Q&A with B2B Research Project finalist, PSB Insights and SAP Concur
Editor’s note: PSB Insights and SAP Concur are finalists of the 2025 B2B Research Project award, a category in the Marketing Research and Insight Excellence Awards. The winners of the awards will be announced on November 19 during a virtual celebration. To find out more about the awards, visit QuirksAwards.com.
SAP Concur was faced with the challenge of understanding its consumers' purchase journey in a fast and cost-effective way. However, a traditional segmentation study was not feasible due to cost, rigidity and the constraints of B2B.
PSB Insights, in partnership with SAP Concur, developed what they called “journey MaxDiff,” combining two MaxDiff exercises to map customer journeys from triggers, or the start of the journey, to desired outcomes.
John Koblinsky, director of research and insights at SAP Concur, explained the project further.
Briefly describe your project.
First, the business challenge. We needed to understand how the market buys, not just who the buyers are.
In B2B, decisions are made by multiple stakeholders with different priorities, layered on top of company-level need states.
Our first instinct was a classic segmentation to map those need states. But stakeholders struggled to activate segment definitions with the tools they had for audience targeting and content. The core question became: How do we use simple, actionable indicators – demographic/firmographic – to deliver more relevant, role specific content and messaging?
What methodology did you use for this project?
We reframed the work around the buyer journey:
- Map the beginning: Which triggers cause buyers to reevaluate their current solution?
- Clarify the end: Which features and business outcomes drive the ultimate decision?
- Cover all audiences: Understand similarities and differences across as many demographic and firmographic variables as possible to identify which ones mattered most and be able to act on them.
We turned to PSB Insights for help.
They proposed two MaxDiff exercises and helped us develop a new approach we call Journey MaxDiff: one MaxDiff to quantify triggers at the start of the journey, and another to rank features and outcomes at the decision point.
This gave us clean, prioritized lists for each audience rather than an abstract segmentation – far more approachable for activation.
We learned early that a traditional segmentation would be hard to act on. So, we ran exploratory interviews across marketing and sales to gather hypotheses on audiences, themes and benefits to test.
25 stakeholders were consulted overall, ensuring we captured the audiences they care about and the messaging pillars they work with.
Looking through two curated lists of attributes proved dramatically more usable than a dense segmentation deck – stakeholders could immediately discuss themes, messaging pillars, audiences and make decisions.
We provided a clear, audience-specific view of the buyer journey, highlighting the top triggers that prompt organizations to reevaluate their current solutions and the decision criteria that matter most at the selection stage. This gave stakeholders a practical lens into what truly drives action for each audience.
To make these insights actionable, we focused on simple demographic and firmographic indicators that teams could easily use in their existing tools. This approach removed complexity and made it possible to activate the research immediately.
Finally, we created a practical playbook that translates these insights into targeted strategies. It included guidance on how to tailor messaging, content and sales narratives for each stakeholder group, ensuring that every touchpoint aligned with what customers value most.
What effect did this project have on the business?
The project created a shared language across product, marketing and sales, giving all teams a clear view of the buyer journey from initial triggers to final decision criteria. This alignment drove consistency in strategy and execution while enabling new targeting and content paths based on the most common challenges and prioritized outcomes by customer job role.
Activation became faster and more practical. Instead of navigating a complex segmentation, teams could build campaigns and enablement from two simple lists – triggers and decision drivers – accelerating time to market.
These insights also informed product strategy, shaping roadmap priorities and strengthening value articulation for launches and sales plays.
Overall, this project made buyer understanding immediately usable. Anchoring on the start or triggers, and end decision criteria of real journeys and delivering concise MaxDiff based rankings by audience gave teams a practical way to empathize with buyers and act quickly.
It replaced theoretical segments with operational insight that people could point to, plan to and measure.
What does it mean to your team to be named a finalist in the 2025 Quirk’s Awards?
Being named a finalist is incredibly meaningful to me and my team.
I’ve been a Quirk’s reader and subscriber since starting my career, so to be recognized by a community that shares my passion for research is an honor. I’ve always admired seeing colleagues and friends featured in Quirk’s, and now having this work acknowledged feels both humbling and exciting.
The B2B category makes this recognition even more special. B2B marketing presents some of the most complex challenges in our field, and it’s where I’ve focused much of my career. Seeing this space – and the work we’ve done – receive attention reinforces the importance of tackling those challenges with creativity and rigor.
How do the insights from Journey MaxDiff differ from a traditional segmentation study?
As a client‑side researcher, I see three key differences.
Input and engagement. Journey MaxDiff made stakeholder input far easier. Instead of a 20-page segmentation questionnaire with multiple attribute batteries, we aligned on two focused lists – triggers and benefits – that marketing, sales and product could react to quickly and meaningfully.
Output and activation. Traditional segmentation is excellent for sizing the market and naming big drivers, but it’s hard to operationalize – innovation-focused or value-based segments don’t map neatly to real people.
Journey MaxDiff quantified why buyers re-enter the market and what they prioritize at decision by role. Then this method ties those insights to individuals using firmographic and demographic data. That meant my marketing team could, for example, build content for senior finance leaders from a rank-ordered list of their challenges and benefits. The simulator PSB Insights built from the double MaxDiff design was intuitive enough that stakeholders actually explored scenarios on their own – rare in my experience.
Cost and value. While we didn't scope a segmentation for comparison, in my experience Journey MaxDiff was much less expensive and, for this purpose, delivered greater practical value.