Harvard Business Review

APRIL 17, 2015

“Death of a B2B Salesman,” a new report from Forrester Research , lends urgency to the need for companies to rethink and radically transform their sales models by incorporating digital media into their processes. Here’s how B2B sellers should do that. Rather, his or her role needs to be redefined. They evolved.

B2B 8

B2B Forrester Telemarketing Media 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 29, 2013

We spoke with Mike Moorman, a senior leader in ZS Associates'' B2B sales and marketing practice and a leading authority on sales management, about how inside sales (which refers to sales positions done remotely from headquarters, without face-to-face meetings with clients) is transforming the way that B2B companies interact with their customers.

B2B 8

B2B Power Market Segmentation Customer Intimacy 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 18, 2018

These companies are facing wholesale change—from defining how technology reinvents entire functions to how the organization manages new workforce models to how to unlock value with cross-industry ecosystems. Read more from Accenture Strategy: How Technology Is Changing M&A in the U.S.

Strategy 8

Strategy Content Business Model Retail 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 14, 2018

Companies increasingly use digital technologies to circumvent distributors and enter into direct relationships with their end-users. These relationships can create efficient new sales channels and powerful feedback mechanisms or unlock entirely new business models. As a result, many B2B companies remain stuck in a stalemate.

Strategy 9

Strategy B2B Insurance Business Model 9

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 27, 2018

Clearly these leaders believe that digitalization offers exciting new, technology-enabled ways for organizations to engage with stakeholders, deliver a superior experience across the life cycle of their business, manage costs, and improve productivity. Digital business also is creating new challenges for information and technology (I&T).

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Content CIO Business Model 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 21, 2012

Social technologies — the software and services that make it possible to show off your vacation pictures to all your Facebook friends and follow your favorite team tweet by tweet — are not just giant time sinks that keep your employees from getting their work done. How's this for counter-intuitive? trillion annually.

Media 15

Media Productivity Products Technology 15

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2015

The Southeast Asia city’s rapid growth echoes the story of the so-called “unicorns” — technology start-ups that rapidly grew to a billion-dollar valuation and beyond. But as start-ups mature, the grow-at-all-cost narrative will be replaced by a flight to capital efficiency and profitability.

Outsourcing 8

Outsourcing Technology B2B GDP 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 31, 2015

Yet, after sales force costs, events are the biggest line item in many marketing budgets, especially for B2B firms. Technology to do this exists, and it has implications for what managers can do before, during, and after the events they sponsor or attend. No technology can help managers who are unable or unwilling to set goals.

CRM 8

CRM ROI Budgeting Public Relations 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 5, 2015

These changes are driven by seismic shifts in consumer behavior and an explosion of both consumer- and B2B-facing technologies. The tension between human-driven and technology-driven capabilities is often miscast, positioning automation as a threat to the people that drive our industry. Humans and Automation.

Media 8

Media Advertising Audience Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 29, 2015

Information technology, however, is one of those industries. Unlike the average consumer, cloud transportation vendors will attempt to ensure they (or their drivers) buy the most efficient cars per mile, service them optimally, and retire them on the best schedules. Unfortunately, these new buyers have different needs entirely.

Industry 8

Industry Transportation Automotive Software 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

How technology is changing the way we work. We also saw this pattern in the sales departments of other B2B sales organizations we worked with. (Disclosure: this includes Microsoft, which bought my former company, VoloMetrix, to help make that happen for core business systems like email.). Insight Center. Sponsored by Accenture.

B2B 8

B2B Emotional Intelligence Tools Audience 8

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

About two-thirds were in B2B businesses.). However, our experience has been that [when a product fails] it’s not a technology problem or a pure R&D problem — it is really around marketing, customer segments, and of course pricing. Why does pricing feel so out of executives’ hands? Will it be bundled with something else?

Price 9

Price Productivity Products Simon 9

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 23, 2015

Yet even though SKF has a century-long track record of keeping the wheels of industry turning, this new vision of bearings with brains by no means assures that SKF will prosper in the changeover in technology represented by the internet of things, in which every conceivable object can become a node on the net. Insight Center.

Industry 8

Industry System Business Model B2C 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 11, 2016

One of the oldest business models in the world is using new technology to trample traditional businesses, drive innovation, and create new and immense sources of value. They operate platforms that make it easy and efficient for participants to connect and exchange value.

Participative 8

Participative Business Model IPO B2B 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 18, 2016

Characteristics: Most physical and institutional structures are already in place in these megacities, but with fast-growing populations and severe congestion, there is an opportunity to create value by improving efficiency and livability, and there is a market of customers with cash to pay for these benefits.

Real Estate 8

Real Estate Entrepreneur Finance Innovation 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 3, 2016

Consider the core mission of the modern IT department: Taking in all the technology “mess” (often from several different divisions), developing the necessary competencies, and delivering savings and efficiency to the company. The stand-alone data and analytics service function.

Operations 8

Operations Agility Chemicals Supply Chain 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2016

Creative retailers are using the new technologies to innovate just about everything stores do from managing inventory, to marketing, to getting paid. B2B commerce, for example, didn’t move mainly online by 2005 as many had predicted in 2000, nor even by 2016, but that doesn’t mean it won’t do so over the next few decades.

Retail 8

Retail Real Estate B2B CFO 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 30, 2015

But even more exciting is our ability to use our data to influence provider behavior and nudge medical staff in the interest of better efficiency and performance. Slowly but surely, these same techniques are being brought to the B2B space, and to health care. As a result, we can rapidly innovate and improve our products.

Health Care 8

Health Care Benchmarking Short-term Gordon 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2015

The AIDA model and its variants are the basis for sales funnels at many B2B firms. In fact, B2B buyers report that, compared to other sources of information, these interactions are the most influential in their decision making process: The source considered the least influential is social media. Don’t believe the hype.

B2B 8

B2B AIDA AIDAS Disintermediation 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 6, 2016

Over the past 20 years, information technology and digital channels have changed the way consumers shop for products ranging from cars to homes to electronics. Those forces are dramatically changing the way B2B companies and their customers approach buying and selling, too. Sellers must respond. Sellers must respond. Systems (e.g.,

B2B 8

B2B Information Information Technology CRM 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 10, 2018

Those analyses rely on publicly available data sources, but software providers have accumulated growing amounts of private data on almost every aspect of their customers’ technology, operations, people, and strategies. It is even possible to hold up the data mirror to individual technology users.

Benchmarking 8

Benchmarking Software B2B GAAP 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 25, 2014

Digital channels have upended the well-trod ruts of sales and marketing organizations — already, nearly a third of all B2B purchases are done digitally. Our analysis of 73 B2B technology companies shows that across sectors, the top 25% of companies achieve more than twice as much return on sales investment compared to the bottom 25%.

Marketing 9

Marketing ROI B2B Team 9

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 20, 2017

Despite lower oil prices, currency depreciations, higher taxes, and geopolitical uncertainty, the region is still rich in opportunities, from selling efficiency-enhancing technology to the Saudi government to offering Western products to 100 million Ethiopian consumers. This, combined with a population of 1.5

Depreciation 8

Depreciation Contingency Plans Policies Marketing 8