Why Processes Fail in B2B Organizations

3 minute read

Upland Admin

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Next week, I will be joining Kapost and Jennifer Mesenbrink from Motorola Solutions to discuss How to Distribute Content on a Global Scale. I’m excited to get into the details during the webinar, but after spending time thinking about and discussing this topic, I want to share with you the short answer: Establish a governance process that allows for consistency and repeatability across a global organization.

Why Processes Fail in B2B Organizations by @cahidalgo

Many organizations are not doing this effectively. And to be clear, it’s not that they haven’t tried or are unaware of the problem. They are failing to manage content distribution across the enterprise despite attempts to implement a process.

So why do organizations fail in such an important endeavor? Why is it that many B2B marketing organizations have a commonality of failed processes? Here are some of the top reasons we see in our work with large enterprise B2B companies, and why some of their previous attempts have failed.

1. No Roadmap for Change

Many organizations look to implement a process, but fail to plan for the change. Therefore the new process is rolled out in an ad hoc fashion and the uptake is minimal at best. Much like a home builder would never dream of building a house without a blueprint, marketers need to take the same approach. A plan or blueprint for process shifts is key, as it will serve as a guide or roadmap as these changes are introduced.

2. Unrealistic Expectations

I talk to many marketers who say their endeavors to implement new processes in their organizations was put to a halt by executives. Some of this responsibility lies with those executives, but a good portion also sits at the feet of those in marketing who didn’t set the proper expectations.

In a recent conversation I had with a marketer at a $2B company, he said, “I cannot wait to have all of these changes complete in the next six-months. We will be such a different organization.” He truly believed that—six months to implement process and change. I let him know that to truly drive change and make it permanent he was looking at three plus years. He needs to set the right expectations.

3. Not Involving Sales

It’s amazing how often marketers leave sales out of the various stages of process change. It stands to reason that changes in marketing will also certainly impact sales. It’s not good enough to simply train sales on the new approach to content, demand generation, distribution of content marketing, etc.—marketers must make sales part of the solution! This will unify the teams and make more of an impact.

As with any marketing initiative, change does not happen on its own. Content distribution across the enterprise is no different. It is not a matter of simply saying you’re going to do it; global content distribution includes developing the right processes and planning for the implementation of those.

It won’t necessarily come easy, but it’s necessary—and doing it the right way will make all the difference. Don’t spend time and resources developing content that you can’t distribute to your buyers for their consumption on a global scale.

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