I own a SaaS and 99% of our customers are huge international corporations. They only buy with PO, and every sale is a massive bureaucratic effort. I hired a freelance account manager to deal with incredible requirements like:
- anti money laundering declarations
- mandatory company stamp + hand written signatures
- supplier enrollment forms (excel+macros)
- notary apostilles for incorporation certificates sent across to Russia
Software resellers do this as a job, and I thought they are stupid middlemen nobody loves. Actually they are amazing.
More important than the PO form is the entire rest of the corporate purchasing process it entails. You send them a quote, they try haggle you down, they might make their internal team send the bid out to multiple vendors for quotes and try to play you all off against each other (and how well you meet the requirements for the actual end user is not a a part of this process, just their checklist which is three degrees removed) they decide what quantities they want to buy, you confirm the price, send an invoice, they'll pay net 30 or net 90 or whatever their purchasing department decides via whatever payment method their department decides and you'll do it because with the bulk order amount and the markup you'll decide is justified for this hassle, the money is too much to refuse.
Software resellers do this as a job, and I thought they are stupid middlemen nobody loves. Actually they are amazing.