I'm sure you're investing wisely in Marketing and Sales Enablement tools (but 85% of your colleagues aren't…)

Have you heard, that digital is the word? #Digital

If you´re in B2B marketing and sales right now and live on this planet, chances are that you have (... or any other industry and function for that matter..) #Digitalmarketing #Digitalsales #B2B

With spending on marketing & sales enablement tools up 69% over the past 3 years, chances are that you have not only heard about it, but also gone out and invested in some of these digital enablers too. #Salesenablement #Marketingenablement

And there is no shortage of opportunities to invest.

Scott Brinker's infamous MarTech landscape has EXPLODED over the past years and now (April 2018) stand at 6,829 different solutions for commercial professionals to choose from. #MarTech

At "only" 830 vendors, SalesHacker's 2018 Sales Technology Landscape pales in comparison. With over 3000 apps, Salesforce Appexchange does a little bit "better" (hint; said with a fair amount of irony...)

It's a digital jungle out there!

If you feel that you're falling behind, don't worry. You're not alone.

72% of marketing professionals in one survey, indicated that they felt marketing technology develop "rapidly" or at "light speed", while only 33% agreed it was the same for their adoption rate. (Link to Scott Brinkers, State of Marketing Technology talk)

But abundant possibility and rapid development is good right?

It could be! If you have a clear strategy for how to select and adopt new technology and a clear vision for how you want to develop your organisation's commercial technology to go with people and process development.

BUT, unfortunately it turns out that only 15% of companies actually do this.

We fear, we are heading for "CRM" disaster again, with this new wave of investment in marketing and sales enablement technology

The last wave of commercial technology implementation (CRM) was pretty solid and consistent at failing to deliver impact (in 30-60% of cases), because organisations didn’t take the time to agree on objectives, strategy and roadmap for development with the technology.

Although top reasons for failed CRM were no clear objectives or no clear strategy, only 15% of B2B enterprises have this in place for their marketing and sales enablement technology

That is not so good... At least not if you´re not a big fan of throwing a lot of money out the window.

Hiding is not an option

You know you have to do something. The divide between organisations who embrace digital and those who do not is widening, with digital leaders seeing 5x higher revenue growth and 8x higher EBIT growth over average

So what do I do? (you might ask...)

Your way forward with digital commercial tools will of course depend heavily on the type of B2B company that you are in (small vs. big, local vs. global, simple vs. complex sales etc.)

But there are some things we would advice you to do, regardless:

1. Take your point of departure in your challenges, not technology availability: There are literally THOUSANDS of tools out there, so don't spend your time boiling the ocean, looking researching technology to find one you like. It will take all your time. Instead identify a problem and research if a solution exists that can help you better address the specified issue
2. Define your strategy for identifying, selecting and implementing digital tools: Always have objectives, strategy & a roadmap. New digital tools are essentially little investment opportunities that you need to monitor and have a predefined process for assessing, buying and successfully incorporating into your business. To avoid costly failed investments have a good rigorous strategy that is always applied in these investment and implementation decisions
3. Decide where you want to be on the adoption curve. The vast majority of companies don't need to be first movers on technology and you probably don't either. But to avoid over investing time and resources into adoption of the latest fad, decide on

Should you require assistance and guidance through the MarTech and SalTech jungle, we are of course, as always, at your disposal. Please comment or send us a message on linkedIn or via mail.

Please like comment and share as always, if you found this useful and want to engage.

Martin Nyvang Mariussen,

Co-founding partner, kvadrant

mnm@kvadrant.dk