For instance, let’s say that Bank Of America wants to do a deal with Microsoft. How do they communicate with each other? They can’t obviously call costumer service. And they probably can’t call each others offices, this would be way too confusing (and prone to scams and having an angry costumer finding out this number and flooding them with angry phone calls). So, there must obviously be a “underground” network that allows big companies to communicate. How does that work?
These people all know each other; went to the same schools/college; belong to the same clubs. Or if they don’t, they will surely have a mutual acquaintance. Failing all that - isn’t that what PA’s are for?
It is not complicated, if you are seeking a new contact to have an introduction. If not an introduction, then calling to make introduction, from the industry directories. There is nothing underground. Of course these are contacts at the responsible level and not the same as anything with the retail customers.
Well, in this specific instance there will be an account manager at Microsoft responsible for maintaining and increasing sales to BoA (who undoubtedly spend millions per year on Microsoft licences and support) and keeping them moderately happy. Part of their job is to meet as many senior people as possible within BoA.
I don’t know if MS is already a BoA customer with an account manager, but if not there will undoubtedly be a BoA salesperson who has been diligently ‘working’ Microsoft as a prospect and trying to cut deals with them. That person will also have spent considerable time schmoozing the MS management structure and building up a contact list.
So there are at a minimum two people who are essentially employed to facilitate exactly these kinds of contacts and work out what kinds of deals can be done.
Even if both of these people have unexpectedly died of swine flu, been arrested for grave robbing or turned out to be sleeping on the job, then simply picking up the phone to the MS switchboard and asking for the finance/treasury/cash management or whatever will do fine. As soon as you have anyone with half a clue on the line then “I am billy-bob, executive vice president of pimp-bonds at Bank of America and I would like to discuss blahblah” or whatever will get you to the right person fairly quickly.
Even in the unlikely occurrence that the VP who wants to make this deal with the other company has no idea who he needs to talk to, the receptionist at the corporate office will probably have some idea. It might take several transfers upward along the bureaucratic chain, but assuming they want to listen to you, you’d eventually reach someone who could help.
IME, communications like this get vetted by a company lawyer before being sent, and they use their secret lawyer voodoo to provide a contact at company #2 (which could be their own lawyer).
I work at a giant company (middling level). Recently I needed to discuss some possibilities with Microsoft.
So here’s what I did:
I looked internally for people who worked with Microsoft on stuff and asked who their contacts were.
I asked my management if it was ok if I talked to Microsoft in general.
I then emailed the contact at Microsoft I learned of explaining what I needed.
They put me in contact wtih someone else that I could talk to.
We talked.
As soon as an actual proposal to do business comes up (I was more after “is X possible and what kind of timelines might it be” type information) our Sourcing group will get involved to do the technical work around contracts, negotiations, approvals, etc.
If it turned out we had no existing contact with Microsoft (or whoever I was looking at) I would have done research to try and find a contact there in the area of interest (people responsible to getting business at a company don’t generally make themselves hard to find) and will cold call them or email them. But I have resorted to just emailing an info@ email address as a starting point.
One benefit of my company email address is that dollar signs tend to go off if they even suspect I might do business with them so responses are usually pretty easy to get.
The hard part, actually, is after you get the information you need or determine there won’t be any business how to get them to STOP trying to talk to you.
Oh no, the secret’s out. I’ll have to bring this up at the next meeting of all business people in the world.
Service Representatives.
I work for small County Government. About 500 employees. Not sure how many computers/work stations we have. For MS, I’m not sure if we have a SR. There are about 10 of us in Information Systems that have special online accounts for downloading software and license information. This also gives us a limited amount of one on one tech support each. It all depends on the service package you purchase.
For instance, we just spun up a new SQL server. I went online to my account and got the key code to authorize it. It showed me that I have 4 more available for that particular piece of software.
For the GIS software we do have a SR. He/she is regional. But we also have online accounts for software and licensing. We get tech support online or on the phone. Just have to enter our license number.
Note too, that in this example, BoA might not deal directly with Microsoft. Instead, they might purchase software through a reseller. My employer, for example, buys computer software from ASAP Software, which is now a Dell subsidiary but wasn’t when we started to order through them. We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft for Office and Windows licenses but if someone wants a single license for Photoshop, we can send email to ASAP for a quote.
And for government employees, there are special arrangements called GSA schedules, that provide big discounts.
I worked in business in Japan for 25 years, and had customers such as Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba and Sharp.
It’s not significantly different than what obfusciatrist says.
A lot of my work was “business development,” which involved cold calls. When you have a recognizable name, you get through.
Most products are used in systems in conjunction with other companies’ products. MS goes on Sony laptops, for example. You develop a network of connections with other companies providing non-competing products in the same industry.
I set up the branch office of a US company, starting from scratch. We exhibited at a tradeshow, got 500 names of people from small to large products. I had a survey to see if the person had purchased our product (through a distributor), used one, heard of us, or none of the above.
When I’d do cold calls to the people who had come to the booth, I’d start with people who had purchased a product first, if there weren’t any, then look for someone who had used a product or had heard of our company and go from there. If they weren’t the right person, they would usually provide us with the right contact.
For a very few people at elite positions, then having connections from a university may be beneficial, but for most people it doesn’t matter.
Sometimes that’s how it works. When Microsoft was still a tiny company, Bill Gates’ mother Mary was on the board of United Way. She helped him get a meeting with IBM because John Akers (then CEO of IBM) was also on the board of United Way and she talked up her son’s company.
if they use their Telex numbers then they avoid the voice mail maze.
I wonder if the OP didn’t mean something bigger than MS using BofA for some corporate accounts–or BofA ordering software–I read Artemis’ question as asking about something major like BofA acquiring, say, an entire subsidiary of MS that makes accounting software.
In that case, the answer could be anything from the head of MS having lunch with the head of BofA and bringing it up–such things are easily arranged, to a similar conversation between senior but lower executives, to communication between company lawyers, or BofA might retain an outside law firm or investment bank to broker the deal.
In any event it’s pretty straightforward and only “underground” in the sense that neither party may want the discussions public.
Or just bring it up at your next baby roast with your JOOluminatti rabbi.
You know, right before you dance naked in the forest clearing to appease Baphomet and the Moon Goddess all you Abrahamic types secretly worship, unlike Good Jack Chick-Believing Christians.
Mergers and acquisitions occur ver a golf game, of course.
In reality, mergers between large corporations occur largely through informal channels before the M&A lawyers come into the picture. In the late 1990s, when John Browne of British Petroleum presented a plan to the board of directors arguing that a merger with another large petroleum company was necessary, his choice of Mobil as a partner (in what ultimately became a stillborn merger plan) partly came down to the fact he socialized with Lou Noto (Mobil CEO) and they occasionally talked about the oil business.
The merger between XTO and ExxonMobil was born when XTO founder Bob Simpson and director Jack Randall began talking about the possibility of a merger with a larger oil company while having meals. Randall also happened to be a partner at an investment bank that specialized in oil mergers, so he was able to broker a meeting between Simpson and Rex Tillerson (ExxonMobil CEO) at a private dining room at the Forth Worth Club in Irving, Texas. (It probably helped that Randall and Tillerson were both engineering students and in marching band at UT).
You really should have thought this sentence through, and then not posted.
People misapply Occam’s Razor all the time. But here the simplest answer really is the right one. Anything else leads straight to conspiracy thinking territory.
Hello, Microsoft? This Bill Gates mask looks nothing like him! I demand a refund! 
When the really big players chat each other up, they always start with costumer service, the better to maintain their anonymity.
A big company I worked with, Telstra, required a CISCO standard VPN AND SFTP (a file transfer equivalent protocol over SSH/TSL ) for connecting to their data feed.
We had to set it up and test it on a dummy service before going live.
Telstra provides the standard, character by character, for the data ( order or billing, our request to them, or the result back to us . ).
Basically they just ensure the link is secure and who is in charge of the standards …