Preparing for the IT demands of enterprise clients is becoming essential for mid-market businesses looking to win larger contracts and build long-term partnerships. Enterprise clients can be a big boost, bringing stable revenue and stronger brand credibility, but they also introduce complex IT expectations around security, compliance, and operational resilience.
Often the procurement process will be complicated, and it can be hard to know who’s responsible for what when dealing with a large organisation. Their IT demands will involve complex issues like due diligence, business continuity, cyber security, and compliance.
Our IT leaders have frequently helped mid-market businesses work with enterprise clients. We decided to share our hard-earned wisdom in our latest CEO’s briefing, which you can download below.
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Many mid-market business leaders relish the prospect of an enterprise-grade corporate or public sector client. Providing goods and services to a large, stable client can be great for the bottom line, and they can be powerful advocates for your brand.
Enterprise clients, however, come with challenges. They will likely have a complicated procurement process. Their personnel structure may make it hard to know who’s in charge of what. Often they have longer payment terms or push hard on value.
In addition to all or some of the above, it’s common for corporate procurement departments to impose stringent IT demands involving complicated issues like due diligence, business continuity, cyber security, and compliance.
The bright side is that while meeting these demands can be a pain, once you jump through those hoops, you’ll have earned steady business and a tangible competitive advantage. It’s also an opportunity to ensure your own systems and processes are as efficient and streamlined as possible.
Freeman Clarke CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs have been called in many times in such situations and thus have experience helping mid-market businesses satisfy the IT demands of large corporate clients. We’ve created this CEO’s briefing on the subject to shed light on the most common issues and opportunities that arise with corporate clients, so when one comes your way, you’ll know what to expect.
Why preparing for the IT demands of enterprise clients matters
Enterprise organisations expect suppliers to meet strict standards around cyber security, data protection, connectivity, and continuity. Preparing early reduces friction during procurement, builds trust with corporate IT teams, and helps avoid costly delays once contracts are signed.
Data security and compliance
When dealing with a large enterprise, you will likely end up handling its data and potentially integrating your IT with theirs. So one of the primary issues for a corporation will be data security and compliance. There will be regulations that govern how they share data; thus you will need to provide assurances that it is being appropriately safeguarded. The particular regulations will depend upon the locality – while there will be overlap, there are differences between data protection laws in the UK, the EU, and the US, for example. There may also be additional requirements for specific industries, such as the financial sector or pharma.
Furthermore, your prospective client may be sharing data with you from their partners, suppliers, or customers. They may have made contractual commitments to these parties to safeguard this data, sometimes with hefty penalties for a breach – and they may want to pass their liabilities on to you if something goes wrong.
You’ll also have to consider the type of data. Companies are under pressure now to think more carefully about how they handle data such as staff resumes and photos, communications via email, messaging apps like Teams and Slack, AI inputs, and CCTV files.
The corporation you are dealing with may be planning for a worst-case scenario. Or they may be subject to periodic audits and need to produce supporting documentation regularly. Either way, they will want to know how you collect, manage, store, share, and dispose of such data.
To that end, it is important to ensure that your systems and processes are safe and compliant – for instance, data should always be encrypted, and staff should be given “least-use” rights to keep access to a minimum. Your systems should be secure by design and by default, and you should be able to demonstrate why you keep the data you have and that you properly destroy it when appropriate.
Other important aspects of data management are, of course, your backup systems and processes. You will need to be able to prove that these are reliable – and that you can restore from backups. In addition, you will be expected to store those backups in a secure location that’s geographically different from your home office.
One more aspect will be how you maintain the corporation’s data – in other words, how you keep it correct and up to date.
For all these reasons, you can expect what you may consider intrusive questions as to how your business and systems operate.
Certification is a great way to demonstrate your competence in data matters. When your key IT people have the right certification, it provides credibility for your prospective corporate clients – and may even be required. It’s also a simple and clear way for the Board to define an objective and galvanise the efforts of your internal IT staff and IT suppliers.
It’s easy to see all this as an unnecessary drag. But one of our clients in the engineering sector recently won lucrative contracts based in no small part on the credibility they gained by achieving the right certification. And, of course, along with this sales success comes increased security expertise.
Connectivity (and security again)
Corporate clients will need your systems to connect to theirs. That’s why we mention data and security first – before you even go in to talk about connectivity, you should ensure that your security is in order and that your network is well configured and appropriately managed.
Some organisations will insist on doing a penetration test – when an outside organisation tests your network’s security – so it’s a good idea to get one done yourself beforehand. Your potential corporate client will have more confidence in you when (a) you already know what may come up in a penetration test and (b) you already have plans in place to deal with potential problems. Quite apart from that, a penetration test provides a view on the state of your own cyber security.
In addition to security, you’ll be dealing with the nuts and bolts of connectivity, and it’s likely that their IT specialists will require a lot of details. For instance, if you are linking your systems to your corporate client’s systems, their network team is going to be very interested in how the systems will link together, where they are interfacing, and what ports and services will be needed.
Thus, it is crucial that you have someone on your side of the table who can answer these questions clearly and succinctly in language the corporate team will understand. You’ll need to be factual and honest.
One caveat: if you need your technicians to talk to their technicians, this can be hard to control. In our experience, it’s not uncommon for technicians to become competitive and defensive with each other. This is not what you want when you’re striving to make a good impression on your potential customer.
It is a good idea to send a senior member of your team along as a chaperone, especially one who understands the technology environment. Then, if the conversation goes the wrong way, you’ll have someone who can smooth things out before they get out of hand.
Disaster recovery and business continuity plans
As we’ve seen with recent massive software glitches, cyber attacks, and weather events, disruptions are increasingly part of the new normal. A corporation will want to know they are dealing with a quality organisation that has thought about how they will continue to supply products or services in the face of a significant disruption.
Of course, their requirements will vary depending on the nature of their services and your company’s role. It may be critical that your service is available to them 24/7 without interruption. It may be that your role is more peripheral.
Business continuity planning starts with a risks and issues log. You need a clear understanding of the circumstances in which you can continue to operate and the circumstances in which you would struggle. There are always options for changing this balance, and you can have a rational, commercial discussion about whether this investment is worthwhile in terms of contracts you may win as a result. These discussions will serve as the basis of clear business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
Demonstrating a resilient environment along with good disaster planning goes a long way toward creating a comfort level for corporate clients. It’s good planning for your own business as well.
Finally, many corporations have standard contracts that are very fierce, when their real business needs may be milder. If you can identify the additional cost of fortifying your services, a sensible conversation with the client may allow you both to save money if they set more realistic contractual requirements.
Preparing for go-live
Major new corporate clients can significantly impact your business in terms of operational requirements or scale. This impact on your business and technology systems must be planned and managed. Your corporate clients will have little sympathy should you end up not being able to deliver because systems, processes, or people can’t cope.
You should work towards a solid understanding of the impact on your business well before you sign the contract. Because once the contract is signed, corporations have the habit of wanting delivery yesterday.
Here are a few questions to consider:
- How will the influx of new orders affect your current operation?
- Can your website or call centre handle the increased volume?
- Are your services and systems compatible with your new client’s processes?
- Are your services and systems compatible with your new client’s technology?
- What kind of management information does your client expect? Can you provide it?
If, in answering these questions, you find that you do need significant changes, make sure your client understands the ramp-up period prior to go-live.
For more on creative, flexible, scalable IT platforms, see our report on creating an IT Roadmap for Growth.
Handling the politics, speaking the language
Corporations have politics. It’s inevitable. In this context, their IT team may perceive your service as a threat, and they may be tempted to interfere with the sales or procurement process. As with connectivity discussions, this is something you’ll need to spot and resolve in a positive way. This may simply be a question of having a person on your team who speaks their language.
There may also be internal corporate politics, such as poor communication or frustrations between business teams and IT. It’s not your job to get in the middle; instead, it’s best to ease friction whenever possible.
Corporate IT departments tend to have methodologies, systems, models, and compliance requirements, and they all come with their own jargon. They have invested considerable time convincing their C-suite that they are doing the right thing, so you’ll need to ensure they don’t feel undermined. Understanding their language will go a long way toward soothing their anxieties.
Summary
Preparing for the IT demands of enterprise clients is not a one-off exercise, it is an ongoing capability that strengthens security, improves operations, and increases your credibility with large organisations.
Not all corporations are the same. Your second (or third or fourth) enterprise client is likely to have completely different requirements, particularly if they come from different sectors. So you can expect to undertake the same due diligence process with several corporate clients. This is part of the sales process. And as with all sales, complacency is the biggest risk.
Nevertheless, as we’ve demonstrated above, it’s possible to anticipate many of their IT and IT-related requirements. It’s a demanding process, but it’s worth the effort. For obvious reasons, companies with impressive corporate client lists often enjoy higher valuations. In general, corporate clients also provide higher levels of continuity and revenue.