Gartner defines B2B marketing automation platforms (B2B MAPs) as software applications that support demand generation processes at scale. B2B MAPs help marketers capture and qualify leads and accounts, orchestrate marketing-driven engagement across the full customer journey, and use analytics to optimize and measure performance. B2B MAPs enable marketers to automate a wide range of activities intended to drive new customer acquisition, retention and growth. To support the pursuit of new commercial opportunities (from current or prospective customers), marketers use B2B MAPs to generate, prioritize, and manage leads and buying teams across the revenue life cycle. This includes the distribution of marketing-generated and qualified leads to sales teams for further pursuit.
Gartner defines business process automation (BPA) tools as software that automates business processes by enabling orchestration and choreography of diverse sets of actors (humans, systems and bots) involved in the execution of the process. BPA tools provide an environment for developing and running applications that incorporate process models (and optionally other business, decision and data models) enabling digitization of business operations
Gartner defines the CRM Customer Engagement Center market as a cohesive set of software built around core case management tools, used to provide customer service and support by engaging with customers, while intelligently orchestrating the processes, data, systems, and resources of an organization. CEC applications offer workflow management capabilities and may be used as a system of record for customer interactions. The orchestration of customer service and support processes through a CEC application involves both assisted and self-service moments within customer journeys. It is built around case management records and processes. Workflow is an important CEC component, in terms of an organization being able to orchestrate the processing of customer engagements for the best outcomes in an effortless, effective and timely way. In addition to case, workflow, and knowledge management, personalization and enrichment of customer engagements are crucial.
Gartner defines “CRM” as technologies or systems that enable a broader customer engagement business strategy. These systems span four major areas — sales, marketing, digital commerce, and customer service and support. Yet in the life science industry (that is pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and diagnostics organizations), CRM is synonymous with sales and field enablement systems, given their heavy reliance on a field-force-driven engagement model. These systems support the automation of sales activities and expert engagement for organizations’ sales professionals, key account managers, medical experts and field service personnel. These systems are also central to sales and medical teams responsible for raising therapeutic awareness, delivering educational content and influencing demand, as well as nurturing contracts with HCPs, healthcare organizations (HCOs) and other medical stakeholders. In addition, these systems provide servicing as a system of record and maintaining compliance with jurisdictional regulations for capabilities such as planning, enablement, execution and analysis processes.
Gartner defines enterprise low-code application platforms (LCAPs) as platforms for accelerated development and maintenance of applications, using model-driven tools for the entire application’s technology stack, generative AI and prebuilt component catalogs. Enterprise LCAPs target software engineering teams responsible for custom application development and maintenance. Enterprise LCAP features include support for the collaborative development of all application components; runtime environments for high performance, availability and scalability of applications; application deployment and monitoring with detailed usage insights. Enterprise LCAP platforms feature governance controls and success management through self-service capabilities and APIs, developer documentation and training, and service-level agreements for platform operations. Enterprise LCAPs provide the foundation for developing a wide range of application types and application components, including complex front ends, business process automation and distributed data sources.
As business processes become increasingly advanced, providers are creating reliable partnerships to scale profitable and growing markets in the PRM industry. Providers that have a large number of partnerships need assistance to reduce the administration complexities caused when working with each other. Hence, PRM software can play a vital role in reducing these business complexities. Partner relationship management (PRM) applications market as a set of tools used by providers to interact with their indirect channel partners on a one-to-one and one-to-many basis. PRM tools enhance communication, facilitate training, and support partner sales and marketing activities. PRM applications are used to help providers scale their partner programs and improve partner experience. PRM applications help organizations to simplify and integrate the process of working with partners, thereby providing partners with resources and efficient communication to increase sales on an organization’s behalf. PRM applications streamline both the management distribution and deal registrations to help reduce costs and labor involved. In parallel, they increase partner satisfaction and reduce channel conflicts.
Gartner defines sales force automation platforms as AI-augmented tools supporting automation and capture of sales activities, processes and administrative tasks, facilitating initiation, engagement and documentation of buyer-seller interactions through multiexperience and channel-agnostic approaches and devices. They leverage advanced analytics to support actionable insights, tracking and monitoring sales contact, pipeline and opportunity management; guided selling; and forecasting process execution. Optimal UX for sales managers or leadership extends beyond internal use cases, and is scalable to support buyer-seller intermediation and shared prospect/customer experiences. These platforms incorporate AI features beyond add-on products in predictive and prescriptive analytics, ML and NLP, enhancing processes and customer interactions. Sales force automation (SFA) is a foundational sales technology implemented to automate and augment an organization’s core sales processes. Leveraging AI and advanced analytics, it enhances the seller’s ability to engage with customers across various interaction touchpoints and devices. It not only streamlines administrative tasks, but also provides actionable insights for improved sales contact, pipeline and opportunity management.