How Much will B2B Sales Processes Change after Covid-19?

Digital channels already are a big part of business-to-business sales processes, and the conventional wisdom has to be that use of digital channels will grow, as part of permanent behavioral changes created by the Covid-19 pandemic. What is yet unclear are the extent and degree of permanent changes. 

Gartner, for example, predicts that by 2025, 80 percent of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels.

Depending on how one tabulates, that might be a bit more than presently happens, or might be less. Today, perhaps 17 percent of interactions tend to happen in person, for example. And most might agree that digital commerce channels will increase. 

That might logically happen for smaller purchases routinely, with strategic purchases requiring more sales interaction overall, and arguably more time spent in person-to-person engagements.  

Business customers now routinely use supplier websites, for example,  to identify problems, explore solutions, build requirements, narrow the range of potential suppliers, validate those choices and create firm consensus around choices, Gartner notes. 

Interactions with sales representatives still are part of those tasks. In fact, in 2019 slightly more B2B buyers reported reliance on sales personnel than websites. Followup communications and activities arguably also rely on other channels (email, text messaging, audio and video conferences) to flesh out details. 

source: Gartner 

About 17 percent of time spent conducting research happens in live meetings with potential suppliers. About 67 percent of research time is consumed conducting online research, meeting with buying groups and conducting other research offline, Gartner notes. Still, one can conclude by comparing information channel activities with time spent in each channel that meetings with potential suppliers have an outsized influence. 

source: Gartner 

One might also assume that strategic choices and expenditures will require more face-to-face interactions, as well as more digital research and follow-up, than routine purchases.