Building B2B Technology Markets

As penetration and the current economic downturn in traditional geographies caps historical growth rates, technology vendors are accelerating searches for new opportunities. Many vendors, such as Cisco Systems, have increased focus on emerging markets and are starting to see those regions account for an increasing share of total revenues. Despite Cisco's extensive global presence, cracking emerging markets proved challenging: How do you penetrate a market with almost none of the traditional characteristics of a technology market? Cisco recognized that sales and marketing had to play different roles in regions where politics, educational limits, and evangelism of everything from the technology itself to public policy and business processes made sales cycles longer and more complex. But, revenues were eventually significant. The key lesson? Transforming the potential of emerging business-to-business (B2B) tech markets into tangible results required a new marketing and selling approach.