The Latest on Tech Buying Teams

Back in 2019, we shared data from one of our buying studies that put the size of buying teams between 14 and 23 people, using mean figures and average deal size. Our latest study, with results available in 2022, have revealed some big changes on this front. This study again asked respondents to focus on the single biggest tech-related purchase they had been involved with over the last 24 months. This range means that many of these purchases-and the work to make the decision-occurred during the pandemic. The result: teams are getting smaller.

The biggest change is with the biggest purchases, where the mean team size has decreased from 23 down to 15. The big change is in the participation by interested parties with limited decision influence. Logically, this could be explained by the environment during the pandemic-with most buying activities being conducted virtually the likelihood of just inviting others to participate because they are "in the office" decreases. When looking beyond the means, there was a great deal of variation, to the point where the largest buying team had over 50 participants.

But the trend downward in size could be viewed as a positive for the tech community. Less people involved; less people to win over. But the jury is out on this.

Despite less people, we continue to see big challenges in buying that we will be sharing in upcoming research and posts. They are some of the same ones we've reported in the past: consensus, conflict and confidence continue to be big issues. To the point where our high quality deal % went down from 27% to 20%. There was little variation by size of spending. Again, the pandemic could be part of the problem as earlier studies revealed many organizations shifting their priorities to deal with the challenges. In a world where most organizations are not fans of change, forced changes are difficult and frustrating.

More to come on this study in the coming weeks and months.