As technology vendors seek to gain access to executive buyers and change their relationships status from merely suppliers to trusted advisors, sales enablement professionals are responsible for creating the strategy to execute that change. However, buyers don't automatically see their suppliers as partners just because those vendors so aspire. To assist sales enablement professionals design and execute the changes required to achieve a new and elevated status, Forrester has collected survey data and interviewed executives to determine what buyers believe differentiates suppliers from one another, what the attributes of a strategic vendor are, and what the spending patterns are between strategic and nonstrategic suppliers.