Missing the Moat
Last week I promised an update on the essential actions for the coming year and closing remarks in my preso in FL. Too many B2B data, media, events, and information services firms are missing the moat. So we’ve laid out a prescription for the future.
First, an essential baseline which includes our analysis about:
- The Collapse of Aggregators
- Wiley and OpenEvidence, Wiley and IQVIA , CAS Intelligence Hub
- Anthropic and OpenAI going after vertical workflows while OpenAI targets scholarly workflow
- The through line in B2B in G2 and Fiscal Note’s recent big moves.
And while you’re at it Licensing Content for AI and the new infrastructure emerging that includes competing standards yet to sort themselves out. Last, don’t miss our Operating Practice: Model Context Protocols.
If you don’t have access, reach out to me. This work is foundational.
Next, fill in your sector, the workflows you support or serve, the partnerships or licensing arrangements you must put in place to be integrated into the value-chain of AI driven solutions and the next layer of agentics already unfolding. Decide if and where you are going to serve them or support serving them.
The alchemy is in these layers whether you have a marketer funded business model (read brand awareness, lead generation, media) OR end-user paid enterprise solutions that support decisions at the point of use.
Third, consider three basic truths. This week I had a great conversation via LinkedIn with Tony Uphoff as he chronicled the 25 year race-to-the-bottom in B2B media, something we have witnessed together from our various perches. We see things very similarly.
In Outsell’s opinion any chance of ‘driving to thrive’ rather than just survive rests in the following.
- Vertical Leaders Will Win the Race: Diverse portfolios are not for the faint of heart. Think deep, deep, pockets and being part of the billion-dollar boys/or girls club. For the rest of us going deep in a vertical is essential.
When the world migrates to SLMs, agentics for very specific tasks, the ability to differentiate around years and decade’s worth of unique, hard-to-get metrics and IP will win. It’s essential to feed the beast with quality and separate from the oceans of ‘synthetic gobbledygook’ that is polluting our knowledge pools. Trust is the defacto standard and vertical know-how is the means to that end.
2. Expand Your Team through Partnerships: Recognize where you are in the value chain and partner up or down in that chain to build truly differentiated solutions.
Not every professional user has a ‘workflow.’ Many do but most don’t. Agents are going to be doing the micro-tasks that make everything a workflow and there is no way to enable all of them without partnerships. They are hard to do, a challenge to maintain. Here again the alchemy is in the hands of those who do it well and invest in it. Outsell is seeing more heads of partnerships and heads of licensing than ever. In vogue in the late 90’s and early 00’s the roles are popular again and for a reason.
3. Turn Every Event into a Data Engine: We call it making every event a data engine and we don’t just mean ‘event events.’ They of course are chock full of data opportunities AT EVERY turn. Instead we mean making every event in your business about data — customer data, transaction data, data about vendors or suppliers, data about attendees, data about sponsors or your firms engagement with the outside world.
And it’s data about your industry. It’s players, their products, their pricing, transactions, and moves. Every event is a data event, and data is like the gold in your vault or the money in your corporate account. Not everyone has the keys to it and there are signoffs, permissions, and signatures to release any of it. Treat the data you possess like the money you possess. Because in it lies the alchemy for your firm’s future.
Last, we are going to ask you to jettison the word audience. Take it out of your organization’s lexicon regardless of business model and ESPECIALLY if yours is driven by media and events. Focus on helping buyers buy, and about engaging enthusiastic users. It’s a different frame.
There is so much more to say about this topic. So we are making it the subject of next week’s post: Meanwhile start the challenge now and, Red flag the ‘audience’ mindset. Stay tuned.