Business Marketing - What's Driving Growth in B2B Marketing?

What's Driving Growth in B2B Marketing?

The tremendous growth and change that business marketing is experiencing is due in large part to three "revolutions" occurring around the world today, according to Morris, Pitt and Honeycutt (2001).

First is the technological revolution. Technology is changing at an unprecedented pace, and these changes are speeding up the pace of new product and service development. A large part of that has to do with the Internet, which is discussed in more detail below.

Technology and business strategy go hand in hand. Both are corelated. While technology supports forming organization strategy, the business strategy is also helpful in technology development. Both play a great role in business marketing.

Second is the entrepreneurial revolution. To stay competitive, many companies have downsized and reinvented themselves. Adaptability, flexibility, speed, aggressiveness and innovativeness are the keys to remaining competitive today. Marketing is taking the entrepreneurial lead by finding market segments, untapped needs and new uses for existing products, and by creating new processes for sales, distribution and customer service.

The third revolution is one occurring within marketing itself. Companies are looking beyond traditional assumptions and adopting new frameworks, theories, models and concepts. They're also moving away from the mass market and the preoccupation with the transaction. Relationships, partnerships and alliances are what define marketing today. The cookie-cutter approach is out. Companies are customizing marketing programs to individual accounts.