In last quarter’s journal Jos Brenkel, Global Head of Sales Strategy and Operations, noted that the reinvent credo of the new HP Inc. was not just about products, but about process as evidenced by HP’s fully redesigned channel strategy. HP Social Media Center, part of the new HP sales portal, makes it easier for our partners to share HP’s innovation with their customers for better business outcomes. It provides partners with support and resources to help them thrive in the new world of social business. Greater online visibility and engagement means a greater opportunity for customers to find partners with the solutions and expertise they need to achieve desired business outcomes.

The Art of Selling has gone digital, and B2B commerce is fundamentally changing. The customer journey has migrated online: sixty-seven percent of purchase decisions are now made before the buyer ever makes contact with a sales rep. Seventy-two percent of B2B customers research solutions via social media. To have a presence in that crucial awareness-consideration-decision journey, HP and their partners need to meet customers where they are. This retooling may be a challenge, but this move to social business has as many advantages for partners as for customers. In these relatively early days, 78 percent of sales people leveraging social media are outselling their peers, and they’re connecting with customers who have significantly higher budgets. Social selling is here to stay, and HP’s transformation of the sales process is aimed squarely at equipping our partners to better serve our customers.

The next transformational leap in B2B commerce is imminent: robot to robot, AI-driven negotiation. Does that sound implausible? Consider how the accelerating trajectory of technology has offered buyers and sellers new ways to efficiently close deals. As far back as 1991, scientific papers were predicting negotiation planning via artificial intelligence. Fast forward to Facebook‘s recent investment in chat-bot technology to help businesses answer customer inquiries, provide information, and facilitate transactions. Granted, AI and bots in commerce are in their infancy, but Gartner has predicted that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with ano hip. If you are not present and active in the social space, you’ ll be outsold. The good news is that by building an active digital presence now, HP and partners are forging connections with highly engaged customers, pre-, during, and post-sale. This will help customers and partners accelerate their growth today and in the AI and bot-driven world of tomorrow.

HP has launched the Social Media Center - our commitment to ensuring that partners and customers connect in this vibrant marketplace.

It’s an offering unmatched elsewhere in the industry: a rich resource to help partners increase their visibility and reputation online.

In the initial U.S. pilot program for HP Social Media Center, one partner reported a 400 percent increase in customer impressions (from 4,000 to 16,000), and more than 2000 new profile views in less than a month. This is a great result for the partner but also for customers, who can more easily find trusted partners and solutions to their biggest challenges.

HP Social Media Center is a reservoir of curated content that partners can publish to their own channels. It spans four key areas of focus: mobility, security, education, and healthcare. There is both industry and HP specific content, in materials that include white papers, business cases, customer stories, infographics and articles that partners can use to showcase their expertise and the power of HP solutions.