Sometimes a buying decision originates deep within an organization. Perhaps there is an engineering manager or a worker out on the shop floor who says, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this.’ A grassroots initiative like this may or may not ultimately tie back to supporting or enabling the organization to achieve its strategic business goals. Sometimes, regardless of how much benefit could come from taking action on this kind of initiative, it goes nowhere. Other times, when it does work its way up to the right level of authority and is compared against all the other projects and initiatives that are competing for resources and funding, it just isn’t good enough. It might not meet certain minimum requirements to even be considered. But even if it did, it still might not be staffed and funded unless it is able to displace one of the other projects currently ‘above the line’ of available resources, which we discussed in What Customers Think About.
Other times, a grassroots initiative that garners the right support and backing finds its way to the top and is deemed to be worth doing. Once in a while, it will even influence or change the strategic direction of the company. I know many companies that actively solicit ideas from deep within the organization.
There is a general business trend for companies to become ‘flatter,’ less hierarchical, and less dictatorial. As this trend continues, and as the philosophy of empowering lower levels of management to make critical decisions becomes more popular, we will probably see more of these kinds of projects undertaken. Rather than being driven by a corporate goal, a bottom-up initiative starts when someone at a lower level in the organization looks at a business process and asks, ‘How can this be done better, faster, or cheaper?’
It is also very common to see a grassroots buying initiative instigated by the question, ‘What tools or technologies are available that would enable us to do what we do better, faster, or cheaper?’ Individual contributors (i.e., line workers) and frontline managers are always on the lookout for new products and services that would make their jobs easier. They subscribe to certain magazines for this express purpose. They belong to trade organizations, and join their key vendors’ user groups to learn from others in their industry. They also eagerly walk the floors of tradeshows looking for new ideas to make their departments more efficient, more effective, and to make their own jobs easier. Plus, you can collect a lot of really cool, free stuff at those shows!
In this bottom-up sort of initiative, the sequence of decisions can be much different. It often starts by asking something like, ‘What should we buy to make our jobs easier or be more efficient?’ That is typically followed very quickly by, ‘Who should we buy from?’ since all those magazines and tradeshows are chock-full of vendors brandishing their wares. In this type of a buying decision, the questions of, ‘Do we have the resources to buy?’ or ‘Do we even have to buy anything?’ are often left to the very end.
A bottom-up initiative can easily become an exercise in futility. You know the drill. Your prospect contacts you or stops by your booth at a tradeshow, tells you they are ‘definitely going to buy,’ and requests more information. We, of course, respond with literature, phone calls, site visits, and demos. We all have probably made the mistake of engaging in a full-blown sales campaign, assuming that a purchase was imminent, only to discover that senior management decided to ‘go in a different direction,’ or worse yet, never even took the time to consider it.
I’ve learned from years of observation, that top-down initiatives have a very high likelihood of resulting in a purchase. The only way one wouldn’t is if management:
- Decides not to take action to pursue the goal after all.
- Figures out some other course of action to achieve the goal without buying the products or services you sell.
- Decides that the return on invested resources isn’t worth the risk.
- Can’t find a good source and/or decides to make whatever they need themselves.
Bottom-up initiatives, on the other hand, have a very low likelihood of resulting in a purchase. Rather than being ‘on the list until they are crossed off,’ they have to earn their way onto the list by displacing some other project or objective, and by beating out dozens or even hundreds of other grassroots initiatives that are all competing for limited resources.