A major hurdle tech trendsetters must overcome in order to establish themselves in the market is fear. Fear of change is common, and the resistance to change is the standard operating procedure for risk-averse organization.

A mistake new technology companies often make, though, is targeting the wrong person. We think that resistance to change will come from the top, from the CEO who just doesn’t understand technology.

The truth is that resistance to tech change usually comes from a different office, that of the CIO.

If you’re surprised by this, stop and remember that CIOs are tasked with managing technological change for their organizations. If change is hard, managing change is harder still. This is a major reason CIOs tend to be risk-averse and favor legacy technologies and “trusted” brands, even if this means they’re stuck with overpriced, outdated solutions.

Playing it safe isn’t an irrational choice. After all, nobody ever gets fired for choosing traditional market leaders (Cisco, Riverbed, AT&T, BT, Akamai, etc.), but maybe they should.

The problem with this logic is that while the CIO might not get fired, being overly cautious could put the entire organization at risk, especially if caution prevents it from adopting a transformational technology, such as cloud or Big Data.

NEXT: Shouldn't CIOs Know Better?