Gartner recently released a report on the four ways the technology market will change for IT companies in 2023.
According to the report, there are nine trends that would affect tech vendors but only four of them are “new” trends. The nine trends have been classified into three categories:
Increased reliance on tech
- Federated enterprise tech buying
- Co-innovation ecosystems
- Democratisation of tech
- Product-led growth
Opportunities through new tech
- Digital marketplaces
- Intelligent applications
- Marketing and CX with metaverse tech
Impact of macro forces
- Sustainable business
- Techno-nationalism
Of these nine, the report focuses on:
- More federated enterprise tech buying
- The increase in product-led growth strategies
- The rise of digital marketplaces
- Metaverse technologies incorporated into marketing and CX
Important Tech Trends in 2023
More Federated Enterprise Tech Buying
In a survey conducted in 2022, Gartner found that “67% of enterprise IT decision-makers are not in IT”.
According to the report, as more and more decisions are made by non-technical stakeholders, buying the latest technology becomes less important than the outcomes and value businesses get out of them.
To use this trend optimally, Gartner recommends that businesses:
- Shift their marketing strategy to focus on customer-oriented value rather than technology-based scenarios
- Use their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to understand the buying behaviour of the target audience, and leverage that information to maximise better quality and successful deals
- Guide clients who aren’t tech-educated to make better, more informed decisions
Increase in Product-Led Growth Strategies
Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a strategy where the product is used to give potential customers a taste of how it could add value to their processes. This happens before there is any sales talk.
According to Gartner, this trend is going to pick up so rapidly that PLG will become an accepted market practice by 90% of SaaS businesses in 2025. Considering that only 58% of businesses currently use this practice, that’s quite a steep rise.
Under this strategy, customers will enjoy “self-service product experiences”. The signals gathered from these would be used to create “sales-driven conversions and expansion plays”.
This strategy can offer a rapid growth pattern. However, it requires more thought than simply introducing a free version of the product and hoping it’ll lead to sales.
In order to be successful, the PLG strategy requires buyer awareness marketing as well as onboarding. Customers have to be provided with the right guidance and support. Finally, it requires a data-driven, at-scale strategy for conversion and expansion.
Of course, the entire strategy would rely on a product with an intuitive user experience, easy or quick onboarding, and the ability to quickly demonstrate value to customers.
Rise of Digital Marketplaces
Tech buyers, especially non-tech ones, are increasingly looking at digital marketplaces for buying “composable and easily consumable solutions”.
Gartner predicts that, by 2026, all major application service providers and cloud platforms will offer customers composable solutions. These will be differentiated by “quality, convenience, and security”.
In order to make the most of this trend, businesses would need to:
- Identify which marketplace channel works best, based on their solution fit and the preferences of their potential customers
- Understand that their customer base is shifting to a non-tech one, which means they might need to tweak their marketing strategy
- Realise that they’re part of a marketplace for the benefit of their customers, so join marketplaces based on their suitability, or launch their own
More Metaverse Technology in Marketing and CX
Metaverse—described as “a collective virtual shared space”—represents various technologies. These include virtual reality (VR), augmented reality, (AR), flexible work styles, head-mounted displays (HMDs), AR cloud, internet of things (IoT), 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), and spatial computing.
(Take a look at how AI is going to disrupt digital marketing as well!)
These technologies are being used as marketing tools to generate engagement through unique experiences and memorable interactions.
Of course, since most of these technologies are quite new, it is up to businesses to determine which ones work for them and when they need to implement them. Businesses would need to evaluate how viable they are and invest in a strategy for continuous evaluation as they continue to evolve.
The trends discussed by Gartner might mean businesses will have to rethink (or at least gently tweak) their tech marketing strategy to capitalise on these. Of course, there are specialist software marketing agencies, like Geeky Tech, that could help.
However, the fact remains that we are witnessing a moment in history where a paradigm shift might be approaching. How businesses use the information from this report might be what differentiates them from their competitors.
