Dive Brief:
- While enterprises are more likely to purchase software from a third-party marketplace than in years past, companies still heavily rely on vendor websites in the planning stages, according to the 2022 G2 Software Buyer Behavior Report released last week.
- Enterprise respondents who prefer to use third-party marketplaces to acquire software went up 10 percentage points from last year. The company surveyed 1,002 B2B decision makers.
- The slight shift in the point of purchase could be related to a disconnect between buyers and vendors. Half of respondents said they couldn’t locate credible content related to vendor offerings and specifics related to their industry, according to the report.
Dive Insight:
Driven by inflation and higher labor costs, many SaaS providers, including Microsoft and Slack, hiked their prices in 2022. As a response businesses are looking for ways to optimize spending — through contract negotiations or reevaluating their software needs with the help of marketplaces or review websites.
A little more than 10% of respondents in a Gartner survey identified marketplaces as the most valuable ally when considering the impacts of inflation or recession, according to Stephen White, senior director analyst at Gartner.
While the use of marketplaces to cut costs isn’t widespread, enterprises can benefit from them in specific cases.
“There is a link between marketplaces, the composable enterprise and composable app model, enabling potentially convenient access to APIs and tools,” White said. “Customers are more likely to find infrastructure and operations services in marketplaces than end-user applications.”
Marketplaces can also help businesses obtain software when speed is a necessity, according to White. The G2 report found that almost half of enterprise respondents used credit cards to purchase software, a payment method usually saved for cheaper tools that might not require procurement.
As skills gaps have become more apparent, businesses can turn to tech to fill those gaps. The speed at which software can be bought on marketplaces provides a solution for businesses trying to fill the gaps.
