Technology vs. the human touch

Eddie Choi has posted some interesting thoughts over on his Marketing, Technology and Entrepreneurial Experience blog. The post is titled Private Label B2B and he's talking about the opportunities for competing in the B2B area with relatively simple and inexpensive technology tools.

I do like the concept of private label B2B he proposes for companies such as trade fair organisers. I don't agree with everything in the post and you can see comments on it at the bottom of Eddie's post. My concerns are focused on the capacity of technology alone to generate useful new B2B businesses.

I haven't yet come across a B2B business which can convert good technology into a great business without a number of other solid assets in place and without a substantial hands-on face-to-face sales effort. Even the most successful businesses out there are using pretty basic technology and I'm not sure they're any the worse for that. Mind you, some of the databases underpinning the big players are pretty good.

Great databases and strong sales teams. I suspect that's at the heart of good B2B media businesses in Asia just as much as elsewhere.