What Every Go-to-Market Leader Should Know from Forrester’s Latest B2B Summit in London

Picture of Marcus Hiles

Marcus Hiles

SVP, Strategy

Last week’s 2025 Forrester B2B Summit EMEA underscored a major shift in how buying happens, how influence works, and how organisations must reorganise to stay ahead.

As a speaker, I had the privilege of going along and listening in to what the other experts were saying.

Below are the key implications for marketing, sales, and customer success leaders.

The Just Global case study session at the Forrester B2B Summit EMEA 2025. From left to right: Marcus Hiles SVP of Strategy at Just Global, Jen Papineau VP of Demand Gen + Events Cloudera, Krystina Harrison Senior Director of Customer Success at Bombora.

The rise of the buyer network

One of the most consequential shifts revealed at the summit is the expansion of the ‘buyer group’ into a broader ‘buyer network’ – a collection of internal stakeholders, external influencers, AI agents, and customer advocates.

  • In large enterprise B2B deals, Forrester now sees ~13 internal roles plus external influences (analysts, partners, peers) contributing to decision making.
  • This external dimension matters: buyer AI, social influencers, industry analysts, partner networks, and customer advocates all now shape perceptions, options, and risk assessments.
  • AI agents (or generative AI tools) are increasingly doing research on behalf of human buyers, sometimes without a user ever clicking through a website, fueling so-called ‘zero-click’ trends.

Implication: You no longer only market to individuals, you must structure programs that influence the networked ecosystem around buying decisions.

Buyers demand power, transparency, and control

Throughout the summit, several recurring buyer-centric insights emerged.

  • 85% of buyers report some displeasure with part of the buying experience, with the vendor they choose. There’s a clear dissatisfaction with the process.
  • There’s also been a generational change. Millennials now dominate the workplace (56%), and Gen Z is emerging (8%). These cohorts expect seamless, self-service, AI-enabled, and digitally fluent experiences.
  • Because buyers use genAI to compare vendors or aggregate insights, parts of the vendor’s website or content might never be seen. The AI’s ‘impression’ is as important as human touchpoints.

Implication: Sales and marketing hold less absolute control. Think of your role as shaping trust, signal, and credibility, and ensuring your brand is encoded into the buyer’s AI and network logic.

Integrated revenue execution becomes essential

Given the complexity of buyer networks and fragmented influence paths, a siloed approach to marketing, sales, and customer success is no longer tenable.

The summit spotlighted the need for unified models and cross-functional discipline.

  • Many sessions emphasised shifting from lead-centric models (MQL → SQL) to a full opportunity lifecycle view that spans acquisition, conversion, retention, and expansion. A revenue process transformation.
  • To align is to differentiate. Companies that align incentives, metrics, governance, and operations across revenue functions will navigate buyer complexity more effectively.
  • For instance, Palo Alto Networks, one of our clients, shared their revenue process transformation journey, which places greater focus on buyer groups, doubling the average deal size and improved cross-functional collaboration between BDR and sales teams. This has resulted in sales accepting 25% more opportunities.

Implication: Success demands that marketing, sales, and customer success fuse into a revenue engine, with shared KPIs, synchronised workflow, and mutual stake in outcomes.

A note from a growth services provider

Joining Trilliad in 2024 meant joining the world’s first growth services provider. Just Global is now part of a group alongside brands specializing in Sales, Technology, and Customer Success. Together we bridge the gap between the offices of the CMO and CRO.

See the sort of value this brings. Get access to the latest research report produced by Trilliad.

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AI is both tool and terrain

Generative AI and AI agents were mainstream topics. The future buyer is aided by AI; vendors must respond not just with AI tools, but AI-aware strategy.

  • 94% of buyers now incorporate generative AI into their buying journeys. Yet only 19% of B2B companies report using genAI at scale in production across sales/marketing functions.
  • The summit encouraged a posture of being ‘AI-powered, not AI-first’, i.e. use AI to enhance buyer experience rather than let AI dictate it.
  • AI tools and agents must be understood as participants in the buyer network, they require optimised content, context, and interfaces.

Implication: AI is part of your go-to-market architecture. You must design for it, train it, and feed it. But don’t let it erode human relationships and strategic judgement.

Operational rigour and adaptability matter more than ever

Underlying all the big themes was a call to sharpen execution. Strategy alone isn’t sufficient if the operations can’t flex, coordinate, and scale.

  • Many growth leaders noted that while budgets are increasing modestly or flat, their focus is squarely on improving operational processes, removing friction, accelerating cycles, and enabling agility.
  • Several breakouts emphasised that operational excellence is also a trust signal. When marketing doesn’t support critical deals, or sales see shifting definitions, alignment erodes.

Implication: Build feedback loops, cross-functional cadences, and treat operations as a growth lever, not just a support function.

Craft and connect.

If relevance is crucial to what your content is saying, what about how you’re saying it?

The old ‘message before medium’ mantra comes into play here. Decide on your content channel or format after you’ve decided what the content is saying. Choose the channel that fits the audience. Consider interactive content to encourage engagement. Craft your message right and tell a story.

At the end of the day, people don’t remember stats, they remember stories. The campaigns that cut through aren’t the ones that read like a 100-page instruction booklet for a complicated electronics purchase. They’re the ones that connect, entertain, and inspire.

If your content can make someone feel something – recognition, urgency, curiosity – you’ve already won half the battle.

My advice: the horizon you must build for

The Forrester B2B Summit EMEA was less about incremental trends and more about a tectonic shift. Buyer networks are the new norm, and the old models of demand and lead funnel and handoffs are under strain.

To thrive, go-to-market leaders must:

  1. See the full network of influence and design to it
  2. Realign functions around shared objectives, not siloed KPIs
  3. Embrace AI as a participant and enabler
  4. Execute with rigour, flexibility, and cross-team discipline

If your company is still operating as separate marketing, sales, and customer success siloes, the world that’s emerged from this summit will penalise that separation. But those who unify, instrument, and execute with clarity and coherence will win.

Marcus and the global strategy team are here to support with your growth challenges. Get in touch to book time with them here.

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