within the business continues to elevate and technology budget growth is positive.

Want deeper insights into the evolving role of the CIO? Download ��dzܲԻ����’s latest research, State of the CIO 2024. 

The 2024 State of the CIO Study, which surveyed 875 IT leaders and 251 line of business (LOB) participants, was conducted with the objective of understanding how the role of the CIO continues to evolve in today’s business climate and to help define the CIO agenda for the year ahead. 

��dzܲԻ����’s details how the role of the CIO continues to evolve and elevate in today’s business climate and defines the CIO agenda for 2024. This definitive benchmarking survey outlines the business and technology initiatives IT leaders expect to focus on in the coming year and where they expect to be more involved.

Like in past years, we consistently see the CIO increasingly leading business and technology initiatives (85%) while also planning to have more time for strategic tasks in the future. Much of their time is currently spent on security management and improving IT operations, however their hope is to focus more on driving business innovation and redesigning business processes in the next 1-3 years. AI is also a new focus in this year’s research and the data found that 71% of CIOs agree that they’re working more closely with line of business on AI applications.

Key takeaways:

• The CIO role continues to be elevated after last year when economic conditions put a new level of pressure on heads of IT. These individuals remain optimistic about tech budget growth and also anticipate technology budgets that live outside of IT to switch ownership to IT.

• CIOs have a strong educational partnership with the CEO/board of directors. In fact, 66% of line of business view the CIO as a consultant or strategic advisor, and 63% of CIOs plan to work more closely with LOB when determining the business need this year.

• Throughout the upcoming year, CIOs will focus their time and expertise on security management, followed by improving IT operations/systems performance, and aligning IT initiatives with business goals. However, thinking three years from now, CIOs hope to focus on driving business innovation and redesigning business processes.

• CIOs continue to strive towards a business strategist role, and report to be spending more time aligning IT initiatives with business goals and redesigning business processes compared to last year.

• Security continues to consume much of tech leaderships’ time. The need for security improvements is the #1 reason for tech budgets increasing in 2024 and 43% say that addressing security threats is most often forcing them to redirect their time and focus away from strategic and innovative tasks.

• Due to its perceived automation and efficiency benefits, AI is constantly being explored and implemented. 80% of CIOs anticipate their involvement in AI/machine learning will increase over the next year, which is up from 55% in 2023.

View the sample slides below for further insights on the State of the CIO research:

Executive summary

Regional insights

Who is the North American CIO? View this infographic.

Marketing to EMEA CIOs? View this infographic.

What’s on the APAC CIO’s agenda? Find out in this infographic.

About the research

��dzܲԻ����’s 23rd annual State of the CIO survey was fielded online with the objective of understanding the current parameters of the CIO role and how it may be changing over time. To be considered qualified, respondents must have identified themselves as the head of IT for their company or a division within it. Results are based on 875 qualified IT respondents, and 251 LOB responses. This study was fielded globally, with the response base being 41% North America, 19% EMEA, and 38% APAC.

Better understand the CIO audience

Explore how to sell to the CIO

It’s not always easy to sell technology. Here’s a guide for tech marketers to best understand who the CIO is, what they are focused on, and how to engage with them throughout the purchase process. View Foundry’s Selling to the CIO page.

Listen to what CIOs have to say

Each year, our study outlines how the CIO role continues to evolve in today’s business climate, and explores their business and tech initiatives as they navigate the impact of the current economic climate. See what they think this year.

How to market to CIOs around the world

Is your marketing scope region-specific? If so, it’s important to tailor your messaging – their priorities, responsibilities, and challenges may be very different in North America, EMEA or APAC. Check out these research findings.

In this blog, I will dive into some of the key takeaways from ��dzܲԻ����’s 2023 Security Priorities study and explore security leaders’ emerging concerns, such as the viability of cyber risk insurance, and the transformative impact of artificial intelligence.

Top priorities – much of the same

Security priorities haven’t changed that much, and that’s probably a good thing. Those priorities have for years reflected on how CISOs view the risks that they face and how they allocate resources to manage those risks. As always, they need to be appropriately prepared to respond to a security incident whether it be ransomware, a data breach or whatever. They’re constantly focused on improving the protection of confidential and sensitive data. New this year, they’re very focused on how to improve the security of their cloud data and systems as their organizations have invested greater resources in, and trust in, cloud solutions. As CISOs play a greater and greater role in leading IT infrastructure, the importance of leveraging their resources to boost corporate resiliency is the number 4 priority.

• Be appropriately prepared to respond to a security incident (e.g. ransomware, data breach, etc.)
• Improve the protection of confidential and sensitive data
• Improve security of our cloud data and systems – new this year
• Upgrade IT and data security to boost corporate resiliency

Cyber risk insurance – worth the investment?

This year’s security priority study drilled into the topic of cyber risk insurance. Over the past decades CRI has become an increasingly important vehicle for offloading risk but the challenging nature of insuring against damages caused by cyber-attacks has become increasingly difficult to manage and expensive to afford. 52% of this year’s respondents agreed that cyber risk insurance is a key part of their strategy to offload risk, but they also feel that CRI is becoming too expensive and that insurers are demanding too much to make CRI worth the effort. As they found themselves managing the renewal process this past year 44% said it to was more difficult than in prior years. Additionally, liability caps on individual policies are driving more than one-third of CISOs to stack their policies – essentially buying multiple policies to spread out the risk and gain the levels of coverage that they need.

AI – a mixed bag

One would be hard pressed to find a topic generating more debate among security professionals than artificial intelligence. Fully two-thirds of those surveyed this year indicated that they are using AI to enable their security technologies, most notably in threat detection, malware detection, automation alert and triage, real time risk prediction, and incident response. Many are seeing real benefits, such as faster identification of unknown threats, an acceleration in the detection and response times, and the use of AI to sift through large amounts of data faster than any previous solutions.

They also found AI effective at eliminating time-consuming tasks that can reduce the employee workload and allow their security organizations to be more proactive and offer faster remediation of threats. But, of those security leaders using AI in their security solutions 28% are not yet seeing any benefits. We’re early in the adoption of AI and we can expect to see this area evolve rapidly, but solution providers touting their AI capabilities need to do a better job of helping their customers identify the benefits from this new technology if they hope to be successful.

The bottom line

The adoption of artificial intelligence presents both promise and challenges, with a majority reaping benefits in threat detection and response, but a notable fraction yet to realize its full potential. In the world of cybersecurity, adaptability remains at the forefront, ensuring that organizations stay one step ahead in safeguarding against complex threats. I outline how the CSO and CISO are better aligning with the board of directors to prepare for these future threats and abide by new regulations in my other blog, The evolving challenges and the growing risks of the CSO.

It has never been more challenging to be a chief information security officer. But it has also never been a more important role to successfully manage business risk. Over the past year in the United States alone, we’ve seen new regulations from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as they focus on how security risks materially impact business performance. Despite this, only 30% of this year’s respondents said that they have a process to determine whether a security incident constituted a material event, although another 30% are developing such a process. More recently we’ve seen new regulations from the state of New York and other state-level bodies that seek to exercise even greater control over how businesses manage their cyber risks. For the CSO, 2023 has proven to be a wakeup call that has finally shown the true personal risks that CSO’s face.

The board of directors – better alignment but more to come

CSOs reporting to the board of directors jumped to 25% – up from 20% last year – and 85% of CSOs are reporting regular engagement with their board of directors, with nearly half reporting engagement at least monthly. At the same time the number of CSOs who have little to no engagement with their board of directors has fallen to 15%. On the surface these numbers may appear good, yet only 46% report any level of cyber expertise on their board of directors and that can prove to be a major challenge. Managing cyber risk is not for the faint of heart nor for those without expertise in the area. Since 2011, when the NACD first issued guidance around this issue, there has been a drive to invest boards with greater levels of cybersecurity expertise. Twelve years later we’re still seeing mixed results.

Regulations – driving investment but lagging results

As the study has found in years past, a large number of security leaders believe they are falling short in managing their risks. They most often find it difficult to convince all the parts of their organizations of the severity of the risks that they face. Despite rising budgets, they believe that they’re still not investing enough resources (budget, people, technologies, etc.) to address the risks that they face, and they struggle to find, acquire, and/or retain the technical or professional expertise that they need.

Budgets – going up

But at the end of the day the most telling metric as to how organizations perceive the importance of investing in security is budget. Forty-three percent of this year’s respondents will have increased budgets next year. Only 2% expect budgets to decline – the smallest number indicating decline in the history of the study. Some leading areas where there will be increasing investment: zero trust technologies cyber risk insurance and customer identity and access management. They expressed the most interest in future spending around zero trust, SASE, deception technology, and XDR. To learn more about what’s on the horizon for security leaders in 2024, view our blog highlighting the adoption of AI and cyber risk insurance here.

Technical debt

Security leaders continued to saddle themselves with technical debt. And as a CISO once noted to me, ransomware is the technical debt collector. When asked about their acquisition and retirement of security tools the typical organization was retiring 2+ security tools per year, but they were also acquiring 3+ tools during that same time. In conversations with CISOs I consistently hear an understanding of the risks from technical debt, but I also hear the challenges they have around moving to platform-centric solutions that may integrate better but provide less efficacy. The industry needs to find a way to move beyond its reliance on best of breed solutions to a more proactive approach to managing cyber risks.

Final thoughts

As an observer of this market for the past 21 years I’ve witnessed security leaders mature to address any challenge that faced them. But the changes we’re witnessing over the past few years are transformational. CSOs are now business leaders who are well versed in technology as opposed to technology leaders that struggle to understand the business, and we’re seeing that reflected in the findings of this year’s study. But challenges remain:

• The expectations of the business, given the evolving role of the CSO, can easily create a chasm between what security leaders can deliver and what is expected of them.
• Technology challenges continue to complicate the landscape from the growing number of tools and level of technical debt that businesses carry.
• While budgets continue to grow the options for offloading risk are becoming more expensive which creates challenges, particularly for small and medium businesses.

The big thing to watch over the next year will be how third parties – regulators, insurers, and business partners – impact the way businesses address their risks and types of security solutions they adopt. The risk is that their mandates will shift resources away from the most pressing security issues identified by CSOs in order to meet the demands of those third parties, creating risk gaps that will be targeted for exploitation. I’ll also be watching how aggressively regulators go after businesses and their CSOs in the wake of security lapses.

Q. What are your primary responsibilities in your CIO role?  

My responsibilities are mainly around strategic leadership within our department and across the organization – making sure our IT strategy is aligned with the business strategy and our digital strategy. Just like everybody else, I do a lot of meetings, with my team, internally with the business, and also with our vendors and business partners. 

We’re also doing a lot more collaboration with our external customers. Building those relationships in this digital world is really key right now for us.  

Like other CIOs, I’m also looking at what innovations are out there that we should be exploring. Which ones are more hype, which ones do we feel could benefit the organization? For example, everybody’s looking at generative AI. There’s a lot of opportunity at Southwire for AI and ML [machine learning], given what we do in the manufacturing world.  

And then on top of all that, [my role also involves] cyber risk, data governance, and digital and AI governance.  

Q. How would you describe a “typical” day?  

A typical day for me generally is a lot of meetings. Maybe more than I’d like, but I like to meet with people face to face, whether it’s our employees or our external customers. Networking is really important to me. When you’re in IT, you spend a lot of time listening to both internal and external customers, and having conversations on where the organization is going.

Q. What role do you and your team play in technology purchases? 

For a while, a lot of companies were moving so fast and just buying what they needed without putting out a true RFP. Now, we’ve settled back into saying we need an RFP for purchases over a certain amount. We need to talk to three or four vendors and compare notes and make sure we’re getting the right solution for the problem we’re trying to solve.  

My involvement generally comes near the end of the deal. I allow my leadership team to do their thing without stepping into their power alleys. I focus on the business aspect of it.  

I understand what problem we’re trying to solve. I know the vendors my team is looking at, but I let them do a lot of the due diligence, which gives them the opportunity to learn how to deal with vendors and create those relationships. They’ll present the findings of the RFP and the different bids that came in. We [discuss] which one fits our culture the best, which one solves the problem. Where we can, we do a proof of concept.  

Q. Besides your IT team, what other business stakeholders might you bring in for technology purchases? 

If we’re working on a business problem, we bring in the business leaders to help with the selection of our tools. The IT and business groups work closely together to solve problems.  

If we’re looking at software or hardware or some type of as a service solution, we bring in not only our IT group, but also the business users and key subject matter experts who are going to be using the technology. They’re the ones I get most concerned with about adoption and change management.  

Q. You mentioned the security piece earlier as part of your overall responsibilities. Is that a different type of buying process? 

We have a CISO who’s pretty diligent with everything. Security is a different beast, so we bring in the broader IT team in part for the educational piece. Whether it’s the network team or the cloud team or the application team, I want them to understand the risk factors around security and what we need to do, because security has to be part of every program. Any type of software or hardware we’re thinking of buying goes through an architectural review board, which addresses security.  

We look at security not just from the IT side, but the operations technology [OT] side of the house, too. As a manufacturing company, OT is becoming just as important as IT. Everything’s now IoT and network connected. We have sensors everywhere. That heightens the security aspect of our IT and OT buying decisions.  

Q. How has the tech buying process evolved over the four-plus years you’ve been at Southwire?  

For a company that was growing as quickly as Southwire was over the past four or five years, our buying cycles were pretty short because we were involved in a lot of acquisitions and we have accelerated our digital program. Now we’re starting to get back into better planning cycles.  

In today’s world, it’s much more collaborative, which is why one of my key roles is creating partnerships with my business peers. They’re more actively involved in looking at technology with us, identifying what problem it will solve, which is much better than them doing shadow IT. Our Business Transformation team is a nice model for us to have because of the complexity in our business. 

Q. What guidance would you give to technology vendors on what they can do better, or do less of, to get your attention? 

I feel bad sometimes for these technology vendors, because they’re trying to drive their business and trying to get conversations with me, which is hard to do in my role.  

Being in the right place at the right time is always a good thing. I try to give vendors as much time as I can to walk through their value proposition. 

In the best-case scenarios, we have time to evaluate different vendors and different technologies. But sometimes there are projects that need to start within four to six weeks. You’re going to remember those vendors that have contacted you in the past. 

When we do meet with vendors, they need to understand they have very limited time with us. I don’t need a 30-page PowerPoint – I need three to five slides that show they understand our business and the problem we’re trying to solve. 

The 2023 Security Priorities report surveyed 790 IT security executives managers and professionals from around the globe. This research helps you to gain a better understanding of the issues that will demand the most time and strategic thinking for IT and security teams.

Download the executive summary to learn about:

• The causes & outcomes of security incidents
• Challenges forcing security leaders to redirect their time away from other important projects
• Hot security tools being researched & the rise of AI and cyber insurance
• What’s driving security initiatives and where organizations are falling short
• Security spending and investments

Fill out the form to the right to gain access to exclusive research from the 2023 study.

Q. What are your primary responsibilities as the MBTA’s Chief Digital Officer? 

As Chief Digital Officer, I’m responsible for the . Our mission is to use the modern principles of research, design, and technology to make the transit system more accessible for all riders. That pairing – modern principles and rider focus – drives our success and shapes our value proposition to the agency and the public. We build almost all of our technology in-house as we have found that to be the most efficient and effective approach. 

In terms of my role specifically, it is translational. My role is to bridge the gap between the agency’s priorities and our technology solutions. I need to understand what the priorities are for people across the agency and communicate our work in a way that matters to them. By understanding what their priorities are, this helps me to translate the agency’s priorities into technical terms for my team.  

Q. How would you describe a typical day?  

I try to structure my weeks a little bit because, as the psychologists say, context-switching is hard. So I try to group meetings onto different days of the week. For example: one-on-ones with my staff are on Fridays, and one-on-ones with folks across the authority are generally on Tuesdays, sometimes Mondays. There are various standing meetings and committees, etc.  

Having to be remote through the pandemic, we quickly shifted to running most of our operations through Slack. And so, I spend a lot of time in Slack managing, delegating, giving guidance, etc.  

In addition to managing a 100-person department, I have projects I am individually responsible for. So, I block off time for reviewing the deliverables from those.  

Because we’re a 24/7 essential public service, full control over my schedule is limited.  

Q. What role do you play in technology purchases?  

It depends on the scope, the dollar amounts, and other things. As a public agency, we have a very rigorous procurement process. By and large, I set the approach by which we do technology procurements.  

We want to have a great experience for our riders, so we do all of the in-house software development for that [customer-facing] interface. And then we bring in modular pieces behind it. We love it when there’s an opportunity for third parties to show their excellence and be able to contribute. To create a level playing field, as much as possible, we want to use industry-standard interfaces so that [vendors] are not building something custom just for us. One that means it is going to be continuously updated, and two, it means they can sell to other [customers]. It becomes a win-win.  

Q. What other internal stakeholders do you collaborate with on technology decisions? 

Collaboration is essential. In the public sector, we have the opportunity and the challenge of managing to multiple bottom lines. So you can only be successful by taking a collaborative, partnership approach.  

For example, one key partner is our systemwide accessibility group. Going back to our mission, making sure that all riders can use the system well, a big focus is on providing better information to folks who are elevator-dependent. If you’re taking the subway and go to a station and the elevators are out of service, the station might as well be closed to you, given a lack of accessibility. We should make sure we’re giving folks that information upfront. This stakeholder collaboration is the most critical work that we do. 

Q. How has the technology buying process evolved over the past 3-5 years?  

With a lot of traditional government IT procurement, the name of the game is risk mitigation, which can make the procurement very prescriptive, describing outputs. In striving to use those modern principles of research, design, and technology, we want to set the bar on the outcomes and leave it to the vendor to figure out how they will deliver the results, not prescribing how they get there. What is the latency? What is the throughput? What is the resolution of the screen, etc.?  

Interacting with stakeholders is a lot easier when we’re talking in terms of outcomes. You don’t want to talk about network switches; you want to talk about the impact of that switch on the rider, the staff, and the organization. That makes it a lot easier for us to meet them where they are and walk them through solutions in a human-centered way.  

One of the innovative things that our procurement department is pushing us toward is using many more RFIs [requests for information]. An RFI gives the government an opportunity to go into the market and invite folks to submit their ideas, approach, interest, etc., in a more informal, lightweight way. An RFI can really open us up to learning about new ways people are approaching a problem. And that helps us refine the outcomes we’re looking for.  

Things have changed in other ways: The procurement department’s priorities have shifted to reflect the complex needs of our agency. While they are still committed to helping us acquire specialized software, they are also focused on supporting our day-to-day operations. They many want to help us buy whatever software we need, but they’re also trying to figure out how to order 10 tons of cement by yesterday. 

First, we’re making a big push toward standardized terms and conditions.  Technology vendors with the flexibility to review and accept our terms and conditions make things go a lot faster. 

Second, InfoSec. Government is often the biggest, most attractive target. So give me an industry standard – the stricter, the better – and we’re going to say you have to adopt that. The importance and the non-negotiability of adhering to InfoSec standards is something that has really changed over the last couple of years.  

Last is software accessibility. I’ve talked about this, but states like Massachusetts are making a big push on software accessibility. It’s long overdue. But there’s a lack of expertise in the industry.  

Q. What can technology vendors do better to get your attention? 

The best approach is for companies to inform, not sell. I know that vendors are developing new and different solutions, and I’m eager to learn about those solutions and technologies.   

A sales approach is going to be less successful. I can’t and don’t want to buy a piece of software based on a personal relationship I have with the salesperson. We go through an open, equitable, and inclusive procurement process. So, show us the value and impact you can deliver rather than trying to create a personal relationship. When vendors lead with marketing buzzwords, it’s easy to tune them out.  

The last thing I’ll note is that historically, many software vendors will only take credit card payments. That’s hard for a government agency. The ability to do purchase orders helps to pave the way.  

It comes down to this: Make it easy for us to say yes.