Forrester: To Achieve Sustainable Growth, B2B Firms Must Center Their Revenue Process On Customer Value

New research unveiled at Forrester’s B2B Summit North America, which kicked off, asserts that changing buyer behaviors and expectations require a complete revenue process transformation for B2B firms to drive long-term, sustainable growth.

Modern B2B buyers are digitally savvy and conduct their own buying research and therefore control their own buying journeys. Additionally, 71% of today’s B2B buyers are Millennials and Gen Zers, who bring different approaches and expectations to the buying process. These shifts require fundamental change and realignment across marketing, sales, and customer success functions to break through silos and put the customer first to create meaningful interactions both pre- and post-sale. Customer-obsessed companies grow revenue 28% faster and have 33% higher profitability growth and 43% better customer retention rates compared to non-customer-obsessed companies, Forrester data shows.

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At B2B Summit North America, Forrester will unveil the Forrester Opportunity Lifecycle, a new framework designed to help B2B organizations align their marketing, sales, and customer success teams around buyer and customer needs and implement revenue process transformation.

To transform their revenue process, B2B leaders should consider following the four tenets of the Forrester Opportunity Lifecycle:

• Share signals to create a unified view of the customer. Every interaction with members of a buying group produces signals that provide insight into their unique journeys. It’s imperative that these signals are gathered into a common view of the customer so that marketing, sales, and customer success teams can create consistent and coordinated interactions.

• Shift from leads to opportunities and buying groups. Opportunities represent the most accurate view of what a provider does to support a customer’s buying decision. In addition to aligning to solutions and revenue, opportunities are also a key resource for sales to manage progress with prospects, customers, or buying groups.

• Create shared customer-aligned goals between marketing, sales, and customer success teams. Historically, the revenue process has been constrained by a siloed approach to managing its key functions. Organizations need to create shared objectives to reflect that all customer-facing teams play a role in engaging with prospects and customers throughout the opportunity lifecycle.

• Create experiences that provide the maximum value for buying group members. Buyers move at their own pace throughout the buying process, with members of the group having various goals in mind. Marketing, sales, and customer success teams should all be ready to engage with buyers when they become the team best suited to showcase value for buying group members.

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“B2B firms that only focus on revenue growth are hindering their long-term success,” said Srividya Sridharan, vice president and group research director at Forrester. “To meet evolving buyer expectations and needs, organizations should shift their perspective from being revenue-centric to being customer-obsessed. They must ensure that their revenue processes are designed to provide demonstrable value throughout the customer lifecycle.”