Steven Wright says, “Open The Door To Sales Enablement Success After seven months as a Forrester research analyst, with scores of vendor briefings and customer inquiries under my belt, I’ve seen certain patterns to unlocking sales enablement success emerge. Five Keys To Sales Enablement Automation Success brings together lessons learned from vendors and practitioners to show where B2B marketers should focus their attention. Some considerations to keep in mind – especially when it comes to content: Design content for conversation. B2B marketers naturally focus on outwardly focused... [...]

Duncan Jones says, “I’ve recently been studying what a customer-obsessed operating model means for Purchasing functions and the software they use. I’ve concluded that Purchasing needs to transform its approach to visibility and control, due to the tradical impact that Mobility has on procure-to-pay (P2P) processes. I’ve been warning ePurchasing software companies for years about the potential impact of Mobility, but while a few visionaries have heard and acted on the message, most are lagging behind. That may be OK while their customers – mostly Finance and Procurement professionals... [...]

Julie Ask says, “Google took a few big steps forward at Google I/O 2016 to fill in its portfolio to win, serve and retain customers in their mobile moments. Three new product announcements should propel Google forward. They include: 1. Google Home. Google Home looks like an incredibly promising (and necessary) entry into the home virtual assistant or agent hardware market. Like Amazon, Google led with a story of entertainment and media followed by that of virtual assistance. Google claims the combination of natural language processing, artificial intelligence and years of experience with... [...]

James McQuivey says, “It’s the age of the customer and only the leaders who know how to lead their organizations to increased customer obsession will be able to keep up with hyperadoptive consumers. Those consumers already expect to get what they want, when, where, and how they want it. The only question will be who will give it to them? Will it be you? It’s a question I asked today on stage at Forrester’s Marketing Europe leadership forum in London. I shared with them an overview of my recent report, “Leadership in the Age of the Customer,” a months-long project... [...]

Nick Barber says, “If your idea of “doing video” means having a YouTube channel, then you need to up your game. While a freemium player like YouTube can be an important part of an overall video strategy, it shouldn’t be the only part. We detail that and more in Forrester’s Vendor Landscape: Online Video Platforms For Sales And Marketing. Last year marked the first time that digital video outpaced every other online activity in time spent. It even eclipsed social media. If your customers are spending time with video, then you need to be there too. Online video platforms or OVPs used... [...]

Nicole Dvorak says, “Today, the average US smartphone owner spends over 2 hours per day using apps and websites on their device — more time than they spend watching TV. Despite this, most of the time that consumers spend using these mobile devices is to communicate with others. Downloaded social networking and communication apps — messaging, email, and digital video/voice – come in a variety of forms; some facilitate intimate conversation, while others blast a network (or even the public) with a one-way status update. As a whole, these apps achieve some of the highest app reach and... [...]

Steven Casey says, “So this makes it official: the rite of passage for every new analyst. My first research report, How Self-Service Research Changes B2B Marketing, has just been published. I covered the premise of this report in my first blog post — but I’ll summarize it here again: multiple Forrester surveys have shown that B2B buyers strongly prefer to conduct their own research, without ever speaking with a sales rep. Forward-thinking B2B marketers will embrace this change and enable the customer-directed research journey with self-service technologies such as contextual help solutions... [...]

Michael O’Grady says, “Forrester Data has just released its first global cross-border online retail forecast covering 29 countries worldwide, helping retailers understand the size and growth of the online cross-border market by country and region and identify the region-to-region flow of trade. Cross-border online B2C sales will more than double in the next five years to reach $424 billion in 2021, as consumers find online cross-border shopping easier, faster, and more convenient: Cross-border shoppers in developing markets are increasing significantly. Metropolitan China in particular... [...]

Ian Jacobs says, “As Francis Bacon wrote in 1625, “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.” Although he did not write this with Facebook Messenger or customer service in mind, the meaning still applies. If customers will not come to your business, your business must go to the customers. In 2016, customer service application professionals struggle to find common ground where businesses can fulfill as many customers’ needs as possible in a seamless and timely manner. With one out of every nine people on the planet already using Facebook Messenger,... [...]

Ryan Skinner says, “In the context of writing a report on the native advertising technology landscape, I was looking at many publishers’ native advertising products when it occurred to me: Nobody uses the same damn name for native ads, no one calls it ‘advertising’, and almost no one calls it ‘native’. Here’s a word cloud of all the names used for native advertising products by 20 leading publishing houses . Not a single name for this product was repeated publisher to publisher. Let me repeat that: Not a single name for this product was repeated publisher... [...]