B2B Online Europe 2024 Blog

David Shell, Adjunct Lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School, shares insights on the top challenges, strategies, and opportunities facing B2B organisations as they navigate rapid technological advancements, AI integration, and the shift towards digital maturity.

B2B leaders struggle to execute ambitious plans. Discover how to bridge the growth gap by prioritising exceptional customer experiences, leveraging data, and empowering your talent.

Take a look at the round up of B2B Online Europe 2023!

It is a leader’s vision that largely defines a company’s future. It takes courage, commitment, and collaboration to turn vision into reality, fully achieving set aspirations and making a business fit for the future. The ability to achieve sustainable results quickly and consistently is what really defines high performers. Profitable growth is harder to realize in the current climate of economic volatility and any program/project investment needs to be fully leveraged.

Success in the competitive world of B2B marketing hinges on technology and innovation and as CMOs and Heads of Digital Commerce, you understand the significance of staying ahead. Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLM) are groundbreaking innovations and are tools with which to reshape your marketing strategies, enrich customer interactions, and drive personalization to new heights and at the same time facilitate and improve productivity, time management and effectiveness.

We had the pleasure of chatting with Ivan Branco, Head of Information Management, BI & Analytics at Volvo GTO SML, about what an ideal omnichannel strategy looks like in a B2B setting, top areas of focus and challenges for 2024.

We had the pleasure of chatting with José García Guaita, Digital Content & Communications Manager at Ferrovial, about what an ideal omnichannel strategy looks like in a B2B setting, how to make remote interactions feel as intimate as in-person experiences and his priorities and challenges for 2023.

To unleash the true potential of marketing and make a meaningful and measurable contribution to increasing and evaluating a business, marketing actions/initiatives must be quantified in terms of “how many leads and orders” it generates.

Transformations are hard and digital transformations are even harder!

According to a recent McKinsey study1), only 16% of B2B companies claim performance improvement. There are numerous post-mortem analyses, recommendations, and approaches to transformations.

Revenue is at risk unless manufacturing companies transform. The purchasing behavior of B2B customers is moving online and, as such, manufacturing companies need to respond to current changes in the market.

We had the pleasure of chatting to Aslak de Silva, CEO at Selfly Store, about what an ideal omni-channel strategy looks like in a B2B setting, how to make remote interactions feel as intimate as in-person experiences, and his priorities and challenges for 2023.

We hear a lot about how the global COVID-19 crisis has transformed industry. However, what it has done in many cases – including the businesses of B2B buying and selling – is more akin to a cementing of a direction of travel which was already very much in motion. 

Modern B2B brands are seeing significant shifts in the expectations buyers have when dealing with suppliers in their professional lives. The contemporary B2B buyer is far more inclined to do business with brands which are able to offer experiences which seamlessly blend traditional methods of selling with the kinds of digitally powered ecommerce services normally provided by B2C companies.

We had the pleasure of chatting to Markus Widmer, Head of Customer Experience at Mondi Group, about what an ideal omni-channel strategy looks like in a B2B setting, how to make remote interactions feel as intimate as in-person experiences, and his priorities and challenges for 2023.

The average customer uses roughly ten different channels to engage with brands and companies need to be following that example to reach their B2B audience as well.

We’ve already spoken at length in this article series regarding the ways the lines between B2B and B2C retail is becoming ever more blurred. We’ve discussed how B2B buyers are expecting B2C style experiences, even when making purchases in their working lives.

Hopefully by now you’ve read the article in this series where we make the case in favour of B2B companies embracing omnichannel strategies in 2022.

In times gone by, customer experience just wasn’t something B2B brands spent and awful lot of time thinking about. The interactions between B2B buyers and sellers were always very perfunctory and performative and little consideration was given to anything outside the basic business of making and facilitating a purchase.

In the modern world, data is the lifeblood which flows through the veins of business. Data is a natural side effect of out increasingly online lives and can be put to use to drive marketing, sales, and process changes which can push technologically savvy brands forwards.

The world of transport is changing rapidly, and people are demanding far more from the car manufacturers they choose to do business with. For those brands operating in the B2B space the pressure to innovate is felt even more keenly as the demands and expectations of business clients can often be even greater than those in the B2C space.

When it comes to keeping the world moving, the responsibility falls to those brands which can provide the best range of fleet services. However, in 2020, these services must look beyond simple considerations such as fuel and maintenance and expand their offerings for B2B clients.

ABB is one of the most innovative businesses operating within the fields of robotics, power, heavy electrical equipment, and automation technology. Here's how they're using developments in AI and the Cloud to connect with customers.

Digital transformation is helping brands all over the world bring exciting new technology into their business models. However, some industries are lagging behind others when it comes to their digital transformation. Here's how Dow is addressing the digital transformation lag in the chemical industry.

While many companies have made significant roads in bringing digital technology into their marketing, sales, and customer experience strategies, there are plenty of brands which are lagging behind. Multinational personal care corporation Kimberly-Clark is more than aware of the need for having the right digital experts in place, evidenced by the opening of its new global digital tech centre.

Gelato's editable templates, which allow controlled online editing of pre-approved text and images without the need for additional software tools or licenses, give Club Car confidence and peace of mind over their 3rd party marketing.

We caught up with Scott Allen, Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft UK, ahead of his appearance as a speaker at B2B Online Europe 2018. Read on to discover Scott’s take on the importance of a connected customer journey, and digital-first thinking.

We caught up with Richard Waight, Multi Channel Manager – eCommerce at Bio-Rad Laboratories to discuss the company’s move towards digitisation. Read on for his thoughts on how Bio-Rad is gaining buy-in and gathering momentum to perfect its digital presence.

In Q1 of 2017 we surveyed 130 senior decision makers at major manufacturers in Europe and the USA on how the relationship with Amazon will evolve, and their eCommerce strategies of the future. Read our report to find out the compiled and anonymized results, presented with analysis and commentary by Luzern.

Digital technology is driving so much of our industry these days, and Siemens is working to digitise the entirety of its supply chain.

While 3M is a company which operates firmly in the B2B space, its new marketing initiative is looking to connect directly with the end users of its products.

Not content with dominating the B2C ecommerce market, Amazon is also set on planting its flag at the top of the B2B space with Amazon Business.