Insights and Research for Marketing, Sales Development and Sales

At the end of every year, TOPO reviews the data we’ve gathered through client interactions and industry surveys to analyze trends and make predictions for the coming year. What sets TOPO apart is that we work with high-growth organizations, meaning the data we review is from businesses that are often far ahead of typical companies. We monitor the early adopters of many innovative technologies and processes, which gives us a unique perspective into what other organizations can expect to happen.

With that, we give you our top six trends and top 10 predictions for 2020.

TOP 6 BUSINESS TRENDS

1. The revenue process emerges—with a revenue operations mindset in tow. A data-driven, end-to-end approach enables better targeting, more flexibility, and greater coordination across functions.
2. The alignment of everything is here. An effective revenue process requires alignment of experiences, operations, technology, metrics, and data.
3. Organizations are embracing complex go-to-market models. Combining volume, account based, and other approaches in novel ways yields better results.
4. Delivering extreme value quickly is imperative in today’s undifferentiated, crowded buying environment. Personalization, high-value outreach, and new selling techniques drive greater engagement among prospects.
5. Organizational designs are changing. New approaches to segmentation, enablement, and more are transforming how sales and marketing do business.
6. Sales productivity is a top organizational priority. High-growth companies harness technology and business processes to make sellers more effective.

TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

1. Consolidation will continue as point solutions get eaten by platforms. Investment trends and business needs promote the ongoing consolidation of technologies.
2. The slowdown of Seed and Series A funding will continue. VCs’ reluctance to fund new companies has implications on tech innovation.
3. VC-backed winners at Series B and higher will continue to receive funding to go big or go home. In the world of marketing and sales tech startups, to the victors go the spoils.
4. Intent data will continue to grow like wild. Look for this market to grow by 100% and have three times as many vendors in 2020.
5. The shakeup of marketing automation is coming. New expectations have created openings for new market entrants.
6. Data platforms + workflow automation = the coming market disruption. Within the next four years, the winners will be those who hold the data and use it to streamline marketing and sales workflows.
7. Early adopters will use AI to automate marketing, orchestration, SDR, and sales tasks. Machine learning and other AI will incrementally transform daily workflows.
8. The sales enablement platform category will continue its rapid growth. Companies continue to get smarter about making reps more effective at delivering value.
9. Conversation data will become more and more useful. This hot market will grow 2 to 2.5x in 2020.
10. The opportunity management category will break out in the next two years. This evolving market will grow 2.5x in 2020.

Want to look deeper into TOPO’s crystal ball for 2020? Contact the TOPO team at research@topohq.com.