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Diminishing Leadership Courage?
March 2007

In XMG’s ongoing quest to understand the buying behavior of IT investment decision makers in Asia Pacific, it was revealed that peer discussion (66.7%) outranks in-house analysis (57.6%) and client references (54.5%) in terms of adoption rate. Not surprisingly, in a regional market that still does not fully understand the value and use of advisory services, analyst insights ranked 4th; nonetheless further ahead of any vendor sales and marketing activities or media.

So what does this mean? 

In no specific order, the analysis clearly spells out that: 

• First, vendors need to find a more effective and neutral approach in educating their customers about their products and services.  Although organizations like IBM have a very strong vision and product/services strategy for their On-Demand offering, they still fail to convince many customers to move to the “On Demand” world without them thinking that it is a ploy to sell more IBM hardware and software;
• Second, analyst firms like XMG, Gartner Group or Forrester have to provide more insightful and in-context research and advisory to develop the requisite credibility. The Asia Pacific buyer market is neither US-centric nor is it regionally homogenized;
  
• Third, with Asia Pacific’s low reliance on outside consultants and a strong confidence on their own internal practices for all in-house analysis, the methods applied have to be nearly flawless with all the assumptions, analytical framework and methodology considered. Over 60% of organizations included in the study lacked bottom-line and ROI-focus;
• Fourth, vendors have to reassess how to effectively use the media to promote their ‘wares’ and services.  The media is currently littered with nascent messages that are creating a chasm between what are nice ideas and what are implementable. 

However, the most interesting question of all -- which the study has not directly touched on -- is this: If peer discussions become the norm for the basis of IT investment decisions, what happens to that one leadership characteristic that is highly recognized and respected by peers: leadership courage (the other characteristics being passion and intellect)?

Courage in the sense that IT decision makers will be driven to take on personal and professional risks, or more importantly, the courage to be true to the organization’s core values beyond what peers consider appropriate and begin the shift beyond obvious undertakings towards sharpening the organization’s competitive edge, engineering innovation and enabling business transformation in a hypercompetitive market. 

Staying well within the peer boundaries is such a stifling environment which can easily lead to a critical leadership gap in Asia Pacific that marginalizes the development of astute IT executives that are visionaries, strategists and change agents.   

As the Asia Pacific ICT market spending grows to a booming 12% annual growth rate (a bright spot in the global ICT market) in 2006, there is never a better time than for an IT leadership that hinges on doing what is right. I personally think peer advisory has its place in the decision making process of any good leadership manifesto since any sensible IT executives must communicate with everyone (including their customers and vendors).

Article written by Lauro Vives
for Asian Quality Magazine