IT Consumerization: The Failed Internet Business Model

Consumerization of IT

A few years ago a new business model for B2B had emerged onto the market: Consumerization of IT.
Just like consumerization happened for mobile devices pushing companies to buy smartphones, the same would apply to software.
The concept was by getting enough consumers as users which will create interest in the media, the software/web service would trickle over into the enterprise world – even into Fortune 500 companies.
Several start-ups started to build web services that where well-designed and easy to deploy. This allowed them obtaining large shares of consumers these services were based upon the Freemium model: a free basic version and a paid subscription for more features or more space.

B2B Sales Cycle

Although many employees are using these web services at home and even in their work environment (as long as IT isn’t aware), resulting in pop-and-mom and very small companies to embrace these web services (paid or not), the sales to enterprises and large corporations never happened.
The sales cycle in B2B still requires sales reps, salesmen, product marketers and enterprise grade marketing.
Moreover the requirements of consumers don’t match the requirements of enterprises having Active Directory, LDAP, Oracle or IBM DB2 requirements.

Dropbox, Yammer, Box and many others can testify about this failed business model.

Internet and websites have changed the business of most companies, especially in lead generation, however not for closing the deals as the salesman is still required in B2B.

What’s your B2b business model?
How many sales reps or salesmen do you have ?