PathFactory is trying to bridge the gap between consumer experiences like Netflix and Amazon by offering tools that let B2B marketers recommend web site content based on visitors’ behaviour, what’s popular and what will help them take the next step in a buying journey. The Toronto-based firm is using this week’s Sirius Decisions Summit in […]
Tag: amazon
The state of B2B e-commerce in 2019 (so far)
B2B e-commerce is changing at a rapid pace. A report from Forrester suggests that the US B2B e-commerce industry will hit $1.8 trillion by 2023. Besides, there would be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% for B2B eCommerce over the next five years. Another report from Frost and Sullivan presents a different scenario. […]
Amazon Business and Google overtake supplier portals as B2B buyers’ starting point: Avionos
Thirty per cent of corporate customers now start their e-commerce purchases on sites owned by consumer giants Amazon and Google rather than the 22 per cent who turn first to independent supplier portals, according to research that will be released Wednesday by Avionos. The Chicago-based digital commerce marketing firm’s 2019 report, titled Positioning B2B Commerce […]
90% of B2B sellers tell InsideSales they expect AI to improve their performance in 2019
While the overwhelming majority of B2B sales professionals have high hopes for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to help them do their jobs, less than half have actually started to implement such tools, according to the results of a recent survey released by InsideSales. Based on a set of questions fielded to more […]
Inside The Mind Of . . . Rivi Bloch
Rivi Bloch is the current division chief executive of Taptica’s Performance Advertising business, as well as interim CEO of Taptica International Ltd. Rivi was born and raised in Israel, and spent several years living in San Francisco. She pursued academic degrees in Political Science and Law, and regularly draws on those experiences as Taptica continues […]
An AWS exec uses a press release that took eight months to write as an example of customer obsession
Before you assume the world’s most disruptive and innovative companies move with lightning speed, ask Jeffrey Kratz about the press release that took nearly eight months to complete. The general manager of Latin America, Canada and Caribbean Regions for Amazon Web Services (AWS) was speaking at the Toronto Global Forum on Monday about how the […]
Elastic Path CMO knows better than to use a hard sell to market ‘headless’ e-commerce
An Uber ride is an e-commerce transaction, but you don’t swipe your credit card before climbing out of the car. If you press an Amazon Dash button you get products delivered instantly. Now Elastic Path CMO Darin Archer is trying to help B2B organizations achieve a similarly quick, convenient and seamless way to conduct all […]
Terminus exec knows you won’t like his answer to ‘What defines the value of B2B marketing?’
Sangram Vajre wants you to fill in this sentence: “In B2B marketing, the value of marketing is defined by _______.” The chief evangelist and co-founder of Terminus got a number of responses from the audience at CONEX on Wednesday, which ranged from “leads” and “engagement” to customer success. His answer? “Sales.” “It took me a […]
Globant research lets business pros have their say about voice tech potential
The popularity of Siri and Alexa among consumers may be inspiring more businesses to consider launching a voice technology initiative, but 33 per cent admit they have yet to use it on the job themselves, according to research from Globant. According to the IT firm’s 2018 Voice-Activated Technology Business Guide, which was based on a […]
Avionos research shows most procurement officers are bypassing supplier portals in favor of some consumer-friendly search options
Even though they work in B2B firms, 78 per cent of procurement managers begin looking for product searches on Amazon or Google rather than a vendor’s own site, and most are disappointed by what they find, according to a new report from Avionos. Avionos, a digital marketing firm based in Chicago, surveyed 160 U.S. B2B […]
The chief technical evangelist at AWS believes these AI use cases will convert enterprise execs
“Looks like a face. Appears to be male. 26-44 years old. Appears to be sad.” These are the findings of an artificial intelligence application called Rekognition developed by Amazon, which is studying the image of a man attending the recent Canadian Cloud and DevSecOps event in Toronto. When quizzed, the attendee admits that he is, […]
Zoho plans mass-marketing campaign to promote its integrated suite to business professionals
Zoho is getting ready to release TV ads in the U.S. and Canada as part of a broader marketing effort to boost adoption of its Amazon Prime-style approach to licensing a variety of business applications. Besides the TV spots, Zoho has been holding a series of events for customers and prospects that tout the integrated […]
iExec uses blockchain to build a market for renting out cloud services and creating decentralized apps
Blockchain may be the biggest trend in IT since cloud computing, and a French startup called iExec is creating a way to bring the two closer together by using the distributed ledger technology to create a market for renting out processing power as an alternative to Amazon, Google or or Microsoft. In November, iExec released the […]
Toyota unveils e-Palette at CES 2018 to show its future direction in mobile business applications
Autonomous driving might create major waves among consumers, but Toyota Motor Corp. used CES 2018 to show off a concept that would take it firmly into the business of serving other companies in retail, classified sales and even faciliating government service delivery. In a keynote presentation that was livestreamed from CES in Las Vegas, Toyota […]
4 Tech trends that could improve customer service in 2018
Understanding the customer service industry and its unique relationship with technology can be a challenge. This difficulty primarily stems from the fact that both employees and customers interact directly with customer service technology every single day. It’s not simple server management technologies handled by a small, sophisticated networking team. Making sure all customer service solutions make sense […]
Alexa for Business: Voice tech experts speak up about what’s ahead
Amazon is joining the ranks of firms trying to help automate office chores with virtual assistants, but industry experts say the launch of Alexa for Business could open up applications that go way beyond what consumers do with an Echo in their homes. At its AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Amazon confirmed […]
What the art of leadership looks like to Lee Hecht Harrison’s Vince Molinaro
The question Vince Molinaro asks senior leaders sounds simple enough: “How did you get your current job?” The answer, however, may be a little disappointing. “Most often what I hear is, ‘If I’m honest, I kind of backed into it,’” Molinaro, global managing director of career transition and outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) told […]
Box’s IPO success endorses enterprise collaboration
The enterprise collaboration space is hot. Recently, cloud file-sharing company Box has started trading publicly on the New York Stock, debuting at $20.20 per share. Interestingly, the company is trading much as 77 percent above its IPO price. Box offers companies cloud-based storage services, make it easy to share documents with your team or your […]
How e-commerce Davids can battle Goliaths
With online retail giants like Amazon continuing to disrupt the e-commerce ecosystem and squeezing smaller sellers everywhere, how can those smaller retailers remain competitive? The sheer massive reach and scale of the Amazons of the world and their focus on growth over profits give them an advantage that small businesses just can’t compete with. Or […]
California startup can help you monitor the competition’s pricing
It wasn’t so long ago that companies who wanted to gauge what their competitors were selling, and charging, had to track the industry online. They had to log the inventory and the corresponding price, and then adjust prices so as not to be undersold. Rinse and repeat. As would be expected in these days of […]