To put a finer point on this, let’s take the example of federal IT sales (many aspects of this argument transfer to the commercial sector, too).

The federal argument: Consolidation and cost-cutting

The federal government is in a period of cost-cutting, with a particular emphasis on reducing operations and maintenance spending. That’s the business case. From an IT perspective, the easiest way to cut costs is to consolidate operational processes and applications on a single enterprise platform.

There are considerable expenses tied up in continuing to use multiple legacy systems for an organization’s work – expenses that range from maintaining help desks for each application to coordinating maintenance cycles among systems.

Compare that to using an application platform to develop custom software in the cloud. Right off the bat, that approach lets organizations dramatically reduce costs from what they paid for their custom-coded legacy applications. What’s more, it’s simply more affordable, because of the reduced life cycle costs across the entire program. (You’re not paying to keep a bunch of different plates spinning all at once.)

When all processes within an organization have a single user interface, as they do in custom-developed software, the business sees a boost in efficiency and a greatly improved learning curve. Traditionally, users have had to learn the peculiarities of each system within a process. With as many as a dozen different systems in place in some organizations, training can be a huge drain on human resources. On the other hand, custom applications created on a single application platform can lower training demands considerably.

As opposed to COTS products, custom software developed in the cloud can be specifically tailored to address the particular needs of individual organizations. For example, the federal government’s General Services Administration uses custom software for end-to-end leasing. No other organization handles the lease volume of the GSA. That organization’s application, therefore, is by necessity more specialized and complex than any COTS solution might offer.

You can see how this argument can be convincing not only to the purchasers, but the influencers, too.

A teaching opportunity

Business executives don’t side with their IT counterparts on application development platforms and cloud technology for custom software applications. But that’s really because they need to be understand specifically how the technology investment streamlines operations, reduces costs and creates a better overall customer experience.

Your job, then, is to teach them. The IT professionals already innately understand the benefits – after all, they deal with the limitations of existing systems every day.

Business executives need to be shown how custom application development and maintenance in the cloud can reduce (or eliminate) legacy software maintenance costs, and consolidate data silos across the business. They have to be shown that technology reduces the high cost of enterprise applications developed by systems integrators, and makes it easier to introduce the applications across lines of business.

As you begin to look not only at the purchasers, but the influencers in the sales cycle, it’s likely that the rift in attitudes between business executives and their IT counterparts will be improved, and the process of IT sales will become correspondingly easier.

Amy Henley is director, public sector alliances and partners, for Appian. She can be reached at amy.henley@appian.com