Gartner 2024 Global Software Buying Trends
Gartner have just published the fifth edition of their Global Software Buying Trends report - essential reading for anyone in a B2B SaaS leadership position.
In August and September 2023 Gartner surveyed 2,499 buyers from across the globe about their buying behaviours.
Here are my takeaways from the report.
Buyers are spending more
Times feel tough, more deals are stalling, and everything is going past the CFO - but… 61% of buyers plan to spend more this year than they did last year, with 20% of buyers saying they planned to spend at least 20% more than they did last year.
AI is top of mind for buyers
Its crazy to think ChatGPT is barely one year old, and yet buyers are putting AI at the forefront of their research and buying plans.
As with selling anything - you’ll want to move beyond the gimicky features and focus on the real business value that your customers will receive from your AI capabilities - how will it make them more money or how will it stop them spending money.
“Efficiency” and “Productivity gains” are not enough unless you can clearly demonstrate how they will achieve those goals (by making more money or stopping spending money")
Partners are critical to your go-to-market strategy
Gartner found that 34% of software was purchased indirectly (via resellers, integrators or other third parties). This aligns with the 40% figure in the most recent G2 Buyer Behaviour Survey.
In addition, 59% of software is customised for the buyer’s unique usecase - so this either needs to be done by your professional services team, or a system integrator partner.
Building a strategic partner program to help you scale the resell and the customisation is essential.
Security and technical support are the top reasons buyers select a vendor
Now let’s get into why buyers buy and how you can help them to buy!
Buyers listed security certification, reputation or data privacy practices as the top reason they selected a vendor.
Second on the list was the technical support capabilities or uptime guarantee.
Consider how far your buyer has to travel along their buying process before you provide them with this information or details of how they would interact with your support teams.
Do you provide it proactively or do customer have to ask (drag it out of you)?
Consider security packs or video insights to the security and support processes that your sellers can share with educated buyers.
We often think of this content at bottom of the funnel - but if its the top reason vendors get chosen, how can you push it further up the funnel?
Productivity improvement is the top reason buyers start looking for software
Given my comment earlier that “efficiency” and “productivity gains” in themselves are not enough to build the business case for AI, its worth noting that it is the most common reason buyers start their search for new software.
Consider what that means in the context of your target buyer personas.
How can your platform make the users, the admins, the execs more efficient in their work?
How could using your platform free up their time to work on more strategic activities?
How can your platform help their customers be more efficient in the use of your customer’s products and services?
Buyers seek useful information that educates them
In the information gathering stage buyers want specific detail that can help them learn about the problem and your solution.
They are looking to remove the fear and anxiety of moving to a new platform.
Consider how easy or hard it is for an anonymous buyer to access these types of information from you without identifying themselves.
Do you gate this information for the buyer or for your sellers?
How could you help your buyer complete their information gathering more easily?
Why would the come to you for this information rather than another vendor or system integrator?
Integrating into other systems is the biggest factor in the sales process
Your buyers know that no product sits in a silo.
It needs integrating into their architecture, ensuring that users, data and processes flow as expected from one system to another.
The ability to support this integration process is the number one sales-related factor in driving a software decision.
Consider that - the number one sales-related factor is your pre-sales engineer or solution architect. The one standing beside the sales person.
How can you put this person on a pedestal earlier in the sales process?
How can you give your pre-sales teams better tools and support to guide your customers (and your sales people) appropriately?
Buyers start with a shortlist of four vendors
I spend time helping clients to see the world through their buyer’s eyes.
Your buyer’s journey does not start when they respond to your SDRs email, no matter what lead source is selected in your CRM.
96% of buyers start with a vendor list when shopping for new software.
There are normally just four companies on that list
89% eventually buy from that list (of four).
That should be the wake up call as you consider how do we get on that list if our SDRs and AEs haven’t spoken to the customer yet?
As a revenue leader can you map out the places where your customer goes to educate themselves before they speak with your sellers?
Can you provide content and tools that educate buyers on the problem and possible solutions so that you are top of mind when they do get to crafting their shortlist of four vendors?
Read the full report
These are just some of the highlights for me - I encourage you to download the full report and use the graphics as discussion points in your next leadership meeting.
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