“Our Data Is Crap!” and Everything Else We Heard at the 2025 Forrester B2B Summit
Driverless taxis were on the roads - and uncertainty was in the air.
Ideas
VShift’s Eric Feige, Scott Santos and Su Strawderman recently returned from Forrester’s B2B Summit veritably buzzing about data, AI and the state of the enterprise marketing organization (spoiler alert: it’s in transition). We sat down with them to discuss these trends and more – and how businesses should approach the Age of Acceleration.
Q: Let’s start with the big picture. What did Forrester emphasize this year that really resonated with you?
Scott: Forrester unveiled a new framework called “buying networks.” They’re moving away from the more traditional concept of “buying groups,” which were mostly internal teams of decision-makers. Now, the buying network includes anyone who influences a purchase – internal SMEs, external voices, even what’s said about your product on LinkedIn or Reddit. It really expands the playing field. B2B sellers have to think way beyond personas and job titles. It’s about understanding the full web of influence around a purchase decision – and using that to your advantage.
Su: This shift requires real-time social listening, content atomization, and the ability to influence both direct and indirect players. ABM [account-based marketing] gets you part of the way there, but ABM doesn’t account for the network of influencers outside the org chart.
Q: How does this impact the way brands should market and sell?
Eric: It makes alignment and orchestration that much harder – and more important. If you’re not listening across channels, if you’re not ready to respond quickly with relevant content, then you’re not reaching the full buying network. It’s a big opportunity, but also a big operational challenge. And that’s where a lot of Forrester’s sessions on AI came into play. AI isn’t just an efficiency tool. It’s becoming essential to navigating complexity.
Q: Say more about AI.
Scott: It’s the old joke: Everyone’s talking about it, but most companies aren’t really doing it – not doing it well, in most cases. There’s a lot of “ready-fire-aim.” Tools are being launched before the organization’s prepared to use them. Data is messy. Teams are undertrained. And most people overestimate their own proficiency – the same way 100% of people rate themselves above-average drivers.
Su: I talked to several vendors who built niche AI features, only to be steamrolled when platforms added the same capabilities natively. We’re already in “second wave” territory – AI commoditization is happening fast.
Eric: And the big platforms are on a collision course. Salesforce and Adobe, for example, used to play in fairly distinct lanes – CRM vs. CMS, marketing ops vs. creative. But now, with AI, everyone’s platform can do everything. The tech landscape is getting blurrier by the day.
Q: That sounds like a recipe for confusion.
Eric: It is. There’s a lot of complexity and noise. And that’s why the biggest takeaway for me was this: Companies don’t just need new tech – they need help navigating what’s already out there. Forrester laid out the problem well. But the solution isn’t more theory. It’s practical, adaptive partnership.
Scott: Totally agree. I kept hearing: “We don’t know what to do next.” Companies have data issues, AI pressure from leadership, budget uncertainty and legacy platforms slowing them down. They’re not looking for a PowerPoint AI “vision.” They’re looking for a partner to help them move today.
Q: This sounds like what I’ve heard you call “advisorship.” Strategy plus hands-on, real-time execution and support.
Scott: Exactly. Big consultancies have traditionally owned that “trusted advisor” role. But what businesses are asking for now is different. They need a partner that can zig when they zig, work side-by-side and help them pivot fast as conditions change.
Su: Our clients used to bring us these massive decks – "thunk decks," we called them. Hundreds of slides from a top-tier consultancy, and they'd say, “I just spent a million bucks on this ... Now what do I do?” They need strategy and execution, together. It's exactly the same today.
Eric: Doing is the strategy now. In a world where change happens daily, the best way to learn is by building, testing, adapting. That’s how teams become AI-literate. That’s how they figure out what works.
Q: One of you mentioned data earlier. What is the state of data, according to Forrester?
Scott: In a word: Painful. Here’s a direct quote: “Our data is crap!” I heard versions of that more than once. People want to activate AI, but their data’s stuck in silos, locked in legacy systems, or just plain messy. And IT can’t move fast enough to fix it. So they’re asking, “What’s the interim fix? How do I clean up just enough to do something meaningful now?” That’s a real space for value – helping clients get the right data ready for a particular job at hand, not chasing perfection.
Q: It sounds like the conference reflected the tension we’re seeing elsewhere.
Eric: Definitely. We’ve got economic uncertainty, budget pressure, platform confusion and rising expectations – all at once. But every executive still has the mandate to deliver results.
Su: Cost pressure, constrained budgets and uncertainty are turning 2025 plans and roadmaps on their heads. Quick pivots to efficient yet impactful approaches to marketing and sales plans are needed. That’s why I keep coming back to the idea of partnership. Not as a slogan, but as a mindset. Our job isn’t to drop a plan and disappear. It’s to walk with the client, help them adjust in real time and build what actually works. It’s to cut through the noise. Help clients see what matters, build momentum, and keep moving – even when the road ahead isn’t totally clear.
Scott: The market’s looking for partners who understand complexity, move fast and bring both strategic clarity and hands-on help. That’s a rare combination – but it happens to be where VShift lives.
VShift is a digital strategy, design and technology agency for enterprise-scale brands in regulated industries.