The Market is showing great momentum for digital commerce. Suppliers, consultants, Service providers, and other categories of B2B organizations are in the middle of it right now.
The market is enormously sized in hundreds of billions of dollars and is expected to grow due to current reforms.
In Saudi Arabia, the companies that represent the majority of the fold are SMEs, yet more than 70% don’t have a marketing structure. So what has marketing to do with B2B sales/ commerce online? Well, it is B2B online commerce, so it needs in-house marketing capabilities to play. There are not enough talents in agencies to be able to serve this segment. So I suggest businesses take it on themselves and build it in-house and head on to win more customers. It is not a straight forward I agree, and no one will come packed with experience and scientific knowledge about it. There are basic steps to be taken though. People buying in B2B deals are humans at the end of the day. the differences in my view are :
| B2B buying | Individual consumer buying |
| Mostly in SME in KSA management decides on awarding a vendor | A long process to decide on a provider. |
| Mostly end customer is the boss who decides | A shorter process to decide |
| The selection process is a journey that passes through multiple people | One person decides on buying. |
| The buying journey involves expensive efforts of learning and validations. | Learning and validations is usually shorter |
B2B lead generation
What are the pillars of B2B digital sales and marketing engine today:
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- Customer Database ( CRM)
- Lead management.
- Inbound marketing ( demand based). This means building thought leadership through (Content-SEO-Data).
To participate in this game as a business you need to enable these capabilities.