Your conclusions about the sales disruptions with winners and losers are spot on, but I think the setup of the three B2B advantages is off timeline-wise:
- The relationship advantage only comes into play after the enterprise deal is done. At that point, it becomes a lock-in/legacy/switching cost advantage. The complexity of these solutions explains slow sales cycles (and FUD.) You have large vendor teams throwing money into win big accounts. It's a pitched battle (at least, it should be.) The relationship advantage does play if a very senior exec comes in with an agenda and pre-existing relationships, and can ram it down the organization's throat. This happens especially with execs who bring "their" consultants. In the digital era with winner take all solutions, it also becomes a "brand advantage."
- The workflow advantage is really the simplicity advantage. I refer to Porter's "What is Strategy?" language and say it is "access-based." It's just easy to put because it is a simple product for a solution. Salesforce on the cloud killed the other CRMs like Siebel like this. Then they created a relationship advantage. :)
- The intelligence advantage is most interesting in two ways. First, the product is superior. For example, I worked with a predictive demand planning tool that was just better than anything else out there, head to head. Second, the sales process and the related selection and analysis processes can and should be augmented. It's shocking... just shocking... the number of implementation turnaround projects I've done because the clients didn't really know what problem they were solving at a high level, and missed critical details in the solutioning. In other words, they missed the forest AND the trees in selecting software! Augmentation would make for smoother implementations and trusted relationships. Instead, we have to hear euphemism excuses about agile and scrums.
I do think there are interesting start-ups that can replicate/replace what consultants do in helping to select software and also complete the early-stage designs. Instead of go-to-market, the process is go-to-solution.
Your conclusions about the sales disruptions with winners and losers are spot on, but I think the setup of the three B2B advantages is off timeline-wise:
- The relationship advantage only comes into play after the enterprise deal is done. At that point, it becomes a lock-in/legacy/switching cost advantage. The complexity of these solutions explains slow sales cycles (and FUD.) You have large vendor teams throwing money into win big accounts. It's a pitched battle (at least, it should be.) The relationship advantage does play if a very senior exec comes in with an agenda and pre-existing relationships, and can ram it down the organization's throat. This happens especially with execs who bring "their" consultants. In the digital era with winner take all solutions, it also becomes a "brand advantage."
- The workflow advantage is really the simplicity advantage. I refer to Porter's "What is Strategy?" language and say it is "access-based." It's just easy to put because it is a simple product for a solution. Salesforce on the cloud killed the other CRMs like Siebel like this. Then they created a relationship advantage. :)
- The intelligence advantage is most interesting in two ways. First, the product is superior. For example, I worked with a predictive demand planning tool that was just better than anything else out there, head to head. Second, the sales process and the related selection and analysis processes can and should be augmented. It's shocking... just shocking... the number of implementation turnaround projects I've done because the clients didn't really know what problem they were solving at a high level, and missed critical details in the solutioning. In other words, they missed the forest AND the trees in selecting software! Augmentation would make for smoother implementations and trusted relationships. Instead, we have to hear euphemism excuses about agile and scrums.
I do think there are interesting start-ups that can replicate/replace what consultants do in helping to select software and also complete the early-stage designs. Instead of go-to-market, the process is go-to-solution.