It’s hard to believe that Forrester’s B2B Summit North America was almost a month ago. But wow, what an incredible week it was! The energy was palpable, and the momentum is set to carry B2B leaders and their organizations forward to growth and reinvention.
Between the 100+ sessions, inspirational keynotes, impactful success stories from practitioners, analyst led roundtables, and so much more, it was an event to remember.
Here are five key takeaways from the event as you head into summer and fall planning:
Customer-obsessed strategies are your ticket to sustainable growth
B2B organizations that put their customers at the center of their leadership, strategy and operations, surpass their peers in all critical metrics. In fact, they experience 28% faster revenue growth, 33% higher profit growth, 43% better customer retention, and 44% better employee engagement compared to their peers. To become customer-obsessed, companies must invest in four key capabilities: becoming customer-led, insights-driven, fast, and connected.
Unlock success with generative AI today
Businesses are at different stages of genAI adoption, from research and education to experimentation. And no matter where you are with adoption, keep exploring ways to incorporate genAI into your operations — or risk falling behind those that do. Use our use case prioritization and feasibility tool to identify potential use cases to implement. Scaling genAI for content and customer impact, navigating change management, and addressing data quality challenges are key steps for growth. Tackle genAI with confidence and lay the groundwork for constant iteration.
Gain valuable insight into your evolving buyers
Today, 71% of business buyers are under the age of 45. Additionally, 86% of these buyers are dissatisfied with the buying process. Effectively engaging these younger buyers calls for a balanced focus on DEI, social, environmental, and financial issues, shifting from traditional top-down decision-making to participatory approaches, investing in seamless buying processes, and collaborating on solutions for common causes. Your buyers provide valuable signals and insights – and trust us, it’s not through email or cold calls. Younger buyers are comfortable finding answers on their own – interacting with your website, searching third party sites, and seeking current customer testimonials. It’s imperative to utilize these to create engaging content and enhance the overall customer experience.
Embrace Revenue Process Transformation with Forrester’s Opportunity Lifecycle
It’s clear the buyer has changed. But we keep trying to force them into our internal processes that have been around for 20 years – that’s right, we’re talking about MQLs. The reality is, we must shift our mindset to prioritize buyer’s goals and focus on delivering value to the buyer at every stage of the customer journey. To do this, we must change the focus, change the work, and change the culture. We can’t afford to work in silos across our organizations. Forrester’s Opportunity Lifecycle aligns internal teams with the buyer, driving long-term growth. Many companies have already embarked on this transformation journey, as showcased by our Return on Integration (ROI) and Program of the Year (POY) .They are seeing tangible results – results you can achieve too.
Craft impactful buyer and customer experiences
Traditional business goals often overlook the importance of customer experiences, creating gaps between strategy and execution. To bridge these gaps, it is crucial to align our work with the experiences of our customers. This requires cross-functional collaboration to gain a deep understanding of our buyers because “one size fits all” never made sense. Buyers prefer personalization and self-service throughout the customer lifecycle, they deserve localized experiences, and crave competitive messaging in an increasingly saturated market.
Last month’s B2B Summit North America set the stage for navigating the frenetic pace of change in B2B and capitalizing on growth opportunities. As you head into planning season, stay tuned for our Planning Guides that will be published later this summer – these will help you navigate where to invest, experiment and divest for 2025. We also announced our 2025 B2B Summit event dates and location so be sure to save the dates for next year and we hope to see you there!
(Maria Alexandrou, Senior Research Associate co-authored this post)
