Critical Content Opportunity: Transition Guides
As we enter 2025, there are less opportunities for truly greenfield deployments of technology. Between maturing markets, incremental innovation, and even AI fervor, many, if not the majority of buying situations will involve some form of replacement. (I cover this for clients in research that just published. You can find it here.).
What that research highlights is both the opportunity and challenges of replacement opportunities. For me, the most fascinating element of the analysis was this.
Replacement buyers demonstrate all of the behaviors of effective buyers (orgs most likely to have no regret), but their results don't match.
These replacement buyers are thorough and focused, but they have similar issues after purchase that we see with buyers that have high regret and put in much less effort.
What does this mean? To me, it's clear. Replacements are hard and providers and partners aren't doing enough to make it easier. I often say that the biggest driver of regret is not the product, it is the buying experience. But for replacements, it actually seems to be the "product."
This is where the real opportunity lies. Providers that take a "whole replacement" approach (playing off of Whole Product from Crossing the Chasm) will be the big winners in replacement markets.
Whole replacement means you are providing tools, support, and guidance to address all aspects to make the replacement successful, with as little pain as possible.
A key component of this is something I will call a "Transition Guide." Migration guides have been around for years. Whether migrating across major releases or in some targeted replacement programs, these often focus heavily on the technical aspects of moving data and capabilities from old to new.
But that is not enough.
A transition guide tells the whole story, including how to help users move from old to new. Imagine having a set of simple "Do this, not that" guides (in the spirit of the books on nutrition). Or, suggestions for new things to try (in the context of specific work scenarios). And guidance on suggested transition paths.
Anything you can do to build confidence and reduce uncertainty will have a big impact.
Being specific and focused is an big opportunity for providers in 2025 and beyond. And it can pay dividends beyond replacements, as many of the transition guide ideas would be helpful for new purchases as you ease uncertainty in the transition from status quo to the new world.
The opportunities are there for the taking, grab them.
Principal Consultant - Digital Business Advisory
5moHank Barnes, I've witnessed the demand for a trilogy of how-to guidance content: 1) How to buy the solution that's aligned with desired business outcomes; 2) How to deploy apps effectively using peer group customer prior lessons learned; 3) How to create the perfect environment for maximum end-user adoption and resulting ROI. Each guide begins as a foundational template and is customized to align with the customer's industry-specific needs and use case(s) scenario. How-to checklists can also be used to demonstrate the vendor's ability to add value, and enable the buying committee to mentally prepare for an end-to-end methodology where these guides are actionable 'value creation' components. That said, most tech vendor's professional service organizations are not providing these resources. So, I agree with your assessment that it's an untapped opportunity. When done well, the buying, deployment, and value realization experience can reduce the likelihood of post-implementation transition regret.
IoT Technology Partnerships Leader / AI-LLM Tech Advisor-Analyst / Venture Capital Partner
5moNot even for Decision Intelligence solutions, which almost nobody has!?!?? 😜
CRO @ Consensus | Product Experience Platform | "Make Enterprise Buying Easy"
5moWow, I haven’t see a data point like this. That’s powerful Hank Barnes!
I could tell a story from 30+ years ago in which my company attempted to implement a wonderful, new, client/server-based document imaging and workflow application at a company whose users (1) had previously only worked on 3270 terminals and (2) were used to being given work to do instead of going and picking it from a queue. Needless to say, the implementation was a disaster, not because the tech didn't work, but because their processes changed overnight and they weren't ready. We are set to see this happen again with agents and agentic technologies. Because agents change the nature of the work itself, it's not enough to prepare only for the tech; new people, less people, changed processes, and new methods could destabilize an organization. OR, if the tech isn't implemented after reconsidering how the processes COULD work, the risk is that of simply repaving the cowpath and not realizing the gains that execs might expect.