Gartner has outlined the pivotal trends expected to influence technology providers throughout the year 2024.
Eric Hunter, Managing Vice President at Gartner, highlighted the profound impact of Generative AI (GenAI) on the strategies and operations of tech providers. The technology is reshaping growth trajectories, product strategies, and the daily tools utilized by tech associates.
While GenAI stands out as a transformative force, Gartner underscores that technology leaders are confronted with additional challenges. These include emerging points of friction in growth plans, new synergies in marketing and sales, and evolving relationships between technology and service providers (TSPs).
The implications of these trends prompt product leaders to navigate the delicate balance between short-term opportunities and long-term advantages, considering strategies aligned with economic recovery or recession. Gartner’s top trends for 2024 reflect the dualities inherent in these challenges.
Efficient Growth for High Tech
The buoyancy in IT spending over the past decade has buoyed high-tech companies. However, Gartner notes a shift away from the “growth at all costs” strategy, emphasizing the need for efficient growth. With macroeconomic uncertainties and increasing capital costs, tech providers are expected to focus on growth strategies that enhance current margins and pave the way for future revenue opportunities.
New Enterprise IT-Provider Relationships
The growing demands on enterprise IT necessitate deeper and faster coverage, straining IT capacity and capabilities. This trend prompts product leaders to forge new relationships and revenue opportunities within the enterprise, including expanded roles within enterprise IT, outcome-centric provider-enterprise relationships, and enterprise-wide tier-1 relationships.
Sustainable Business Grows Up
Sustainability efforts have traditionally focused on mitigating internal risks and ensuring compliance. However, Gartner advises product leaders to embrace double materiality and leverage emerging technologies holistically to meet sustainability objectives.
AI Safety
The rapid development of GenAI technologies has intensified discussions around responsible AI and AI safety. Product leaders are urged to build solutions incorporating safety principles, focusing on model transparency, traceability, interpretability, and explainability to preempt regulatory and compliance issues in the vibrant GenAI market.
Rising Buyer Pessimism
Changes in buyer behavior and outdated go-to-market models have led to negative sales pipeline effects. Gartner highlights the need for technology providers to adapt sales and marketing approaches to detect and respond to buyer pessimism to prevent the decline of their GTM operations.
Vertical Generative AI Models
Tech providers are advised to explore industry-focused models for specific user requirements, as opposed to general-purpose models, to enhance efficiency and avoid increased costs and complexity.
Personalized Marketplace Experiences
Digital marketplaces are emerging to simplify the procurement and integration of solutions. Gartner predicts that 80 percent of sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels by 2025.
Industry Cloud Delivers Growth
Gartner anticipates that more than 50 percent of tech providers will use industry cloud platforms to deliver business outcomes by 2027, up from less than 5 percent in 2023.
PLG and Value Converge for Hybrid GTM
Product-led-growth (PLG) is seen as effective in showing value to users, but Gartner emphasizes the need for a hybrid approach with value management initiatives as companies realize the limitations of a 100 percent self-serve GTM motion.
Precision Marketing and Sales
Advancements in technology, including GenAI, digital buying, and the metaverse, are reshaping how tech providers market and sell technology. Gartner warns that failing to adopt new approaches may lead to erosion of deal quality, loss of relevance, and limited growth within established accounts.
