Why B2B2C Will Create the Next Big Wave in Entrepreneurship Businesses in the B2B2C segment have always been about supporting other businesses

The global COVID-19 pandemic has been a universal leveller. Businesses of every scale, across every industry, have been severely affected. Governments around the world are putting together bailouts worth trillions of dollars to keep businesses afloat. The atmosphere is palpable: In these trying times, organizations are moving towards cooperation, not competition to get to the other side of this crisis intact.

Businesses in the B2B2C segment have always been about supporting other businesses. In these times, B2B2C firms stand to benefit from unprecedented growth opportunities. Here's why B2B2C is set to create the next big wave in entrepreneurship.

Immediate needs: businesses everywhere need support to eliminate lag time

Businesses need help right now. The move to a fully work-from-home environment has not been easy for a number of firms. Businesses that didn't invest heavily in IT infrastructure and training will find that they have urgent functional support needs and now when it comes to supporting end clients. B2B2C firms play a critical role here in picking up functional roles while businesses develop these skillsets internally.

For instance, retailers who focus on conventional media advertisements, for instance, will need to shift quickly to digital strategies, focusing on social media and online ads. Hiring a B2B2C communication firm to handle digital marketing strategy and content is the best possible stopgap while building these skill-sets internally.

Moving towards a collaborative business environment

Even after the lockdowns and social distancing mandates lift, it's important to keep in mind that the post-COVID business environment is a substantially different place from before. Every business has different skill sets, different experiences and different approaches to problems. In earlier times, a brute force approach was viable: if you don't have a competency in-house, you just invest in the talent and the resources needed and build that competency from the ground up. This, however, resulted in the reduplication of talent, functional roles, and effort across the industry on a whole, with construction companies making social media hires and oil and gas firms investing in artificial intelligence.

In today's world, resources are constrained across the board, making collaboration the best answer moving forward. When post-COVID businesses face challenges that they can't deal with in-house, we expect many to turn to B2B2C solution providers to deliver agile, expert solutions that cost less.

The trust barrier and identity

Before the pandemic, a major challenge B2B2C firms faced was breaking the trust barrier. A company's brand and reputation—how their clients see them—is arguably its most important asset. Many firms were averse to working with a B2B2C partner because there were no guarantees that the quality and approach would measure up to their brand standards. Today, though, businesses across the world are facing a dire shortage of talent across roles. Not every business has the ability to migrate to a pure-play digital work environment. In this situation, the options are often to work with a B2B2C partner or not to deliver the product or service at all. Businesses are being forced to break that trust barrier and what they've found is that, more often than not, reliable B2B2C partners deliver quality solutions that measure up to their—and their clients'—standards.

Conclusion

Today, we live in a world of less. The global economy's all but ground to a standstill. In these dire times, as businesses look to support each other to survive, B2B2C offers firms a unique opportunity: collaborate with others, build together, align competencies, and forge resilient partnerships capable of withstanding any Black Swan event.