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B2B sales, customer, data, and marketing technology suppliers are engaged in a positioning war. With the goal of consolidating these disparate B2B solutions into a super-category that we’ll refer to as “revenue technology,” the race is on to create more advanced, efficient systems that both attract clients and handle revenue. Even if there isn’t a single solution that can handle everything, it’s obvious that suppliers who can succeed in this new B2B age will reap significant rewards.
Get your preferred beverage and some popcorn. Watching this should be entertaining. Not so much for the executives in charge of marketing, customer service, sales, and operations, who have to make predictions about the future in addition to choosing the proper horse(s) to compete in the market today.
The B2B marketing and sales technologies available today are becoming outdated.
Let’s discuss the “why” behind the positioning struggle for the hearts, minds, and wallets of B2B go-to-market (GTM) teams before we get into who is involved in this race.
B2B teams have been attempting for the past few years to shift their focus from producing large amounts of leads to buyer and account engagement, which produces revenue and relationships more effectively, efficiently, and reliably.
Marketing automation platforms (MAPs), which were created more than ten years ago, have been the mechanism used by marketers to support lead generation and sales. CRM has been the standard method for managing clients and client information, mostly from the perspective of internal sales management and processes. Account interaction has been facilitated by a variety of ABM solutions.
Even though they are workhorses, MAPs and CRMs haven’t fully helped marketing and sales teams carry out the shift. And given how quickly the buying-selling environment is changing and getting much more dynamic and sophisticated, this is even more true today.
The transformation of the B2B buyer-seller relationship requires a shift.
Sales now has less direct access to the accounts and B2B buyers they need to find, qualify, and win over as clients. In actuality, B2B professionals only work with vendor sales specialists for 17% of their purchasing process, according to Gartner. Not just with the selected vendor, but also with combined time! All of this translates into the need for Marketing, Customer Success, and other departments to take a more active, bigger part in the endeavor to generate revenue and customers. In the current environment, generating leads and assisting with sales is insufficient.
This implies that we need to do more with our customer, marketing, and sales systems from the previous ten or more years. As a result, there is a great chance for evolving system types and suppliers to take center stage. Numerous suppliers view these changes in the industry as a chance to expand their product offerings. Instead of creating systems for specialized uses, they are preparing to take the lead as the standard B2B revenue system. It will actually take five to seven years (or longer) to develop technology that can support the evolving buyer- and account-centric approaches that today’s purchasers require, as we have learned in other technology industries. However, the race has begun and the flag is up.
Assessing the Competition for the Next B2B Revenue System
B2B sales, marketing, and customer professionals have access to a wide range of platforms and technological choices. Furthermore, as was previously said, no single solution can meet the needs of the present or the future. But fulfilling our objective of generating customers’ and revenue’s through knowing the many possibilities and where they fit in, both now and in the future, is crucial.
Let’s examine the platforms competing for the highest billing positions in the B2B revenue stack of today. Please take note that this is only a broad overview of the B2B marketplace, not an in-depth vendor-to-vendor comparison. Additionally, we acknowledge that this positioning list needs more categories. The goal is to merely present the background of current market conditions.
In conclusion, this emphasizes how important it is to develop and finance talent in the fields of revenue and data operations (sales, marketing, and customer success) – talent capable of coordinating systems, data, technology, and procedures with your business objectives.
Recognize the situation before placing a winning wager.
The road plans and platform placement are growing quickly, and 2023 is quickly approaching. Now is the ideal moment to assess your systems and procedures, pinpoint your gaps and demands, and comprehend the revenue technology landscape as you finalize your 2023 GTM strategies and commercial objectives.
The good news is that alternatives are both established and developing. Knowing what’s true, what’s next, and what’s right for your firm is the difficult part of this positioning war.