To add an anecdata - I worked in IT at a medium-ish (10K people) company, and Microsoft, IBM and Oracle sales reps absolutely had a better understanding of the

To add an anecdata - I worked in IT at a medium-ish (10K people) company, and Microsoft, IBM and Oracle sales reps absolutely had a better understanding of the procurement process (and employees involved) than most people at the company. To everyone saying Customer Service can handle sales, there's a large misunderstanding of what enterprise sales involves - making the sale (getting to yes) is just the first step in a long slog to a signed purchase order.