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"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." -Isaac Newton

Your vendors’ systems or sales engineers are a wealth of knowledge.  I don’t say that because I am one, I say that because we have been around various IT departments as employees or sales engineers.  We have seen different ways of achieving the same goals and can save you headaches or hidden roadblocks.

It is mostly a myth that we only know the technology we are representing or selling.  First of all, we have to know our competitors’ technologies well enough to be able to differentiate ours. Second of all, we have to know enterprise IT applications well enough to make sure our products actually work in tandem.

SEs also talk amongst themselves.  I might not know the project you are working on, but I am sure one of my colleagues do.  I work with a great group of engineers from different backgrounds.  They are sharp and always willing to help.

I’ve worked in energy (both upstream and downstream) industry, healthcare (distribution and provider) as well as manufacturing (fashion and technology). Working in various industries as a network/security engineer has helped me learn and understand SCADA, high availability and uptime, different compliance requirements and different ways of doing business.

So, if you have an upcoming project, even if doesn’t include a product your SE directly helps you with or competes with, run it by him/her or at least mention it to him/her.

Extra eyes and ears won’t hurt!





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