The Challenge
A healthcare customer had previously declined our single sign-on add-on module at $200K, calling it a "nice-to-have" that their budget could not justify. The CISO saw it as a convenience feature rather than a security requirement. I needed to find a different angle to demonstrate the value.
The Approach
Instead of pitching SSO to the CISO again, I approached the Chief Medical Officer with a different story. I presented data from our existing healthcare deployments showing that clinicians averaged 12 separate logins per shift, consuming 35 minutes of clinical time daily. Across their 3,000 clinicians, that represented $4.2M annually in lost clinical productivity.
The SSO module would reduce those 12 logins to one, recovering 30 minutes per clinician per shift. I calculated the ROI: a $200K investment that returned $4.2M in productivity gains annually — a 21x return. The CMO immediately saw the value and championed the purchase from the clinical operations budget, bypassing the IT budget entirely.
The Result
The $200K upsell was approved within three weeks, funded by clinical operations rather than IT. The deployment reduced clinician login time by 85%, and the CMO presented the productivity gains at the next board meeting as a major operational improvement. The success led to two additional upsells in the following year.
Key Takeaway
When a security buyer says no, find the business buyer who will say yes. The same product feature can be a security convenience or a business productivity tool depending on who you are talking to and how you frame the value. Always identify multiple budget holders for upsell opportunities.
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