High-Tech B2B Marketing Capabilities Model v 1.1

This is a new release of High-Tech B2B Marketing Capabilities Model that encompasses the recent results of professional discussion at B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn. This discussion sparkled in the response to the question "How are you finding NEW customers today?" suggested by Barbara Kuntz from Miyachi Unitek. More than 50 marketing executives and experts shared their views and experiences on the topic. They have mentioned 31 marketing capabilities that high-tech companies might consider to develop and incorporate at B2B markets.

Would You Call Your Industry High-Tech?

What industry does your high-tech firm belong to? Is it high-tech, medium-tech or low-tech industry? The paradox is that you can find high-tech companies in every industry, but you can hardly call every industry high-tech. 

Is this really important? Yes, it is. Because your high-tech marketing strategy should be different for each case. 

The major difference will be in customers, competitors and technology development patterns. Moreover, your high-tech industry might turn out to be mature or emerging. 

By definition, high technology industries are intensive in terms of science, research and innovation. Mature industries are high-tech when they rely heavily on knowledge-intensive technologies, for instance, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, nuclear physics, optics and photonics, materials engineering, mechatronics, electronics, artificial intelligence. Among such mature high-tech industries are aerospace, automotive, energy, software, computers, office machinery, electrical engineering, electronics, electrical equipment, ICT, telecommunications, scientific instruments, environment/green technologies, health care/medical devices, and pharmaceutics. At the same time new technologies can emerge independently into new industries, as well. This might be the case for nano-technology that can give a thrust to nanorobotics, for example.

High-Tech B2B Marketing Capabilities Model v 1.0

• What are you doing to achieve your marketing objectives?
• What are you doing to outperform your competitors?
• What are you doing to find, engage and retain customers?

Those are not the easy questions even for well-established corporations, while for high-tech B2B startups and SMEs they are the real challenge. The reason? Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of high-tech markets. 

There might be different tactical answers to these questions, but the fundamental is the only one:  continuous improvement of marketing capabilities.