Millennials Drive B2B eProcurement Adoption

Much has been said about Millennials as B2C consumers, but what about Millennials as B2B buyers? Take note, payments industry professionals: Millennials are the future of procurement management, and meeting their needs with the right products, services, and payments solutions requires a deep understanding of how they make decisions and the tools they use to make them. Let’s take a look at what the research is telling us today.

Snapshot of the Millennial B2B Buyer

A recent Sacunas study provides targeted insight into the next generation of B2B buyers—professionals ages 20 to 35, born between 1979-1995. About one-third (34%) of the Millennials surveyed are the sole decision-makers when it comes to sourcing and purchasing for their companies, with another one-quarter (24%) sharing in decision-making responsibilities.

Over time, these workers will represent a greater and greater proportion of company leadership, so it’s important to get in on the ground floor of understanding what’s driving their purchase decisions. Not surprisingly, digital resources play a significant role.

In fact, 56% of Sacunas’ survey respondents indicate that digital channels are the most important when researching new product or services. When asked to specify the one most important source of information, the breakdown looks like this:

• Search engine – 25%
• Supplier website – 20%
• Social media platform – 11%

That’s not to say they don’t value the non-digital. Seventeen percent (17%) consider a peer or colleague as their most important source of information, or even a sales person (12%), an industry publication (11%), or a trade show (4%). The take-away here is that companies seeking business from this segment of decision-makers need to deliver a strong web-based presence—filled with compelling, on-demand resources—alongside more traditional sales and marketing support services.

In other words, these buyers prefer a more B2C interaction, preferring a level of self-service over a more person-to-person approach. This fits together with research from the IBM Institute for Business Value finding that 69% of Millennials say that while they meet with vendors face-to-face today, they would rather communicate over email (69%) or the phone (62%) in the future.

Attracting Millennials to Your B2B Offerings

Here are the best practices for business development among the growing numbers of Millennial B2B buyers:

Keep the Mobile Services Coming. Whether they’re at the office or traveling for work (or let’s face it, sitting on the couch at home), tomorrow’s procurement managers have their smartphones in-hand—and they’re using them for work-related productivity. The lion’s share (82%) of those surveyed by Sacunas say that mobile devices are important to the research process. But it’s not just Millennials who are connecting via mobile—and they’re not just doing research: according to a recent Google/Millward Brown Digital survey, there has been a 91% growth in B2B researchers (again, not just Millennials) using mobile devices in every stage of the purchase path.

Make it Social. Millennials—especially the youngest ones—commonly turn to social media to learn about B2B brands. Eighty-five percent (85%) of Sacunas survey respondents say they use social media sites to research and procure products for their business. And when asked what one social media channel they use most, the largest portion (40%) say Facebook.

Provide Multimedia Content. When Sacunas asked which one content format is most important when researching a new product or service for their company, the largest portion (29%) chose video—over case studies, white papers, and even webinars and infographics. Plus, they’re responsive to training and demos as the preferred way to receive relevant information about products and services they’re considering for purchase.

Take a look at who’s making decisions on behalf of your B2B partners—chances are getting stronger every day that you’ll come face-to-face (digitally or otherwise) with a Millennial. And tomorrow? If your organization is not already using technology to facilitate the procurement process—from research through payment—you should be. The articles Payments Professionals’ Digital Priorities for 2016 and Establishing Value: Account Payables’ Tech Priorities for 2016 will give you more insights into digital strategy.

And to learn more about Millennials’ role in the payments industry, check out Millennials: How They Pay Today, The Millennial Generation is Shaping the Future of Payments, and Millennials: Eager Road Warriors?.