Insight

Exclusive insight from Harbour 2026 study – The Authority Gap: Why technology decisions in global mining stall, and what vendors need to do differently

 

Here’s a scenario that will feel familiar to anyone selling technology into mining.
You’ve done the discovery. You’ve built the business case. You’ve had the C-suite meeting where everyone nodded enthusiastically and said the right things about digital transformation. You’re feeling good. Then… nothing. The deal goes quiet. Weeks pass. Someone mentions “internal alignment”. A few more weeks. Then you hear the word cybersecurity and the whole thing quietly dies.

If this is ringing a bell, you can feel some relief because you’re not alone. And it’s not bad luck.
We spoke to 50 senior decision-makers across the world’s leading mining operations, the people who buy, approve, block, and implement technology and what they told us explains a lot about why deals stall, why implementations disappoint, and why so many vendor relationships feel transactional rather than transformational.

Here’s the number that made us put down our coffee.
More than (70%) of respondents said their cybersecurity team had effective veto power over technology decisions. It’s almost level with the CEO (74%).

But here’s the twist – IT/Cyber holds final decision authority in just 12% of purchases.

So, they can kill your deal. But they can’t champion it.

We’re calling this the ‘Silent Stymie’ dynamic, and it’s responsible for more stalled pipelines than pricing disputes, budget cycles, or competitive pitches combined. Most vendors treat cybersecurity as a technical checkbox late in the process. The data says they should be in the room from day one.

The C-suite wants technology.
The organisation isn’t ready for it.

There’s a gap between what the people at the top are asking for and what the people doing the work say is possible, and it’s wider than most vendors realise.

Almost two thirds (64%) of respondents said the C-suite didn’t fully understand the foundational data infrastructure investment needed before advanced technology can deliver value (Ouch!).  Nearly half (49%) called it the single-biggest constraint on successful technology adoption.

In plain terms: executives are green-lighting technology projects on top of data foundations that aren’t ready to support them. Vendors who walk into that environment promising transformational outcomes are setting themselves up for a delivery gap they may not even be aware of.

Speaking of which…

The delivery gap is real, and it’s brutal.
Across every measure we assessed, from deployment time and total cost of ownership to change management, most respondents said their latest technology implementation fell short, or significantly short, of expectations.

TCO and change management came in joint-worst, with 82% saying they fell short. User adoption was close behind at 78%.

This isn’t a data blip. It’s a pattern. And it’s creating a trust deficit that the whole sector is now selling into.

So what do miners actually want?
The good news (and there genuinely is good news) is that miners are telling us exactly what would make them buy more confidently, implement more successfully, and stay loyal longer.

The top request? Case studies from comparable mining operations, cited by 72% and ranked as the single biggest impact driver by 18%. This is the same trend we saw from this year’s Content Conundrum research. Not product webcasts; not the amplification on a conference stage on how great your solution is – actual proof that your solution worked over time in a pit, a mill, or a processing plant that looks like theirs.

Second: realistic ROI evidence (64%). Not hockey-stick projections. Not “up to X%” claims. Honest numbers with honest assumptions.

Third: demonstrate you understand their operation before you pitch (48%). Walk in knowing the difference between their OT environment and their IT stack. Know what their integration constraints look like. Don’t waste their time educating you.

The five-year view is genuinely optimistic.
Here’s where it gets really interesting. Despite all of the above, the stalled deals, the delivery gaps, the Silent Stymies, 78% of mining decision-makers say they’re confident they’re moving in the right direction on technology adoption.

Production optimisation (84%), autonomous operations (66%), and predictive maintenance (60%) are where they see the biggest gains coming. The appetite is real. The investment is increasing – 52% expect spend to grow in the next 24 months – on top of an average annual technology budget of $52 million.

The opportunity is enormous. But the bar for vendors is higher than it used to be.

This should mean something to your mining marketing professionals.
If you’re in marketing at a technology or software company selling into mining, this research is essentially a brief for your next 24 months of content and positioning.

The buyers you’re trying to reach are tired of ‘generic’. They’re sceptical of big promises. They’ve been burned before, and they’re making their teams work through more stakeholders and more approval gates than ever.

Our foundational Decoding the Buyer Mindset research showed that 57% of mining buyers found marketing messaging exaggerated and confusing.  

But they’re also spending more, looking further ahead and, critically, telling us exactly what would make them trust a vendor more.

That’s not a hard market to engage. It’s just a market that requires you to do the work.