It’s becoming difficult to differentiate B2B sales and marketing technology vendors from one another. To help executives make informed decisions, we’ve introduced the Sirius View as a model for evaluating and comparing sales and marketing vendors within a specific technology category.

It’s becoming difficult to differentiate B2B sales and marketing technology vendors from one another. To help executives make informed decisions, we’ve introduced the Sirius View as a model for evaluating and comparing sales and marketing vendors within a specific technology category.

The Sirius View is designed to assist B2B organizations in identifying factors that differentiate technology vendors from one another, as well as outline any challenges these vendors face. Technology providers are evaluated based on vendor briefings and demos, in-depth surveys filled out by vendors, interviews with select customers, our own hands-on use of the technology, and data and information from client inquiries and benchmarks.

Vendor placement on the horizontal axis of a Sirius View is determined by the sum of our scoring of the vendor’s functionality, its ability to deploy and enable (what we call “essential elements”), and vendor strength. Placement on the vertical axis is determined by the vendor’s primary customer base: small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs – revenue below $1 billion) or enterprises (revenue above $1 billion). Note that the relative placement of providers does not indicate that they are objectively “better” or “worse” for all purposes; rather, this placement simply enables organizations to select providers to evaluate based on their specific needs.

Also keep in mind that the tool must be used in conjunction with clearly defined and agreed-upon socialized requirements. By matching these requirements with the right group of vendors, an organization will have the best chance to create an accurate short list of solution candidates.