johnhagel.com: blog: When will Tech Spending Revive? What do technology customers need? They are looking for technology that can be bought in small increments with modest investment and that can deliver tangible business benefits (especially operating cost and asset savings) with short lead-times (six months preferable, twelve months at the limit). In short, they want a compelling, short-term business case focused on helping to take cost out of operations. What are technology providers offering? They continue to offer grand visions in the quest for mega-sales. They promise fundamental new architectures, massive business change and untold wealth for those brave enough to march down the long path ahead. After all, you can't change the world overnight. Here's the disconnect. Grand visions sound expensive. Implementation tends to be very complicated with lots of risk of failure. If that weren't enough, they also require long lead-times with difficult to quantify pay-offs. This is exactly what executives don't want right now. That says it all!!