The CIOs, CTOs, Directors and Project Managers with whom we're in constant dialogue have a few choice words of advice for today's beleaguered software and systems sales reps, system integrators, and customer support staff: Make it Easier for Us to Do our Jobs! These IT execs have told us that their budgets for 2003 are essentially identical to what they spent in 2002. So, don't look for an upswing in IT spending in 2003. Customers will continue to invest cautiously in strategic projects. But they would like a lot more help than they are currently getting from the suppliers who are constantly beating at their doors. Here's what they want you to do:

• Make it faster, cheaper, and easier for us to install and deploy your software.
• Make integration of your systems with others your highest priority. It's certainly ours. Ease of application integration is more than selling us open APIs or adapters. We need integration at a business event/business object level, and we need it to be cheap and easy.
• Don't just talk about best practices; deliver them. Document them. Show us who else is using them. Give us access to other customers who are ahead of us.
• Streamline your own business processes. Don't make us jump through hoops. Streamline YOUR processes for dealing with us. Stop working in silos. Don't make us work so hard to do business with you!
• Connect us face-to-face and electronically with all your other customers. Let us share our dirty laundry, lessons learned, and best practices with one another. Annual users' conferences aren't really enough to support us.
• We're spending most of our time implementing, integrating, maintaining, and extending your systems. Make it easier for us to do this ourselves. We don't want to become a full employment supplier for System Integrators and consultants.

In a tight economy, IT suppliers and system integrators need to devote a LOT more attention to making it much easier for their customers to do their jobs!