Consumer-facing brands tend to have a distinct consumer profile, which can be adapted to suit digital demands without entirely disrupting the corporate communications function.

With this in mind, the roundtable discussion focused on the implications of digital disruption for B2B businesses specifically, and steps taken by various sectors to overcome this.

In-house communications experts looked at the implications of digital disruption on the industrial, manufacturing and engineering sectors, and the ways in which its effects can be mitigated.

Technologies are changing and developing at such a pace that it can be difficult for business models to adapt in the necessary ways. With the widespread use of smartphones, expansion of social media platforms and more sophisticated internal communications systems, the past decade in particular has seen a wider expansion of digital.

For companies, regardless of size, this has meant a wider search for appropriate communication systems and the need to adapt models. Potential threats to business goals were addressed, and changing audience needs call for a new approach in heritage sectors.

There is persuasive argument, however, that such adaptation is easier for communications professionals working in the B2C space.

With models varying vastly from their consumer counterparts, communications professionals working in the B2B space are presented with a vast array of potential issues.

Alan Cooper, owner, Freestyle Interactive, said these companies often lack a defined brand and engage their audience in a different way to B2C brands. On working with B2B businesses with a focus on stakeholder engagement, Cooper says, “When your audience is stakeholders and policymakers and people who are hard to reach, how do you measure whether what you have actually done is effective? How do you then go to your superiors and say I need to invest x amount of money on content or web or campaigns or events or PR?”

Yet the pressure of digital can also be considered an opportunity. Less commercially-appealing B2B brand can simplify content and present information to clarify its positioning through the clear use of tailored platforms. Corporate use of Twitter is cited specifically as changing the way B2B brands present themselves – it simply has to be concise, or an effective message will not be put across. Social media also allows B2B organisations to explore other, less rigid ways of marketing themselves.

Creating an emotional connection to the brand is another way in which B2B businesses ensure digital disruption has a minimum impact on their structures. This can often be developed from the bottom-up, in the research and development process. Ensuring a common thread runs through the brand development stage and into the communications strategy allows a customer, or website visitor, to marry the main brand touchpoints while benefitting from a unique digital experience.

Company and audience engagement is achieved, while informing internal communicators on how best to engage employees.

Storytelling, or getting behind the brand’s purpose, is of vital importance in ensuring the feeling of brand ownership is not limited to solely the company. The audience needs to feel it is being communicated to in a way that includes as well as informs – the use of video in particular is cited as an ideal way for the fundamentals behind a brand to be communicated.

An attendee from the Museum of London described the way in which the organisation used video to attract a corporate and consumer audience. He says, “We made a very successful video about the history of the three-piece because it was invented in London. So we created a suite of videos; on the one hand it seems to tell the story of the suits, and then means we can use them for the visitors, and say get behind this project. But then also to other audiences say, here is a compelling story. And I mean for us, if we’ve got a million views of video, that becomes a compelling story to B2B corporate audiences.”

Building on existing narrative to develop a strong corporate story is useful, given the success of a corporate brand usually rests on its interaction with investor, customers and consumers. Combining this with strategy ensures the business audience is targeted, without losing sight of the fundamentals behind the brand itself.

Through the use of analytics, digital allows business to monitor audience interactions and make the necessary adjustments. Segmentation tools are also imperative in a digitally disruptive world, looking not just at the status of people invested in digital communications, but also specific personality tropes.

Segmentation allows B2B organisations to identify specifically what is being bought, where, and by whom. Digital allows a business to target the high-spending end of this spectrum, and focus its content on ensuring this trend continues. A delegate notes, “It is the business’ own job to make sure that they explain very clearly what it is they do and differently to different audiences. Again, you can segment for the early stage before client relationship management (CRM) – before you know who these people. You can start predicting their behaviours and technology with CMS.”

However, it is not only clients that are integral to the successful functioning of a B2B brand. Engaging other stakeholders, including investors, as well as competitors, ensures communications strategies remain relevant, even as the business landscape shifts. For Freestyle Interactive, this means planning digital communications strategically, and almost futuristically, to ensure it is one step ahead of the B2B landscape trends. In terms of segmentation, transparency is key – this can mean moving away from previously relied-upon models such as attitudinal segmentation, which provides only a singular dimension on customer requirements.

It is not enough to simply rely on statistics to drive customer engagement, however.

During the roundtable discussion, time and again the importance of real people as well as data was emphasised. “People, process and technology” was cited as the triad upon which advancement in the face of digital disruption is based. As an attendee says, “If any one of those three are not in place, you can forget it. To have good data you use those foundational processes in place, you need to be timing your content, you need to have your own capture, all these basic things. You need the integration with CRM.”

Once this firm foundation is in place, a solid, integrated internal communications model can develop, particularly important for communications in business-to-business roles.

To enable this, hiring someone whose role is specifically to facilitate a smooth transition to digital-based platforms ensures a unified communications strategy is relayed across the employee network. This is an alternative to previous models, which perhaps relied on several distinct yet separate measurements, or communications platforms no longer resonant in an era of digital disruption.

In the industrial, mechanical and engineering sectors which are traditionally less digitally advanced than other professional services, this presents a wider challenge. The ability to use data effectively, particularly big data, requires an internal communications system which stitches together individual calculations intelligently and can in turn influence what a business offers to its audience. Cohesion is integral to establishing an effective digital communications strategy.

Social media is a factor often cited as a catalyst in the era digital disruption, with a rise unprecedented even to the most insightful tech experts. It has proven immeasurably useful for many sectors – but is often skewed in favour of areas which already have the infrastructure in place to facilitate an effective social media presence. Again, this is where B2C companies can use a consumer-facing brand to their advantage. Its target audience is much more likely to engage via social media, and when there is a team dedicate solely to this purpose.

For B2B, ensuring ‘everyone is a press officer’ when communicating the outward-facing brand can be considered the best way forward in the face of a wider struggle to engage stakeholders in social.

This is true for personal social accounts, as well as threads attributable to the company name. Endorsing and praising an employer brand is not only certification of good employer brand management, it also ensures channels not usually associated with B2B businesses are exposed to business interests.

For the manufacturing and engineering sectors in particular, it is key that communications infrastructure is relevant to the individuals employed, and the stakeholders targeted.

Digital disruption need is not necessarily a negative thing, and advancements in digital technology present opportunities and challenges to be embraced by organisations. Using digital assets in cohesive and original ways allows businesses to build models, which can in turn capitalise on future communications trends.