Big IT contracts and their VAR doing the actual selling.

[edit]We bought our new iSeries (Power9-based) through a VAR this year with an IBM rep helping us with what we actually needed. It was a bit of a drawn-out experience, but overall, I wasn't displeased. It was easier than dealing with some PC vendors (looking at you Dell and HP). I would imagine it will be another 15 years before we have to buy another one.[/edit]

Bingo. Going to an IBM VAR/Partner is really the only decent/sane way to navigate the IBM sales bureaucracy unless you're talking about US$(high 7-figure plus) orders. It's also really the best way to get the best price, because the VAR will work to figure out all the discounts and such a customer might be entitled to. On an IBM sales team, the left hand doesn't always know or care what the right hand is doing.

When I worked at IBM, I usually called in a favor from friends at a local VAR whenever I needed to order something to get a BoM, because even internally the process was opaque.