Businesses have more technology choices than ever. Artificial intelligence, automation, cloud platforms, enterprise software, and specialized applications promise to make organizations faster and more productive. Yet, more choices don’t necessarily make choosing easier.
Francisco Tonarely, a Business Development Representative working in enterprise technology, has developed a practical perspective on this challenge through his work around technology sales, enterprise architecture, and business transformation. His approach centers on understanding what an organization is trying to accomplish before discussing a particular product. Tonarely believes curiosity, careful listening, and strong communication are essential to understanding the problems a company actually needs to solve.
That distinction matters because technology projects still have a high rate of disappointing results. BCG reported in January 2026 that only three in 10 companies fully meet timeline, budget, and scope expectations in large-scale technology program implementations. Gartner has also emphasized the importance of connecting technology performance and investment directly to business outcomes when organizations set priorities.
The lesson is straightforward. A company can select impressive technology and still make the wrong decision if it has not clearly defined the problem.
A Technology Purchase Should Begin With a Business Question
One of the easiest mistakes to make is starting a technology conversation by asking which product the company should buy.
A better starting point is asking why the organization believes something needs to change.
Perhaps employees are spending too much time moving information between systems. Customers may be experiencing delays. Teams may be using several applications that perform similar functions. Leadership may lack visibility into how systems connect. A company may also be preparing for growth and questioning whether its current technology can support that growth.
Each situation could eventually lead to a technology purchase, but the appropriate solution may be very different.
Tonarely believes that understanding those differences requires curiosity.
“I believe the most important qualities for success in technology sales are curiosity, discipline, resilience, adaptability, and strong communication,” he says.
Curiosity is particularly useful because the first description of a problem is not always complete.
A team might say it needs a new application because an existing process is slow. Further discussion could reveal that the application itself is not causing the delay. The problem could involve poor communication between teams, duplicate work, unclear responsibilities, or information stored in several places.
Buying another product before understanding that distinction could simply add another layer of complexity.
Why Listening Matters Before Recommending Technology
Technology sales naturally creates pressure to talk about products and capabilities. A salesperson knows what a platform can do and wants to explain those benefits.
Tonarely argues that the conversation needs to go the other way first.
“You need to be a great listener, build genuine relationships, and understand the challenges your customers are trying to solve,” he says.
Listening sounds simple, but doing it well can be difficult.
When someone describes a familiar problem, people naturally begin thinking about an answer. That can cause them to stop listening closely. Instead of trying to understand the situation, they begin waiting for an opportunity to explain their solution.
The result is often a conversation about features rather than outcomes.
A more useful approach is to keep asking questions. What happens today? Who experiences the problem? How often does it occur? What has the company already tried? What would improve if the problem disappeared? What happens if nothing changes?
Those questions can also reveal whether the problem is important enough to justify a new investment.
Not every inconvenience needs a new platform.
The Data Shows Why Business Alignment Matters
The difficulty companies have turning large technology initiatives into lasting results is well documented.
McKinsey has reported that roughly 70% of corporate transformations fail, with problems including weak conviction around the need for change and an unclear change narrative. BCG research involving roughly 1,000 companies also found that 57% of transformations failed to achieve their expected value, timeline, or both.
Those numbers should make leaders cautious about treating technology selection as the main decision.
Technology is one component of a larger change. Employees have to use it. Processes may need to change. Leaders have to agree on what success looks like. Teams need to know who is responsible for implementation and adoption.
BCG’s research has also found that success is not simply a function of spending more money. Its study of more than 850 companies found that organizations performing strongly across six areas, including strategy, leadership, talent, agility, monitoring, and technology and data, had substantially better odds of achieving their transformation objectives.
In other words, buying the technology is only part of the work.
Companies Should Define Success Before Comparing Products
One practical way to avoid choosing technology too early is to define the desired outcome first.
A company considering a new platform should be able to complete a sentence such as, “We are making this change because we need to…”
The answer should be specific.
Reducing the time required to complete a process is specific. Improving visibility into applications across the company is specific. Removing duplicate systems is specific. Giving a particular team faster access to reliable information is specific.
“Modernizing the business” is much harder to measure.
Clear goals also make product comparisons more useful. Instead of asking which platform has the longest feature list, leaders can ask which option best supports the outcome they have already defined.
This is where enterprise architecture can become particularly valuable. Organizations often have far more technology than any one employee sees. A decision that appears sensible within one department may create duplication or complications elsewhere.
Understanding the broader environment helps leaders see a proposed purchase as part of a system, not an isolated tool.
New Technology Creates Pressure to Move Quickly
Artificial intelligence has made this issue even more important.
Businesses are under pressure to determine where AI belongs in their operations. That pressure is understandable. Gartner-related reporting in August 2026 projected spending on AI-optimized infrastructure to reach $42 billion in 2026, showing the scale of investment in these capabilities.
But urgency can create its own problems.
A company can become so focused on adopting AI that it starts looking for problems to match the technology instead of identifying important problems and determining whether AI is the appropriate answer.
Recent reporting on enterprise AI adoption illustrates the challenge. Research cited by ITPro found that more than half of organizations surveyed were struggling to incorporate important business context, including operational knowledge and rules, into AI systems. The same research found that 80% of IT leaders expected AI spending to increase over the following two years.
More investment does not automatically produce more value.
Businesses still need context, judgment, and clear objectives.
Good Technology Decisions Require Tradeoffs
Even after a company understands the problem, there may not be one perfect solution.
A more capable platform may cost more. A simpler option may be easier for employees to adopt. Replacing an existing system could create long-term benefits while causing short-term disruption. Keeping the current system might avoid disruption but create other limitations.
These are business tradeoffs, not simply technical ones.
The right question therefore becomes less about finding the “best” technology and more about finding the technology that best fits the organization’s priorities, constraints, and goals.
Tonarely’s emphasis on adaptability is relevant here.
“The most successful people are constantly learning, remain coachable, and are willing to adapt as markets, technology, and businesses evolve,” he says.
Organizations need a similar willingness to adjust. A decision that made sense several years ago may no longer fit the way the company operates today.
Start With the Problem and Let the Technology Follow
Technology can create enormous value, but technology alone does not define the problem it is supposed to solve.
That responsibility belongs to people.
Before comparing vendors, scheduling demonstrations, or becoming attached to a particular platform, leaders should understand what is not working today. They should speak with the people affected by the problem, establish the outcome they want, consider the tradeoffs, and decide how success will be measured.
Only then should the product become the center of the conversation.
Tonarely’s approach is ultimately based on something simpler than any technology trend: listen carefully enough to understand the problem before trying to provide the answer.
For organizations surrounded by more technology choices every year, that discipline may be one of the most useful ways to avoid choosing a sophisticated solution to the wrong problem.
