Buyers are now, more than ever, in control of the buying process. Gone are the days where you could phone somebody up, out of the blue, make a cold call and that person is going to buy something off the phone, or a series of telephone calls is going to help you sell across the phone. No,w information is so much more widely available out there on the internet that buyers are very much more in control. They can go away and do their research, they can look at some of the applications we've got on the slide here, they can better understand what other products are available on the market, which are the ones that recommended, how do they align, in terms of the recommendation and reviews in the market, and almost come to a shortlist ahead of any conversation with an individual or any companies that they might have on their shortlist.

So, this next slide that I'm just going to talk through, just alludes to that buyer's journey, and that kind of typical phasing that people go through, from a point of interest initially, where they're able to go and look on the internet at various people that offer the solution they're looking for. They can then learn about the various solutions that they have available to them in the marketplace, and evaluate what those solutions are. Probably, at that point of evaluation and justification, is where that hand-over process dips between marketing and sales, where 10 or 15 years ago, that process would have been further back in that buyer's journey, and potentially at the interest or learn stage. So what marketing automation really does, is move that hand-over point further down that buyer journey, and you can see some stats on the slide that approve that - 67% of the buyers journey is now done digitally, and 57% of the purchase decision is complete before a customer even calls a supplier.

So, from a marketing point of view, it really changes the goal posts in how you approach people and what you need to give to people to help them make that decision, to make sure you're included in that evaluation stage. And marketing automation, and the processes that we operate here, and others do in the market place, really allow you to serve that information out to people, that's relevant to them, at each point in the buyer's journey.