Overcoming the OSS buyer-seller chasm: Using a brilliant ad-man’s perspective (chasm series, part 9)

In our “chasm” series of articles, we’ve talked about the gap that exists between OSS buyers (eg carriers or network operators) and OSS sellers (eg vendors, integrators, etc). The buyers desperately want new systems to improve their business operations and the sellers desperately want to sell the solutions they create. Why then the 18 month to 2 year sales cycles? Put simply, it’s the chasm. Today we’ll discuss how Rory Sutherland, the Vice-Chair of famed advertising company Ogilvy UK, helps me to reimagine the buyer-seller chasm.

The chasm of fear, trust, risk and skills gaps (and other factors too) between buyer and seller that delay an OSS transformation sales cycle.

The sales cycle is the time that’s required to build the bridge across the chasm. It’s the time taken for the buyer to overcome or accept or just take a leap of faith in the face of the abovementioned gaps.

There are two main elements of an OSS buyer starting to build the bridge across the chasm:

1. Running a procurement event (eg RFI, RFP, quote, etc)
2. Building a business case

These two pivotal elements are prone to procrastination disguised as rigour; when the underlying reason for the hold-up isn’t “more analysis” but the chasm (fear, trust, risk, etc).

These two factors might appear to be about the proving the numbers at face value, but more often it’s a delay in the face of fear and uncertainty. Stakeholders often become stuck in an endless cycle of scenario planning because they’re chasing a “perfect” rational decision. A perfect decision that does not exist.

So let’s instead address that! If we can change how stakeholders perceive the decision, we may change their willingness to act. That is, reframing the decision to reduce perceived risk and enhance emotional appeal.

We’re switching the script. We’re no longer being logical. We’re being psycho-logical.

When it comes to major OSS / BSS transformation projects, the problem is that many stakeholders see a transformation as a single, giant, irreversible leap—a “bet the farm” moment. A monolithic rip and replace (where the replacement part takes years to finish, but the rip is felt much, much earlier!).

Instead of the behemoth, we may need to reimagine (and restructure) the transformation into a series of smaller, manageable bets. Humans are far more comfortable with incremental risk, and smaller decision hurdles, than total transformation. And yet I still keep seeing vendors propose multi-year transformation plans that comprise of 6-12 months of planning/documentation and no real release of business value until over a year into the project. This approach de-risks for the vendor, but increases the size of the client’s decision chasm, thus delaying contract award (which I suspect you’ll agree is counter-intuitive).

To avoid “bet the farm” decision paralysis, here are a few ways to reframe it:

1.  The Cost of Inaction
   Fear has made the focus entirely on the cost of acting. Flip the lens: help stakeholders vividly imagine the cost of not acting. The competition isn’t sitting still, and the longer they delay, the higher the opportunity cost. Use storytelling to paint a future where competitors outpace the network operator due to better agility, leaving the network operator scrambling to catch up
2. Make It Reversible
   Decisions seem scarier when they appear final and irreversible. This is especially true when there are still so many transformation “unknowns” prior to project commencement. Therefore, we may need to present the transformation as a journey with escape hatches and / or clever transformation programs designed around earlier and regular release of business value. In some cases we may even need to create some business confidence builders before we can even get to the OSS/BSS transformation. But we also need to envisage greater modularity; the sliced-and-diced delivery model mentioned above. If an early step fails, we can stop, but hopefully the momentum is already compelling enough for stakeholders to continue the journey even when challenges or failures arise (as they always do!)
3. Anchor It to Something Familiar
   People are more comfortable with change when it’s framed as a natural evolution rather than a revolution. If this OSS/BSS transformation aligns with trends they already accept—digitisation, automation, customer demand for agility, in-flight projects, etc —show them how this is the logical next step. They aren’t changing; they’re adapting
4. Reframe the Risk as Value
   Fear makes people fixate on potential downside. Remind the stakeholders that risk and reward are intertwined. This isn’t just a cost; it’s an investment with asymmetrical upside. “You’re not spending (and risking) $X million—you’re buying an advantage your competitors will find hard to match for years to come, which could be a benefit multiplier (many-X millions).”
5. Shift to an Emotional Narrative
   Numbers alone (eg in a Business Case format) are rarely convincing. Humans are moved by stories. It might be through citing an inspiring example of a competitor that successfully transformed and thrived. We can structure our story in an emotionally compelling way: the team becoming heroes, the company being lauded for innovation, the sense of pride in having future-proofed the business despite the competitive landscape
6. Set a Deadline
   Open-ended decisions are death to momentum, but might just be the path around an impasse or chasm (more on that in the video below). Create a sense of urgency: “This isn’t a choice between now and later; it’s a choice between now and never.” Can we tie it to an external event—new regulations, competitor activity, or the expiry of existing contracts?

At PAOSS, we often find ourselves acting as the match-maker between buyer and seller that desperately wish to form a relationship. We use the inverted pyramid approach to OSS vendor selection, which uses a series of filters to narrow in on the best-fit seller for any buyer. We find the decision hurdles are far smaller using this approach compared with the traditional OSS buying model. As a result, we find it helpful for speeding up the process to get to a contract / relationship.

If you’re looking for additional inspiration about how to reframe the OSS impasse that lays ahead of you, I recommend Rory Sutherland’s work. He’s an ad-man who’s brilliant at reframing a problem. I love listening to people who come at a problem from a different angle than everyone else. His book, Alchemy (which is valued highly in my uncommon list of OSS (not OSS) books), is brilliant and thought-provoking. When facing a analysis paralysis situation, I often return to Rory’s works for inspiration, including this great video:

I’d love to hear what techniques you use to avoid analysis paralysis. Please leave us a comment below.