As the roller coaster economy of 2011 comes to a close, I offer perspectives I’ve observed over the last year to plan and provide insights to B2B marketers for 2012 and beyond.  Here are three critical trends for B2B marketers to consider… and the related impact to the senior B2B marketer.

• All companies are technology companies
• Time is the critical constraint
• With senior leadership…social media is not social

All Companies are Technology Companies. 
With the unprecedented access to development tools, platforms and new technologies – IT is ever present in products and services delivered by all organizations.  Take for instance a century old company in an even older industry - Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).  Their CIO, Heather Campbell, is recognizing that technology can have a profound impact to differentiate the business and provide competitive advantage.  In her role, she is propels CPR to “Drive the Digital Railway” by deploying new technologies to monitor and control train movement, managing systems that provide safer railways for all.  The focus in providing insight to transportation information and rapid development cycles for customer specific solutions today is the differentiator of CPR from competitors.
 
Every industry today is experiencing technology innovations that include how products are made, how they are used, and how they are delivered.   Customer engagement is equally being impacted by technology throughout the customer lifecycle.  Development cycles are much more rapid, further enabling an organization to respond to demands of customers in a manner that can differentiate you from competitors.

Impact to the Executive Marketer:  Lead the company in customer engagement to understand the levers of differentiation that can be developed to separate your organization from the competition.  Recognize that your customers are technology companies who need your products or services to differentiate them in the market.

Time is the Critical Constraint.
Today, the most precious element in our lives is not money, it’s not our family, it’s not our job.  It’s the time we have to spend and balance the demands on our lives.  The choppy economy has organizations pigeonholed and reluctant to hire.  The global workforce requires late night conference calls and early morning start times to keep up with the world around us.  Consequently, the pressure to do more with less takes time away from all the other balanceable facets of our lives.  The demand on time is true for the B2B customer as well.  Time especially becomes more precious as you move up to more senior roles in an organization.
  
Take Michael Petrisko, CIO at Hill International.  While on east coast time, Michael frequently takes late night calls with Australia and early morning calls with India.  His day is booked solid for weeks in advance.  To gain access to his time and his calendar requires advance planning and a compelling reason for anyone to meet with him.   A vendor approaching Michael has limited opportunity to gain access to his calendar, capture his attention, and win over his business.   Michael quotes:  “What’s important to me is that a discussion with a vendor has purpose and is relevant to my business – anything short of this is a waste of my time.”

Impact to the B2B Executive Marketer:  With a senior executive, your objective must be to win them over and to have them want to spend time with you and your organization.  Realize that every encounter must have a compelling business cause and reason to engage.  The more time you seek, the stronger the value proposition of your encounter must be.  Over prepare for your engagement and be sure your contact leaves the encounter with the sense that time spent with you and your organization was a valuable use of their time.   

With Senior Leaders, Social Media is Not Social.
I recently had the opportunity to host a CIO Advisory Council meeting with a large, well-recognized technology company.   Before the meeting, I thought I’d check the LinkedIn profiles of the 14 executives scheduled to participate.  I found that four of them don’t have a profile and three have less than 50 LinkedIn connections.  Hardly grounds for thinking these executives are social media junkies.  And these are CIO’s who live and breathe technology!   For a senior executive, the social media experience isn’t proving to be beneficial to their role, responsibilities, and networks.  More and more, senior executives are becoming aware and concerned about privacy and security.  Because an executive’s time is so critical, they tend to disengage or not engage in personal efforts to extend their networks and share their opinions.  Many public companies have social media rules and regulations limiting engagement and disclosures in public and even private forums.   The reality is that senior executives remain somewhat “Old School” in terms of how they engage socially and prefer a real conversation.
 
Impact to the Executive Marketer:  Think about the audience you are trying to reach and balance your budgets and portfolio investments accordingly.   If you are targeting a senior executive, don’t expect your answer to be social media.  Think about the encounter and the engagement… and invest accordingly.

Recently, I attended the annual ISBM Members Meeting at Penn State University. ISBM is short for the Institute for the Study of Business Markets and is a center of excellence in Penn State University's Smeal College of Business Administration. They are comprised of a global network of researchers, educators and day-to-day practitioners in the field of business-to-business marketing, and led by Executive Director Ralph Olivia. Their mission is to expand the research and teaching of business-to-business marketing and sales in academia and to improve the overall practice of business-to-business marketing and sales in the industry.

This year's meeting was themed, "Reinventing Innovation: Driving Growth Beyond the Product" in Business Markets. Ralph and his team assembled an outstanding agenda that included speakers from Wesco, USG, Lord, and United Technologies to discuss innovation, value creation, driving growth, and best practices.  I was particularly intrigued, and energized by, the first keynote speaker Larry Keeley, President & Co-Founder of Doblin, Inc. (a Chicago-based think tank). Larry's discussion focused on INNOVATION FUNDAMENTALS (how innovation drives growth), which talked about the need and the process to driving organic growth. It was an outstanding (and highly entertaining) presentation, followed by many questions from the audience.

Larry's key take-away was that innovation is the key driver of growth. Companies that are able to simultaneously innovate across multiple "innovation types" will develop offerings that are more difficult to copy and that generate higher returns. Those innovation types can be grouped into a logical framework comprised of 4 key areas: Finance, Process, Offering, and Delivery. Within each key area, are the more detailed, structural drivers known as the "Ten Types of Innovation":

1. Business Model
2. Networking
3. Enabling Process
4. Core Process
5. Product Performance
6. Product System
7. Service
8. Channel
9. Brand
10. Customer Experience

Mr. Keeley provided detailed explanations along with excellent examples, to drive home his theme that these methods should be engrained in your culture to best position your organization to develop the next "Innovation Frontiers." The closing stressed three things organizations "must do":

1. Systematically develop sophisticated offerings (using at least 6 of the 10 Types of Innovation)
2. Identify "what's coming next" 
3. Reinvent your enterprise so innovation is "not optional" - engraining these concepts into your cultural DNA

The second "must do" is by far the most challenging and the one many companies struggle with. Essentially, it is the fuel that will propel the vehicle. So how do you do this - and not just once, but consistently and iteratively? It's a tough task but, in my experience, the companies that excel in this area, are the companies that have a methodology and consistent process to gather, synthesize, and act on CUSTOMER INPUT.

You can have an outstanding business model, established processes, world-class product development, great channels, and strong brand but still miss the mark by a mile without customer input (can you say "New Coke"?!). Do you want to consistently create true market alignment with the most impact?

• Leverage the voice of the customer
• Obtain your customer's input EARLY AND OFTEN 

Your customers are on the cutting edge of their respective industries, and will gladly lead you to "what's coming next" - provided you ask. You'll also find that, as you deliver on their inputs, you will move up the value curve and become positioned as a trusted advisor.

I enthusiastically agree with Larry as he has described engraining the innovation types into your corporate culture. Additionally, you need to engrain the concept of regular customer dialog and input. So, how do we do this? What are the best ways to obtain customer input and feedback? There are numerous methods but you must start with the foundation that this WILL NOT be a one-time "event". It needs to be an on-going, committed conversation with your customers. Create a regular forum, along with a sense of "community" that includes internal resources and customers, and you will have the "fuel" to take your innovation vehicle and your company, anywhere you want!

1. The opportunity for Sean to present the principles of his new book, The B2B Executive Playbook
2. The chance to witness one of our customers receive the ITSMA Diamond Award for Marketing Excellence in the category of Building Client Loyalty and Trust.