I’ve been reviewing the latest research on how B2B organisations buy complex technology. The studies are from credible sources and make for interesting reading, but my experience is that what actually happens is often quite different, particularly for large, complex deals.
First, some snippets from the research…
The buyer journey
B2B buyers, especially for complex technology, have already completed most of their journey before a vendor ever knows they exist. Between 61% and 75% of the buyer’s journey is completed beforehand (Gartner and 6sense). 6sense adds that “81% of buyers had already decided on a preferred vendor before their first meeting with sales. 95% of the time, the winner is on the Day One shortlist.” (6sense, 2025 Buyer Experience Report).
On the buyer side, 78% had already heard of the product they eventually purchased before starting their formal research (TrustRadius, 2025), and 85% had prior experience with vendors they evaluated (6sense).
AI is now mainstream infrastructure for B2B technology research, not an emerging trend. 94% of B2B buyers use AI tools at some point in their buying process. (TrustRadius, Bridging the Trust Gap 2025)
Complex B2B technology purchases have become significantly more cross-functional. The average buying group has grown to 5–16 stakeholders and, in large enterprise deals, it can reach 20+. (Gartner 2024 survey; Forrester, The State of Business Buying, 2026).
Some of the most influential stakeholders are invisible to vendors. Finance, legal, compliance and procurement teams, these ‘hidden buyers’, rarely engage with sales or marketing, yet 79% of purchases require CFO approval and legal teams slow or block purchases in 61% of cases (Demandbase; Edelman–LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, 2025).
Vendors that win complex technology decisions share common characteristics and these are strategic positioning decisions made months before any RFP, not sales tactics. “Buyers are expanding buying groups to reduce risk, involving procurement earlier and insisting on trials to validate value before committing. Providers that reduce friction, simplify decision-making, and demonstrate deep understanding of buyer needs are most likely to earn trust.” (Forrester, The State of Business Buying, 2026)
They’re just not talking to you!
A striking convergence across these studies is that brand recognition and trust are now the primary determinants of whether a vendor makes the shortlist. Not lead generation or outbound sales.
My fundamental challenge with this research is that it tends to treat a buying decision as an isolated transaction. Whereas in reality, a buying decision, particularly a significant one, is a transaction within the context of a relationship.
This affects how to think about the above research. The real dividing line for vendors is not whether they have a great solution, it’s whether they are already trusted and therefore being actively considered by specific customers. Are they shaping thinking before priorities are even set? Customers aren’t ignoring all vendors before they reach out to the market. They’re just not talking to you.
What if you’re not trusted
Every large enterprise has a core of strategic suppliers they trust because they’ve invested together over many years. If you’re in that position, you have an enviable competitive advantage: you’re already influencing decisions at the top of the organisation. Before an RFP is even issued.
So, what if you’re not in that position? What if you have a great solution, but you’re not on the customer’s radar?
Two routes are worth considering:
- Start in the mid-market, where larger vendors are rarely focused. Get established, refine your solutions, and build a track record before moving upstream. This is how Salesforce built its business in the early years.
- Partner with vendors that already have established relationships in your target accounts. Your solution becomes part of a larger play, and you gain access to more senior decision-makers by leveraging the partner’s existing trust and inside knowledge, becoming part of their ecosystem.
The second option is more achievable than you might think. Our own research found that large enterprises really value their strategic vendors’ ability to act as their eyes and ears — identifying a curated ecosystem of younger, innovative companies. This lets enterprises blend cutting-edge innovation with industrial-scale know-how. If your solution is genuinely strong and will deliver value, established partners have good reason to open doors for you.
There is more on this in Account-based Growth: unlocking sustainable value through extraordinary customer focus (Burgess and Shercliff, Kogan Page, 2022). Deloitte illustrate the ecosystem orchestration approach from a client perspective; Vodafone runs programmes specifically designed to identify smaller players and connect them with senior executives.
The RFP process
To underline the case for why a trusted relationship matters so much, it’s worth looking more closely at the RFP process.
An RFP is issued less often than you might think. Unless regulatory or public procurement rules require it, complex deals frequently bypass formal competitive selection for three inter-related reasons:
- Speed to value: if we don’t get this fixed in six months, we’ll lose this market opportunity. Let’s go with someone we know.
- Technical fit: we can only implement this as an extension to our existing platform.
- Commercial expedience: we already have agreed terms so we can skip the dreaded supplier onboarding and get to delivery faster.
Winning complex deals without an RFP is not as unusual as it sounds. Accenture regularly reports in its quarterly earnings statements that more than 70% of their deals are ‘sole-sourced’ – meaning there was no formal competitive selection process at all.
And even when an RFP is issued, the outcome is often less open than it appears. The key decision-maker may already know who they expect, or want, to win. The RFP serves to secure the best commercial deal or satisfy procurement rules, but it doesn’t necessarily affect the outcome.
Building trust
Trusted relationships are built through delivery, not promises. Through the hard work of execution, and especially through how companies (and individuals!) behave and recover when things go wrong. Actual experience of what a supplier is like to work with is always more important than brand promise.
Two short stories illustrate how this can play out in practice.
A major financial services company put a near-$1Bn IT infrastructure outsourcing contract out to competitive tender. A buying group scored bids against agreed criteria; BAFOs were submitted. When the CIO reviewed the results, his preferred vendor was in third place. He invited that vendor back for a conversation and shared enough detail about the scoring to allow them to re-price and win. The process delivered the best commercial outcome. But the contract went to the most trusted vendor, whose relationship had been built over decades.
This can also happen in the public sector. A trusted vendor was invited to resubmit and restructure their bid after a conversation with the key decision-maker. Again, the RFP produced the best deal commercially. But the award went to the vendor who was always going to win unless they submitted a terrible bid (which does happen!).
Invest in relationships
In our account-based marketing work, we focus on the customers and future customers that matter most to out clients. The fractal 80/20 rule tends to hold: on average, around 3.5% of accounts drive 50% of revenue and a disproportionately higher share of profit. Because the number of customers is relatively small, organisations can deploy their most experienced client executives, best ABM practitioners, dedicated customer success and delivery professionals, and CEO-level and CEO-1 level engagement and sponsorship. The result is sustained investment in the relationships that build trust, between individuals first, and over time, between organisations committed to creating value for each other.
The strategic implication is clear: investing in trust-based relationships with the accounts that matter most is a more effective go-to-market approach than broad-based demand generation, where you are often too late to the party, even if you are tracking intent signals and your marketing message cuts through the noise. It requires aligning sales, marketing, customer success and executive leadership around a carefully prioritised set of customers and prospects.
So, if you’re wondering why Sales need a pipeline:revenue ratio of more than 5; why, notwithstanding, they keep qualifying out MQLs; why your win rate is stubbornly low; or why you keep forecasting deals that slip away at the eleventh hour, this is why: trusted relationships trump everything else.
If you want to hear more from Tim, read his previous article on why marketers really need to understand ‘the business’ to be truly valued.
