Last week, we were very excited to be invited to speak to, and be a founding member of, the Microsoft ANZ Commercial Excellence (ACE) Council. 

As a busy B2B tech marketer, finding the time to expand your knowledge can be a challenge. So here, we’ve summarised 5 of the top research papers/thought-leadership pieces we’ve seen, and which have informed our thinking, in 2019. These include:

Recently, when working on a client’s B2B marketing campaign, we uncovered this mind-blowing stat from Microsoft: the modern worker now spends 80% of his/her day collaborating at work¹. 80%!  

Chatbots have already revolutionised the consumer space – helping streamline and improve all kinds of processes, from booking a holiday to paying bills or organising transport. 

In modern IT sales, suppliers are often late to the conversation. As the diagram below indicates, a sales journey is typically 57% complete by the time a customer reaches out to a tech supplier. By this stage, the business will already have identified its needs, set priorities, defined requirements, compared providers and benchmarked prices.

BY MELANIE JOHNSTONE, STRATEGY DIRECTOR

There’s no question the B2B tech industry moves at a cracking pace. With rapidly changing customer needs, tech innovations and market disruptions, it’s no wonder marketers feel like every day is a sprint to a finish line that keeps moving.   

The way in which businesses purchase products and services has changed. Today, the decision to make a major IT investment isn’t something that’s made solely by the IT team or an individual manager. It’s now a whole-of-business decision, with stakeholders from a variety of teams and departments.   

Used in the right way, LinkedIn can be a very powerful tool for tech companies wanting to market their products and services to other businesses. At Splendid, we often include LinkedIn in our marketing plans as it’s such a measurable, easy to use and popular forum – attracting around 450 million professionals from across the globe. 

We were beyond excited to find out that our talented Strategy Director, Mel Johnstone, had been selected as a finalist for the B&T Women in Media awards for 2019. In the lead-up to the awards being announced, we thought we’d do a quick Q&A with Mel and share some of her thoughts about her role at Splendid, Australia’s B2B tech marketing sector, and where she thinks the industry is headed. 

BY TIM SANDS, MANAGING DIRECTOR

After years of talking about 5G and speculating when it will happen, it's finally here in Australia - with the roll-out happening right now.