New year, new prospects

The good news is that 1997 will be much the same as 1996 - probably the best selling period in five years for the UK computer industry. The bad news is that there is less room to manoeuvre than ever. IT buyers are getting too damn knowledgeable for the industry's own good. They are demanding ever more value for money - cut-throat prices, in other words, and IT salespeople who understand what they are talking about. The industry is consolidating, margins are falling and the technology arms race is gathering speed. IT companies are increasingly replacing their u40K plus commission sales people with #14K telesales operators, working out of East Lothian call centres. There are plenty of head-hunters to turn to, but looking for a new job is such a drag when you are unemployed. Especially, if you've lost the company car. But with just a little foresight and planning you can avoid being a casualty in 1997. Infomatics Digest has produced the definitive 1997 calendar for the IT sales executive, which will enable you to ride those sales cycles and peddle furiously for a bonus-rich year. Use our guide as an aide-memoire, or better still, get your sales support assistant to type it into your Psion. You know it makes sense. Q1 In 1993, David Southworth, P&P's Chief Executive, forecast that UK IT companies would need to replace full-time staff with part-timers. He may have been wrong, but his reasoning was impeccable. P&P had experienced an increasing proportion of its sales squeezed into the first three months of the year. From these trends, Southworth extrapolated a future in which 80% of all UK IT sales would be made in Q1. Resellers could not afford to carry expensive staff over nine barren months, he warned. The proportion of Q1 sales has declined since then, but it still represents 40-45% of the annual IT budget. This is a curious phenomenon, without parallel in - say - the US. The sales spike in Q1 here represents nothing less than the herd mentality of British purchasing managers. And a few quirks in UK accounting traditions. Public sector buyers penny-pinch their way from April through to December, and then join in a collective IT frenzy in January, February and March. Coming in under budget has few attractions for public sector IT departments. Any surplus is rolled back into the public purse and budgets are slashed the following tax year. This buying bonanza is met by an equally pressing sales need. IT companies need a good Q1 - at the end of their financial year - to dress up their accounts, pay their shareholders dividends, and justify their directors' bonuses. So Q1 is the UK sales quarter par excellence. This means heads-down, no-nonsense, mindless sales boogie. And a hard-nosed sales director screaming down your back. Wave goodbye to your home life for the duration. Days are for selling; evenings are for filling in all those numbing reports with which the management accountants work their black arts. With luck, you may get six hours of Temazepan-induced sleep. But hey, you're a professional. There are some unwelcome distractions which cannot be ignored in the first quarter. Windows 97 casts a small shadow in February, while CeBit, Europe's biggest computer show, looms large in March. You could probably get away with ignoring the former. But the latter is a necessary evil. Hell is a place called Hanover in March. Q2 April is a useful month for writing credit notes on all those products you over-sold in Q1. Try to avoid your sales director by using up some of your holiday entitlement, and arrange some off-site sales training the moment you return. Better still, use April to get a new job. Few things in life are as satisfying as taking the commission and running. Honest John Major could spring a surprise by calling the General Election for April. But most pundits favour a May date. Expect paralysis in the public sector during this time: everyone will want to wait and see what the wind blows. Cast aside any pro-Tory sentiments and vote Labour. It may not be good for the economy. But it will be good for you - so long as Blair avoids any dangerous nonsense about raising personal income tax rates at the top end to 50%. It is nigh on impossible to get any pre-election policy pronouncement from ideas-free New Labour, but one can expect a modest loosening of the nation's purse-strings. The Tories predict that Labour will increase budget commitments by #30 billion - or was it some other arbitrary figure? The point is: Labour will spend more and some of this will filter through into computer sector coffers. One of Labour's few firm commitments is to abolish the GP fundholding system. This seems like a neat opportunity for software suppliers in the sector to increase their revenues, through chargeable upgrades. IT salespeople should also vote for Labour because it represents the best chance the UK has of joining the single European currency. Ignore all the macro-economic and sovereignty arguments. The Euro is the lodestone for UK software suppliers. Some analysts estimate the conversion of UK systems for the Euro will cost twice as much as the millennium software fiasco. We are talking tens of billions of pounds here. Network installers, retail systems suppliers, IT trainers, financial software houses, accountancy package vendors, will all have their snouts in the trough. And IT salespeople everywhere will feast on the swill. May is also the start of the corporate hospitality season. The very least your football-mad clients will expect is an all-expenses trip for two to the FA Cup final. You can really get into the hospitality swing in June, when there are huge customer entertainment possibilities. Take your pick from Epsom, Ascot, Henley, The Open, Wimbledon, or, for the desperate, cricket all over the country. You might not get much selling done, but the wining and dining will stand you in good stead. Your clients rarely get out of the office and probably earn much less than you do, and they will remember you fondly when they place their orders. June is for the Networks Show, probably the UK's biggest computer exhibition. The show is a must attend for anyone with pretensions in the corporate market. But can anyone tell me why it has to be in Birmingham? June is also Comdef month, the annual reseller beanfeast held on a boat. If you are an owner-operator, this a good vehicle to sell your company. At least three computer resellers interested in selling out were introduced to resellers buying them up in Comdef 96. This is a lot cheaper than wangling a trip to Comdex Fall in Las Vegas in November. Q3 Las Vegas is a Disney World for the rich and wicked. For one week, you can pretend to be both. Many delegates are simply there for the jolly, but you should seize the opportunity. Comdex supplies an unparalleled opportunity for toadying to your bosses, most of whom will find some reason to be there. Q3 is a difficult time. It precedes Q4, which is a prime product launch period. The reason for this is that to say "coming in Q4" sounds better than "rushed out just before the end of the year". But the punters are getting wise to this wheeze, which makes it difficult to coax a purchase decision out of them in Q3. December Christmas is a time for bonuses, but also a time for redundancy notices. Your fate has been sealed by now so take it easy until December 9, when you should take your top customers to Twickenham to see the Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Match. This is the start of the Corporate Christmas party season, and you should make the most of it. Throw bread rolls at your suppliers in the Savoy; take your favourite council clients lap dancing in Soho, but make sure you behave yourself at the office party. Enjoy it while you can.