IT analyses

Every single technology must provide benefit and people must be favored. Talking about IT tech, all of us are sure that they give us more efficiency, more personal time, more competiveness.
So, what is adoption of new technologies from Bulgarian market?
Inadequate is only one needed word for explanation. Why? Where is the problem?

First big problem is the size. Most of technologies solve the problems of big companies. They are developed for a lot of employees, big market and difficult to achieve incomes for Bulgarian companies. This is the main reason why Bulgarian managers look so skeptical about new technologies. Our businesses need products which help us to close the gap with big players. It’s difficult to implement extremely high set of functions just in one product, but most of companies here cannot afford few servers attended by server room, cooling, uninterruptable power supply, and etc. They want to start all needed functionality on one server. More than a half of businesses here do not have even one server. Peer to peer environment is not best solution for collaboration of teams or employees.

Second problem is a lack of knowledge. There are different type of lacks and misunderstanding. We can start from unknowing customer. He can receive information from many sources, but most important will be trusted ones. Potential customer trusts to partners, friends, competitors, employees or external consultants. For many cases it’s enough to start investigation, but not for starting with project. Significance for implementation is how customer understood benefit from this technology. Biggest system integrators works with biggest customers and most of the projects are successful. These integrators have strong experience and their clients know the needs and strategy. Micro companies frequently cannot afford outsourcing of IT specialist. They call friend, colleague or specialist only in an emergency. Practice is to solve problems per incident basis, not building strategy. This situation supposes to have a lack of contact with expertise. Micro and small business do not have knowledge, but they do not have long term relationship with IT professionals. Managers cannot take knowledge based decisions for business strategy and improving of business processes.

To the other side, take a look at small IT companies. Most of them work with micro and small customers and it’s very hard to achieve expertise, because they do not have enough various and interesting projects. IT companies are in the middle of new technologies and customers. It’s not enough to deliver theoretical information – customers can get the same from internet, so most important is to deliver experience in combination of technical and business knowledge, encapsulated in solutions. This can guarantee successfully finished project.

How to achieve expertise, if there is no lab and no real situation?

There is no chance to have a real situation on present customers, because first they must have equipment, software and etc. Plan “B” is to use lab. For example Microsoft has Partner Program and participants can make subscription to MAPS (Microsoft Action Pack Subscription). According this participant get NFR (Not for Resale) Products. Now, it’s possible to make lab, to test, to prove and to demonstrate to customer. VMware make the same for their partners.
Those programs are OK for software based products.

What about hardware vendors?

Small IT companies from Bulgaria cannot fit to requirements for most of hardware vendors and their partner’s programs. Dealers are trying to get information from distributors, but mostly focus of feedback is jointed out of a technical part. Distributor’s employee can support only with sales information and particularly with technical – sales.
Here we can see problem of Magic Circle.

Nobody has enough knowledge for new technologies. The result is very poorly adoption from the Bulgarian market. Marketing specialist starts series of seminars, but they are useless, because they give to IT specialist the same sales and presales information thru presentations.
Last year was developed a lot of bonus programs based on sales result. Good try, but useless too. IT companies do business not for bonuses; they want to get profit from customers. My personal opinion is that most of vendors are trying to improve sales, but in wrong way. Successful marketing must rely on market development. Most of big vendors forget that Bulgaria is a small country and more than a half of companies here are at beginning of their IT development.

How to develop market?

Necessity of knowledge must be solved, but not only in linear way – from vendor thru distributors and dealers to end customers. Everybody from the sales chain must receive their own piece of information.
The level of complexity rises up when we talk about practice. I mean hands on lab for dealer’s technicians, practical demos for potential customers. The simple solution is NFR products again, but placed on showroom at local distributor. There is no constantly need of NFR product (hardware) for each dealer. It’s enough dealers’ employees to have access to these products at distributor’s site. There can be arranged demos for customers too. Distributors must have access to NFR products and technician from each vendor for hands on lab events with dealers.
Increasing knowledge level of dealers will improve their offers to end customers. Business will start to see benefits from new technologies. Together, system integrators and customers will search how new technologies can be adopt or even adapt to business strategy.
Do not forget the corporate blogs and personal blogs of experts. They can provide knowledge and sureness of maturity of each technology.
That’s all does not sounds too much difficult.

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