While the 21st century is the age of technology and digitization, the world of B2B technology has been slow at adapting to the advantages that e-commerce holds. In the early 2000’s, when the B2C retail sector began adopting online shopping and digitization options for customers, B2B companies didn’t feel the need to capitalize on this digital opportunity. As a result of this hesitation to integrate, there was never an intense demand for B2B sales through technology. Since B2B was not geared toward your everyday shopper, companies saw their consumer as niche and therefore not in need of digital options. How is this changing as the world demands more accessibility through technology, and how is it affecting B2B tech PR processes?
B2B Tech PR and Changing Demographics
The majority of the B2B market in the beginning of the 2000s consisted of baby boomers and Generation X. While it is not true that everyone in these age cohorts don’t adopt new technology, the prerogative of the time was to maintain business as usual, and anything too advanced would distort the customer-company relationship. Granted, B2B companies have the advantage of creating close customer relationships due to their sales functions (i.e. bulk orders with niche clients who develop brand loyalty). The old way of doing business, over the phone and through in-person orders still holds its charm, but more as a vintage reminder of the good old days, not as a B2B reality.
The retail, business, and consumer markets are being replaced by millennials and Generation Z, who understand and value the importance of digitization operations, as does PR tech. The integration of technology into business has become a staple in the eyes of consumers. Making it easy to select products, place an order, and track a package makes the shopping experience more enjoyable and stress-free, regardless of the scale of purchase. Knowing all this, it’s time for B2B companies to move with the times and adapt to the new norms.
Considering the circumstances we face as a world today, it is more crucial than ever that businesses, whether B2B, B2C, technology-based or not, create a tech sphere in which their consumers can feel like they have accessibility to more products than they did before. None of us really know how long the world will continue to struggle with COVID-19, although it shouldn’t take a pandemic to drive companies to capitalize on technology.
Through tools and services like B2B tech PR and technology PR companies, these business-to-business firms will be able to smoothly integrate themselves in the eyes of their consumers. While the world is becoming more and more acquainted with the processes of technology, when a new company reinvents its systems, things can become overwhelming. With a B2B tech PR firm who understands the ways of the market and the likes of the consumer, the integration of a digitized system can be accepted and successful for these loyal niche consumers.
Maintaining long-standing business protocols is important and necessary for businesses to support good customer relationships, but not merging them with changing times can make a business seem complex. The integration of the old and new ways of business needs to be symbiotic, and by doing so a culture of loyalty and appreciation among customers is created.
