That B2B marketing opportunity appears when the Buying Center members face
Buy Task challenges is a concept that is simple and obvious to the buying firm buying
center and strangely only to the more perceptive B2B marketer.
Here is how the Buy Task challenge plays
out for the Buying Center and spells B2B marketing opportunity for the
marketer:
- Big problems with repeat buy tasks. This is rare and at the core of the thinking
about B2B buyer-seller relationships. One reason that repeat buys go well
is because these are familiar products or services that suppliers have fine-tuned
and the buying company is able to absorb and use. It has developed
internal people and processes to handle whatever these mid-tech suppliers
might supply. Note that the supplier might have started as an innovative
pioneering supplier and over time the buying organization got familiar
with the offering and improved their ability to use them. Thus, there is no
reason to change this type of high volume supplier. On the other hand, consider
a product or service that the buying center buys typically is high
tech/high knowledge (e.g. software development) and the supplier
fails to deliver. Or it is low tech/low knowledge (e.g. Facilities
maintenance) and the current supplier has become unreliable. In both these
scenarios the buying center scrambles to find alternative suppliers
because the rest of the receiving
processes are in place. The user department is waiting for software
that system analysts had clearly defined and the building has to be
cleaned anyway! - Problems with modified re-buy: The buying center might look for new suppliers if
there are problems that prevent using good current suppliers. Consider a
modified piece of aerospace equipment needed for a defense
application that must be made in the US. The existing foreign supplier,
although a good one, is excluded from consideration. This one
is also relatively rare. - New task – opportunity: New task opportunity is truly the chance for new innovative
B2B suppliers to shine. Here too incumbent suppliers who supply related
stuff have an advantage because they can quickly add people and
investments to supply the bare minimum that will work for the
buying organization. The bare minimum is from knowing the buying
organization and designing an offer that is highly competitive that also
enjoys the “familiar vendor” advantage. The opportunity for the B2B
marketer is to provide superior knowledge and innovative value that is
based on the core competence and highly technical knowledge of the
marketer organization. Keep in mind that while incumbent suppliers try
to just get by, innovative new suppliers can bring entirely
unthinkable value to the buying organization. And, many buying centers
have members who are willing to give that break to innovative new
suppliers because it helps the buying organization make a quantum leap.
To summarize, the big opportunity
for new suppliers in B2B markets is to look for organizations and buying
centers that are getting into a new task or looking at the old task with new
eyes, say when leadership/management changes. More on B2B marketing opportunities
and buying organization leadership /management changes in a later post. Contact StratoServe.