By Alice Deer, Co-founder at GatherContent by Bynder - Content Operations and Workflow
Scott Brinker, also known as Chief Martech, joined us for a recent member call on the 2nd age of Martech
We’ve been going through a huge shift in martech.
There’s no longer the need to pick between siloed best of breed (multiple platforms that need heavy configuration to work together) or a suite with all-in one capabilities. As Chief Martech Scott Brinker, said in a recent member call, it used to be an ‘x or y’ decision, but that’s now changing.
To quote:
The 2nd Age of Martech has arrived, and it’s all about convergence in ecosystems.
Scott Brinker is VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, Editor at chiefmartec.com and a selfproclaimed armchair analyst.
After an initial display of the seemingly ever expanding Martech map, he moved onto outlining the 2nd age of marketing.
The 2nd age of Martech is about going from silos to symbioses
What does the 2nd age of Martech mean to customers?
With the rise of platform ecosystems, customers can have both the best of breed, market leading solutions (no reinventing the wheel or intensive bespoke development needed) with the customisation and configurability that comes from connecting into a diverse platform ecosystem. An ‘x and y’ decision.
This is all driven by the rapid rate of change and innovation in the market. Particularly as Scott said:
“In the cloud, with APIs, everything is adjacent to everything else. There are no boundaries anymore.”
Scott most recently presented to our community in person in 2019. Among the topics back then were departments going rogue and some group discussion on where Martech is on the hype cycle
Anyone in digital transformation is aware, organisations aren’t able to change anywhere near as fast as the tech is- hamstrung by people and process (no surprises here!!!), but as Scott advised the best leaders are seizing opportunities to innovate in two important ways:
By intentionally working to be more agile than competitors on the rate of change, and
A strong focus on peer learning/community
At Bynder, I’ve personally been witnessing this convergence happening with the acquisition of GatherContent by Bynder earlier in the year, and the strategic focus on core digital asset management at the heart of our customers’ connected ecosystem.
Such an exhilarating time to be in this space.
Learn more about the 2nd age of MarTech
At a peer group meeting back in Boston in 2016, Scott gave a talk that also covered innovation and scalability
Scott shared his initial thinking on this back in August in a longer blog post titled: The 2nd Age of Martech has arrived, and it’s all about convergence in ecosystems. As he writes:
“While massive consolidation in the martech landscape has not yet materialized — and given current software dynamics in the cloud, it seems unlikely to shrink to a handful of vendors in this decade — we are seeing convergence in this 2nd Age of Martech. The industry is converging around platform ecosystems, where the lines between services and software and between custom and commercial are blurring into the cloud.
This convergence is much more transformative than consolidation ever could be.”
In the Q&A during the call, Scott’s advice to vendors was to focus less on analyst quadrants and more on solving customer problems.
The conversation naturally continues in our peer groups and at our upcoming Boye conferences. Why not join us and be a part of it?
Finally, you can also download the slides (PPT) or lean back and enjoy the 30-minute recording from the call.