Influencing ITAM stakeholders: Great examples from the audience at Wisdom EMEA 2023

ITAM News & Analysis

Influencing ITAM stakeholders: Great examples from the audience at Wisdom EMEA 2023

Wisdom EMEA 2023 kicked off with a fascinating talk from Rob Geraghty about influencing ITAM stakeholders. The founder of Presenting Virtually discussed how to create more buy-in for your ITAM programme. He opened with this question:

“What’s challenging about influencing stakeholders in your organization?”

A few great comments came from the audience:

“When I’m speaking with CTOs and CIOs, they come with their own style of communication. You might think you’ve presented the best slides ever, but it doesn’t always land. Maintaining momentum in light of that setback and recognising the need to change communication style is important.”

“Selling the benefits of ITAM. Telling people that it’s a long-term journey, not a 6-month thing, and that sometimes there will be a need to change direction. This gets on people’s nerves because it’s not what they want to hear.”

Rob’s talk focused on Robert Cialdini’s six Principles of Influence and how they can be applied to ITAM. The six principles being:

1. Authority
2. Social Proof
3. Reciprocity
4. Consistency
5. Liking
6. Scarcity

Authority and social proof

People follow credible, knowledgeable experts, and when it comes to social proof, people will often look to the actions of others to determine their own. How can these principles apply to ITAM? Here are some of the great examples from the audience:

“I’m an ex Oracle auditor – that gives me enormous authority.”

“There are no other companies from our sector here. This means we are ahead of our competitors. We should keep it that way.”

“When I want to talk about the amount we spend on software I reference the Gartner benchmarks so they can see immediately that we are spending more than others.”

Reciprocity and consistency

People like to give back when they receive something, so make sure you’re the first to give. Consistency is about matching your words with your actions; do what you say you’re going to do.

“When it comes to implementing ITAM tooling, there are so many people we need to get buy in from and to convince us to implement the tool. We know we need to be consistent that what we’re delivering is what we said we would.”

“My team is able to achieve against strict targets using our own methodology. This helps us to build credibility in the organisation.”

When it comes to the consistency side of things, I find it helps that when you hold a meeting you have a clear agenda.”

Liking and scarcity

People say yes to people they like. When it comes to influencing your stakeholders, it is important to find out as much as you can about them in order to build a rapport – where are they from, how many kids do they have, what are their interests? In a business context, you need to understand their goals, their KPIs, what are they worried about?

Scarcity has always driven demand. People instinctively want more of the things that are in short supply.

How have the delegates used liking and scarcity in ITAM?

“I don’t usually use FOMO as a tactic but I used it yesterday. I told them they are going to lose their deadline if they don’t make a decision on this today. It worked.”

“I don’t like to use it but as a woman I’m already scarce. I use it to my advantage to stand out as a voice in a room full of men.”

“I like to scare my manager with risk management to get their attention. The changing licensing metrics for Java for example and how the cost of these licenses will explode.”

For more great content from the event, be sure to read the first ITAM Insights Report 2023 which was published during the event.

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