Everyone in the B2B space knows about Salesforce and how it revolutionized the cloud computing industry in general and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions in particular. Even given that, Salesforce still tends to mostly exist in the technology stacks of the larger B2B companies. However, that’s starting to change. Salesforce recently […]
The best B2B firms are flat and nimble. They do business at 21st century speeds. So why do they hamstring themselves by accepting payments through 20th-century legacy networks such as Visa and MasterCard that overcharge for their services? These networks and their associated processing partners require transaction charges of up to 3.5 percent, startup assessments, minimum […]
To succeed in the channel, B2B firms must examine the shortcomings of common data analysis methods with emphasis on how they’re used to monitor and measure an organization’s channel sales activities and performance. In addition, a data analytics solution must have certain components, especially for trend analysis. “Channel teams develop incentive programs blindly or using […]
As a B2B News Network reader, you may be familiar with the emerging fintech called blockchain. We’ve written about it several times including regular updates to our primer on the subject. But its influence on B2B is undoubtedly worth probing deeper. Blockchain will not remain a purely fintech phenomenon and has set itself up for wider […]
As we enter the New Year, B2B firms should do themselves and their potential employees a favor. Instead of extending out the hiring process looking for the “perfect” candidate, they should decide on one of the many “good” applicants who are ready and able to start working immediately. Because as Confucius, Shakespeare, Voltaire and others […]
You may have read about the man who used Uber, nearly got killed and still was charged $178.93. That man, Dennis Yu, chief technology officer at BlitzMetrics, presented at the recent Growth Marketing Conference in San Francisco’s Hotel Kabuki on how he targeted Uber on Facebook to get a refund and how his initiative can […]
B2B buyers have changed. Shaped by their consumer expectations and enabled by technology, B2B buyers demand a consistent, personalized experience at every stage of the customer journey. Although B2B sellers have progressed developing digital touchpoints, most struggle to weave them into existing channels and create an engaging, seamless omnichannel customer experience. Using a recent report […]
Everyone in the B2B world has heard about proverbial Silicon Valley garage startups that grew into the likes of Apple Computer, Hewlett Packard and many other household names. But exactly how did those firm founders and first chief marketers do it? At the Growth Marketing Conference in San Francisco, several successful entrepreneurs revealed the secrets of their […]
The term “growth marketing” or in some quarters “growth hacking” may not have a universally agreed upon definition, but its adherents adamantly believe that it works. On December 3, at the Growth Marketing Conference, in San Francisco’s Hotel Kabuki, the day’s opening panel session, “The Future of Growth Marketing: Tools, Strategies and Tactics” brought together […]
It’s the granddaddy of all B2B applications: enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Many flavors of ERP exist today on premises and in the cloud, however, they all share a level of implementation complexity fraught with danger. What can B2B practitioners do to ensure that their ERP implementations have a maximum chance of success? A number […]
At this week’s Growth Marketing Conference, December 3, in San Francisco’s Hotel Kabuki, quote-to-cash solution vendor Apttus offered key insights into marketing innovations as Maria Pergolino, the company’s global vice president of marketing, discussed how one of Silicon Valley’s latest billion-dollar unicorns has used content marketing to acquire new customers and “explode revenue,” as the organizers described the […]
Evaluating B2B customer relationships is tricky. Two of the most important tools at a company’s disposal are customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys and Net Promoter Score (NPS). While they might seem similar, they serve distinct purposes and using one or the other can make a difference in maintaining customer happiness and loyalty. This article will examine […]
Every B2B company, whether large or small, will use a consulting firm at some point. Most of the time, opting for consultants come in reactive situations such as when a publicly traded company has some real or suspected irregularity on its books and one of the Big Four accounting firms will be brought in to do […]
There’s a lot of talk lately about predictive analytics, and undoubtedly it is starting to infiltrate the B2B software industry. In the last year plus Salesforce.com acquired RelateIQ and LinkedIn bought out Fliptop, making meaningful progress in this space. But how will they implement predictive analytics solutions within their larger B2B cloud ecosystems? What approaches […]
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the B2B space face tighter margins than ever. For example, any “friction” in the Accounts Receivable function, such as the unaffordable manual process of submitting and collecting on invoices, can increase overhead and negatively impact the bottom line. However, B2B companies that automate this über slow invoicing process can […]
One of the B2B startup world’s most entertaining presenters and intriguing thinkers, Peep Laja, CEO and founder of ConversionXL, delivered a fast-paced presentation—literally and figuratively—on how to turn customer data into insights and customers at the recent Traction Conference in San Francisco, where he and other experts presented concepts for more revenue and additional users. […]
In the age of Mad Men, advertising anti-hero Don Draper ruled supreme. He knew almost on pure instinct what would influence purchasers. He didn’t carry the title of chief marketing officer (CMO) but he may as well have. Today, however, customer data drives marketing more so than ever. In fact, so much customer data accumulates from mobile […]
All companies are starved for growth. Startups. Public companies. B2B companies. That’s the hypothesis of Morgan Brown, co-author of Startup Growth Engines, a book of case studies on how successful startups unlock growth without traditional marketing. At the recent Traction Conference in San Francisco, Brown and many other speakers gathered to evangelize growth hacking and […]
Private corporate networks (i.e., intranets) and their applications, such as SharePoint, Microsoft’s enterprise collaboration software, do not optimally serve mobile users, or so the premise goes. This keeps businesses from addressing the needs of an increasingly on-the-go workforce, which can lead to employee disengagement. According to a Gallup poll, employee disengagement can cost B2B companies […]
Facebook started as a desktop oriented social network/website. However, by 2011 it had to get serious about mobile or risk “the relevance of the grave,” as Nick Schrock, software engineer, Facebook, puts it. So it built apps for iPhone and other wireless devices with a hybrid approach based on HTML5 views in a native app. […]
