Innovation in Business-to-Business Marketing

Unprecedented advances in the pace of information and communication technologies have transformed how B-to-B firms approach their markets and conduct business (Gupta and Woodside 2006). As a result, new business models are adopted by B-to-B firms from a wide variety of industries, e.g. banking, insurance, consultancies, transport, advertising and marketing agencies, and e-retailing industry. For example, Amazon, initially a B-to-C firm, has become a platform for the sale of goods from other suppliers, as well as a cloud-services platform used by many banks. Such innovation in B-to-B marketing translates a shift in a firm’s vision, mission, strategies, technological prowess and market performance (Simmons, Palmer, and Truong 2013). To-date, B-to-B research has examined the success factors for B-to-B firms, but with less attention being paid to innovation per se in B-to-B marketing (Aarikka-Stenroos et al. 2017). This has resulted in limited knowledge of the new business models adopted by B-to-B firms as well as their B-to-B marketing strategy, and this could affect the theory and practice of B-to-B marketing (Rodriguez 2016). The need to address innovation in B to B marketing provides the topical basis for this issue of the Journal of Business to Business Marketing. Against this background, the development of this issue is inspired by both the aforementioned advances and incubated at the 4th Academy of Marketing B-to-B Marketing Colloquium organized in Bournemouth, UK, 6th October 2017. This issue in “Innovation in Business to Business Marketing,” itself an innovation was developed further and primarily by Nektarios Tzempelikos (Anglia Ruskin University, Lord Ashcroft International Business School) and Kaouther Kooli (Bournemouth University, Business School) in tandem with JBBM guidelines and Editorial guidance over most of 2018. And, as a result, seven (7) articles discussing the latest thinking about aspects of innovation in business-to-business marketing are presented. Specifically, the main objective was to continue the dialogue on how innovations can be embedded in B-to-B marketing practices and how to make research focusing on this topic more relevant and rigorous. We next elaborate on the specifics of these articles herein. At this point, we would like to express appreciation to David Lichtenthal, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing Editor for welcoming this idea and for kindly allowing us to develop it and co-editing based on the community of scholars that assembled at 4th Academy of Marketing B-to-B Marketing Colloquium organized in Bournemouth, UK, 6th October 2017. Their participation and engaging on these innovation matters were paramount. After all, the birth of commercial education itself can be legitimately traced to England and several countries in Europe (Backhaus 2015; Baker 2015) with rollout to the States, Canada and Asia then and beyond (Lichtenthal, Tzempelikos, and Tellefsen 2018, 41–42). And, as the readers of this journal may recall the JBBM had a dedicated issue on “Internet Integration into Business Markets” (https://www.tandfonline. com/toc/wbbm20/11/1-2?nav=tocList). Those eight (8) papers in 2004 were among the earliest attempts within B to B literature to better understand and explain internet and web-based resources impacting tactical marketing building that theme made by (Lichtenthal and Eliaz 2003; Sharma 2002; Sharma and Sheth 2004) and many others at that time with JOURNAL OF BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS MARKETING 2019, VOL. 26, NOS. 3–4, 229–232 https://doi.org/10.1080/1051712X.2019.1611068