GES director of live events Robert Dunsmore explores B2B vs B2C technology trends and patterns.
The undoubted enormous opportunities for B2B over the next decade are matched only by the challenges and new languages required to deliver in a real-time landscape.
The B2C market has already been radicalised by this new connected republic but the B2B market, although more than double the size in e-commerce terms, has so far been slow to adopt.
This is not new – just different. The French seventeenth-century philosopher Blaise Pascal, fascinated by the growing adoption of modern science and technology, once commented: “What then is to become of man – will he be the equal of God…?”
What then I might ask, will become of our audiences and our participants in the future now they are the equal of our brands, venues and events?
The future is a connected republic and it is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.
So, better not wait any longer because everyone else is invited. Blockbuster and Kodak failed to re-imagine their businesses but let events manage them, so join the revolution or stand by as your customers go, swipe, or tap, elsewhere. The citizens of the new connected republic can be for or against you and they have expectations that cannot be ignored. So adapt and re-purpose your delivery to match, as have the better performers have in the high street.
They have proved one certainty and one language for this new connected republic is “mobile”. It makes for a bigger market as almost half the world’s population owns a mobile phone. According to GSMA 201, mobile now delivers 1.6 per cent of the global GDP and is growing along with that big technological cloud we now all live in.
Plan your tools and connectivity thoughtfully. Mobile, social, physical - the chances are anything you actually need you will hear about through an obsessive media or you’ll stumble across because it is actually relevant to your life. Talk to your communities and learn from them to build core platforms and then integrate emerging technologies to suit the devices already in your delegates’ pockets.
Use the technology as touch points. More access, looser privacy expectations creates more data that can deepen your relationship and afford more opportunities with partners and mobile apps that perform well. Invest, in turn, in connecting these digital assets to your physical products, people, catalogues, venues and ancillary services.
Learn to be transparent – as “equals” the customer relationship is no longer a captive or “owned” so bring the outside in by design and be accountable for your companies’ products, services, employees and partners. B2B, and events in particular, will always be about the future of people and how they collaborate and connect. The reality is - as Pascal points out – in this future as equals they get to choose how to connect.
Any comments? Email Annie Byrne
