Master B2B’s research into who sits on these committees found operations ranked as the most consistently included function, ahead of sales and finance, which surprised some practitioners who assume ecommerce purchases are driven primarily by digital or IT leadership. A well-composed buying committee matters because a platform decision has consequences well beyond the ecommerce team: operations has to fulfill what gets sold, finance has to justify the spend, and sales has to trust the platform will not undercut their relationships. Committees that exclude a key function tend to discover that function’s objections only after a contract is signed, which is a far more expensive time to surface them.
Technology buying committee
The cross-functional group of stakeholders, typically spanning operations, IT, sales, finance, and ecommerce leadership, who evaluate and approve a major technology purchase such as an ecommerce platform.