[May 14, 2015] |
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SiriusDecisions Unveils Results from New Study on B-to-B Buying
SiriusDecisions,
the leading global business-to-business (b-to-b) research and
advisory firm, today unveiled the findings from its 2015 B-to-B Buyer
Study during a keynote address at its 10th annual SiriusDecisions
Summit. According to the results of the study, b-to-b buyers
interact with sales representatives at every stage of the buyer's
journey. This finding challenges the common industry perspective that
b-to-b sales representatives' roles and importance are declining due to
a disintermediation by digital buying behaviors.
SiriusDecisions' 2015 B-to-B Buying Study, which was conducted earlier
this year, studied the buying behaviors of more than 1,000 b-to-b
executives who were involved in a significant b-to-b purchase decision
within the past six months. The data collected represents an estimated
half-billion dollars in b-to-b purchases across North America and Europe.
"While the cognitive buying decision process is linear and sequential,
we found that how buyers consume content and interact with provider
organizations is not linear - in fact, the interaction patterns are much
more episodic," explained Marisa Kopec, Vice President and Group
Director at SiriusDecisions. "For example, a buyer can perform a single
search on Google (News - Alert) or go to a sales meeting, and that one interaction
might provide all the information they need to inform each of the
decision gates they need to get through in order to make a decision to
buy."
The study's other key findings included the following:
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The price point of an offering affects the number and type of
interactions that occur between a buyer and provider.
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As the price point of n offering goes up, human interactions between
the buyer and the provider also increase. But even at low price
points, there is evidence that human-to-human interactions occur.
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More than half the time, sales representative involvement starts at
the beginning of the buyer's journey. In complex buying scenarios,
sales rep involvement starts at the beginning of the journey
two-thirds of the time.
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The highest level of reported buyer/seller interaction for all buying
scenarios occurred during the education phase of the buyer's journey
(the first decision gate in the purchasing decision process).
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Not only do buyers interact with a sales representative from the
winning provider organization in all phases of their decision-making
process, but they overwhelmingly describe those interactions as
positive (in over 85 percent of the buying experiences studied).
In addition, SiriusDecisions introduced the B-to-B Buyer Interactions
Model, a new model that categorizes every type of interaction a buyer
can have with a provider, to help organizations understand the balance
required between human and non-human interactions.
"We found that buyers interact with representatives during every stage
of the decision-making process at least half the time, and that the type
of decision - or buying scenario - greatly impacted the number and types
of interactions," said Jennifer Ross, Senior Research Director,
SiriusDecisions.
"The new way to think about b-to-b buying is that human interactions
still occur and matter, and that the rise of digital marketing doesn't
mean those interactions go away," Kopec said. "It just means that buyers
and providers are interacting in new digital ways. Just because buying
behavior is done digitally does not mean that sales representatives are
no longer required to instigate or facilitate a buying process."
Resources
Tags SiriusDecisions, Summit, B-to-B, Buying, B2B,
Marketing, Sales, Product, Research, Alignment, B-to-B, B2B, Buying
Study, Buying Behavior, Digital
About SiriusDecisions SiriusDecisions is the leading global
b-to-b research and advisory firm. We deliver the actionable
intelligence, transformative frameworks and expert guidance that equip
executives to modernize and elevate sales, marketing and product
performance.
For more information, visit www.siriusdecisions.com.
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