10 trends we’re predicting for tech partner marketing 2024

the one thing that won’t change, is constant change.

As Gartner notes ‘M&A remains a growth engine for most enterprises’ while in 2023 it’s estimated that ‘tech layoffs have surged past 240,000 globally’ with this trend predicted to continue into 2024. To some extent this is reported as part of a correction after tech companies hired in response to the digital acceleration we experienced at the height of the pandemic. That doesn’t make it any easier if you’re one of the people caught up in that ‘correction’. But wider trends are playing their part too, so we see this trend of change continuing throughout 2024. 

Cloud will continue to be a thing, but it won’t be a driver

Today, business customers aren’t interested in ‘cloud’ and all the cloud benefits they’ve heard before. They’re interested in moving faster, delivering better, spending less, and operating smarter. Consider these stats from McKinsey: 

• Only 10 percent of companies have fully captured cloud’s potential value, while another 50 percent are starting to capture it, and the remaining 40 percent have seen no material value. 
• Nearly 40 percent of companies now say “business value” determines which applications move to cloud—up from 27 percent in 2021 and 2022.  

The vendors and partners who pivot away from ‘we do cloud’ basic messaging to focus on how they deliver solutions that drive measurable value and specific improvements by using cloud as an element in their offering, will be the ones who win and grow market share. That means more of a shift in cloud providers, service providers and vendors having to partner up more aggressively to serve up unified, clear positioning together. 

You will need a position on AI, and it may not be the one you expect

AI is often misunderstood and fairly or not, has had a bad press in 2023. But AI is being used and continues to be extremely useful. And in May 2023 Gartner reported that ‘artificial intelligence (AI) was the top technology that CEOs believe will significantly impact their industry over the next three years. In 2024 we expect to see more of a shift away from tech providers promoting ‘out there’ AI (think emotional robots) and focusing more on practical AI applications (think insurance claim processing, where AI is already hard at work). AI will increasingly be part of most technology solutions at that practical, less controversial level, and much more ‘user friendly’ and embedded in a wider set of ‘everyday’ tools and functions. Differentiation will increasingly be driven by AI based technology, and service providers and partners will increasingly have to compete on their AI services and credentials. 

The dynamics of marketplaces will become an industry issue

Marketplaces are becoming a key channel for vendors and service providers to serve up ready-to-go applications and tools from partners to customers. In June 2023 Canalys predicted that by 2025, cloud marketplaces will grow to more than $45 billion – an 84% CAGR. Services are increasingly being added to the list as these platforms become the ‘place to shop’ for businesses wanting a simpler path to acquiring new technology and more control over the selection process. But marketplaces must be transparent and fair when it comes to who can offer services and solutions, while governing quality and ensuring offers are genuine. We expect to see this become a conversation that will gain much more traction in 2024, especially should regulators start to take a view. 

Budgets will be flat, putting MDF in the spotlight

Gartner has reported marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue slowly sliding since 2016. We predict in 2024 budgets will be fairly flat (representing a real-world reduction given inflation), and vendors will continue to look to partners to drive marketing efforts more, while partners continue to look to MDF as a way to bolster their own marketing budgets. But ongoing cuts and uncertainty from 2023 will put MDF spend under more of a spotlight and we expect to see much less flexibility or continued funding should MDF be unspent at the end of the period. Partners will also be under more scrutiny to show results from MDF spend versus evidence of spend. 

Vendors will shift sales strategy more towards channel to drive revenue and sales

M&A activity, headcount reductions and general attrition combined with a slowdown on tech spend overall is seeing sales and revenue chiefs look to the channel to drive sales momentum. The good news is that spending on technology seems to be stabilising into 2024, but according to Canalys “Partner-delivered IT technologies and services will account for more than 70% of the global total addressable IT market” during 2023 – so for vendors wanting a piece of any growth, partners will be strategically more vital than ever.  

Ability to report on ROI will determine which partners get prioritised

Securing accurate and meaningful marketing metrics has been a challenge for marketeers for a long time. Partner marketeers, having to rely on partners to provide them with the numbers they need, are facing an even bigger challenge, as we predict the need to report ROI vs marketing metrics will grow through 2024, as organisations look to prioritise and where to reduce expense. With Gartner reporting that investment in martech is under pressure, and that only 33% of martech stack capabilities are even being utilised in 20231, the tools to deliver accurate ROI numbers are not widely available. Partnering with organisations who can report accurately on ROI is likely to become a bigger factor for vendors in deciding who to work with and invest in over the next 12 months. 

Business buyers drive shift in technology marketing

The shift to technology being bought by business executives versus technology executives, who understand the bigger technology picture and technical terms, isn’t new. But come 2024 we believe rather than just acknowledging this, marketeers will be having to respond to this in their campaigns and sales support programs. A whole raft of new roles and persona’s now need to be targeted, with very different needs, key criteria and buying centres to the traditional “IT” audience. Partners who embrace this, and vendors who not just recognise but actively support a ‘business’ messaging and customer approach in 2024 will see the rewards and see faster growth and market share. 

ABM loses its novelty value

Are we suggesting ABM (Accounting Based Marketing) will cease?! No, but we do predict it will become more a standard fixture in integrated marketing rather than the ‘specialism’ it’s often been positioned as. ABM will grow–up in 2024, with partner and vendor marketing teams building on work done to hone and perfect their ABM efforts and conduct these jointly rather than as stand-alone efforts. At the same time, we expect to see more Partner Based Marketing – with vendors targeting those partners who are critical to their revenue targets more strategically and continuously. 

Ecosystem everywhere

Back in February 2023 Jay McBain at Canalys asked “Have the industry’s channel chiefs really moved to an ecosystem model?” (read the full piece here). The answer is ‘sort of’; most vendors and their partners are operating in an ecosystem marketplace whether they have acknowledged it as such or not. 2024 is the year when we will start to see this become a strategic focus for marketing. Trying to create messaging, campaigns, map customer journeys and so on is tough with two partners, now they need to consider on average seven partners involved (citing Mr. McBain in the above) with a customer and therefore part of the buying process. This will require a fundamental shift in how technology providers ‘do’ marketing, and we expect to see this shift start to become meaningful through 2024 with some challenging questions about how this changes the dynamics of partner marketing coming to the fore.