The pie charts below look like sickly children’s cakes; however they are important illustrations of how IT is consuming key content (in the US).  These are your peers in the largest accounts. The pies show the mix of content IT pros in large enterprises are looking for at each of three key stages in the purchase cycle.

It is interesting to see how much these content needs vary and evolve through the purchase cycle.  This ongoing research of IT pros is conducted globally, so if you want to see what peers in your country are consuming make a comment in the blog and we will post it.

All of you are pretty fussy and discriminating about content. Look at the areas like Industry Examples. This is a powerful and important content need at the backend of the purchase.  Over time there has been a shift in this content need towards the back of the purchase model.  It tells us that while knowing what happens in your industry sector (retail, healthcare, finance, etc.) is important it is questionable if it is the first content need. The classics content needs, Technical Specifications, Tools for Assessing the Value and basic Price/Feature, still matter more.  In fact, in the middle stages we have almost two chunks of content working the best, Tools for Assessing and basic Price/Feature.  Historically we have often seen Industry Examples being used (in a somewhat painful way) to prove value. Now IT pros want to cut through that to more direct answers.

Here are the two reasons why we believe this to be the case:

1. Technology is omnipresent in most industries so best practices are not just locked up in sectors.
2. In the current climate basic values are so important in order to justify investments. Industry Examples are nice to have, but not essential at the front end.

Your peers still want this Industry Example content but it comes as the icing on the cake at the end of purchase cycle.