Meet the New Enterprise Customer

Ben Horowitz:  Meet the New Enterprise Customer, He’s a Lot Like the Old Enterprise Customer


"If you work in the technology industry and particularly in Silicon Valley, you become used to employees who work tirelessly to improve their companies. It is not difficult to imagine one of these employees independently finding a new technology then championing it inside of her company simply because she wants her company to become great. Outside of technology and especially in very large companies, people generally don’t do things like that. Most large company employees like to stay within the scope of their defined job. If they must make a choice between potentially advancing the efficiency of their employer via new technology or getting home to see their 8 year old’s pee wee baseball game, it’s not a difficult decision. As a result, expecting them to adopt your product with no help is probably not a good idea."

The wisdom here is perfectly sound and logical.  I believe technology solves problems, but that's obvious I work IN IT.  To others, it can create problems, one of risk on the shoulders of the employee/manager/champion that pushed for it's purchase.  Now their ass is on the line and they have a problem of meeting expectations and making sure this project works.  Taking no risk and 'staying the course' sounds way more appealing to this type of person working at mega-company X.