As the holiday season is now truly behind us, the time is now to get underway working towards your business objectives.
However, while doing so, here are 3 key trends that every tech start-up founder must be aware of and respond to if they wish to acquire large business customers.
GREAT USER EXPERIENCE IS NO LONGER ENOUGH
Large corporates such as banks, insurance companies, telcos and large retailers have made substantial investments in delivering a great user experience by offering comprehensive, easy to use digital and mobile offerings based on leading U/X and design principles.
Implications for B2B Tech Start-Ups
In order to get corporate customers to buy from you, your offerings will need to help meet much broader BUYER priorities such as:
- Growing their business
- Increasing revenues
- Eliminating costs
- Gaining market leadership
Therefore, seek to understand and deliver to those deeper needs by also providing buyer-driven SOLUTIONS which include not only your core product/technology but other key components such as advice, consulting, training, service and support, inventory management.
INVESTORS ARE BECOMING MORE SELECTIVE
Recent studies have shown that investors globally are increasing investment in proven later stage companies that show promise in gaining scale and profits. (Source: Synergy and disruption: Ten Trends in Shaping Fin Tech, McKinsey and Company, December 2018)
Implications for B2B Tech Start-Ups
In order to gain funding from investors for your early start-up, you will need to develop a solid business model based on products and services that corporate customers want (ie achieve Product-Market Fit.
Achieving product-market fit for corporate customers requires that you:
- Maintain a strong understanding of:
- the trends of the industries your start-up is targeting
- the specific companies you seek
- priorities and requirements of the buyers within those companies
- Develop your product offering based on these market and buyer-driven insights
- Collaborate with your target customers to develop and refine your start-up’s offerings
THE NUMBER OF DECISION MAKERS HAS INCREASED
Selling to large corporates will continue to mean long, sales cycles and increased number of stakeholders. According to the Harvard Business Review, the number of participants in buying decisions has increased from 5.4 to 6.8 participants. (Source: Have You Adjusted to These Three Changes in the B2B Buying Process, Forbes, May 2018)
Implications for B2B Tech Start-Ups
Inbound lead generation will not be enough!
Getting large corporates to buy, will require you to use a collaborative, planned approach involving many functions such as Marketing, Sales, Product and Customer Support both from your own company and from your target companies.
Over the next few months, I will provide you with practical approaches and strategies to enable you to respond to these trends so you can acquire the business customers you seek.
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