{"id":170985,"date":"2021-07-06T18:01:05","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T12:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/?p=170985"},"modified":"2021-07-06T18:01:05","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T12:31:05","slug":"gartner-identifies-four-types-of-technology-buying-organizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/gartner-identifies-four-types-of-technology-buying-organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Gartner Identifies Four Types of Technology Buying Organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gartner Identifies Four Types of Technology Buying Organizations That Will Influence Go-to-Market Efforts of Tech Marketers in 2021<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Tech Buying Behavior Trends to Be Discussed at the Virtual Gartner Tech Growth & Innovation Conference, July 20-21, 2021<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Seventy percent of global technology buyers are exploring more ways to purchase technology this year, however vendor engagement strategies continue to underdeliver when it comes to meeting tech buyer\u00a0expectations, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnology providers often create go-to-market (GTM) strategies with limited insights into how an enterprise will make a buying decision,\u201d said\u00a0Christy Uher Ferguson, research vice president at Gartner.<\/strong> \u201cAs\u00a0the size of buying teams continues to increase, ideal customer profiles (ICPs) increase in importance. While understanding individual buyer personas is important to align messaging and content to specific role-based needs, buying teams act as an enterprise, with enterprise goals first and individual goals second.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four Types of Tech Buying Organizations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gartner identified four marketing clusters of technology buying enterprises based on key behaviors that influence GTM tactics \u2013 the Cooperatives, the Strict Planners, the Catalysts and the Business-Leds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best consumer marketers tune their messages and channel strategies based on the behaviors of their ideal customers, but this is rarely done in the world of B2B technology marketing,\u201d said\u00a0Hank Barnes, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. \u201cGartner\u2019s behavioral marketing clusters make it easier for tech providers to focus their efforts to be most appealing to the enterprises that are the best fit for their solutions with the right message and approach at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Cooperatives<\/strong>\u00a0make up the largest group of enterprises, representing 43% of buyers, but they are also the most challenging to predict. Their cooperative approach often means that they are\u00a0less\u00a0clear on what matters most to them \u2014 everything seems to matter equally.<\/p>\n

When exploring a new product or service, Cooperatives said that they evenly use all information types to learn more about it, including thought leadership, the product\u2019s or service\u2019s features, and product reviews.<\/p>\n

Cooperatives said they leverage self-driven search and interactions equally for both new technology and replacement technology buying decisions. In fact, Cooperatives evenly cited self-driven search with third-party and vendor partner websites and interactions with vendors and partners in both buying situations.<\/p>\n

Strict Planners<\/strong>\u00a0are often coveted as targets due to the clarity with which they define their buying\u00a0process.\u00a0Strict Planners prefer proven technology that aligns to their strategic vision. Fifty-five percent of Strict Planners said they rely primarily on information about the product\u2019s or service\u2019s features when exploring a new purchase, so vendors should focus on supplying information that contains quantified results and rely heavily on expert interactions.<\/p>\n

Catalysts<\/strong>\u00a0accept the risk and costs of new technology and deploy as early as possible, but they want assurances and validation that technology will meet their needs. Catalysts look to understand a provider\u2019s products and services for new technology primarily through\u00a0search within a\u00a0trusted independent site. When buying replacement technology, they are more likely than other enterprises to seek information through\u00a0direct vendor interaction. Tech providers should share information on product capabilities and implementation details, provide free trials\u00a0or proofs of concepts and interactive tools to support the Catalysts cluster\u2019s buying process.<\/p>\n

Business-Led<\/strong>\u00a0buyers, representing 21% of those surveyed, involve the business throughout the entire buying process and seek to ensure that technology drives business value.\u00a0Business-Leds seek specific product and service information in the form of customer references and proof points. In addition to\u00a0product review sites, they are heavily reliant on direct engagement with vendors to learn more about products and services.<\/p>\n

When buying new technology,\u00a080% of Business-Led enterprises said they look to understand a provider\u2019s products and services primarily by self-driven search\u00a0rather than interactions.\u00a0Yet, the opposite is true when buying replacement technology as only 43% look to self-driven search, relying on interactions instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrategies must be built that are relevant to buyers and will engage buying committees throughout their buying and owning journeys. To do so,\u00a0tech marketers\u00a0should determine which of the four tech buying organization clusters aligns to their ICP and apply these as a filter or segment strategy within account-based programs to identify accounts that fit into each buyer cluster,\u201c said Ferguson. \u201cUsing buying behavior analysis, technology teams should develop personalized engagement strategies (messaging, account-based marketing programs, content and channel mix strategies) that are relevant to each cluster and implement these into their GTM efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gartner Identifies Four Types of Technology Buying Organizations That Will Influence Go-to-Market Efforts of Tech Marketers in 2021 Tech Buying Behavior Trends to Be Discussed at the Virtual Gartner Tech Growth & Innovation Conference, July 20-21, 2021 Seventy percent of global technology buyers are exploring more ways to purchase technology this year, however vendor engagement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-170985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technologyforyou.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}