Manufacturing
AI enables manufacturing buyers to shortlist suppliers earlier than ever. Our guide delivers a roadmap to convert early interest into lasting commitment.
The Future Buyer Report 2026
VML's deep-dive playbooks for driving enterprise B2B procurement growth across seven leading sectors
The Future Buyer is VML’s international study of how B2B buyers across seven major industries approach procurement and choose suppliers.
Building on the heritage of our long-running Future Shopper research, The Future Buyer examines seven priority industries across eight international markets – revealing both the forces reshaping enterprise purchasing and the sector differences that determine how suppliers earn attention, build confidence and turn preference into a decision.
To supercharge your B2B buying strategy in 2026 and beyond, our sector cuts investigate seven key industries: Manufacturing, Energy, Transportation, Finance, Professional Services, Telecommunications, and Healthcare & Beauty.
Download our Executive Summary and the sector reports below.
Download our Future Buyer Report 2026 Executive Summary
Join our Future Buyer expert discussion
Download our sector cuts here...
Watch our Future Buyer video...
The world of B2B marketing is being disrupted. 55% of buyers now begin supplier research with Generative AI. To win, your brand must be found by AI, trusted by people and approved by the buying group. Introducing The Future Buyer Report series by VML – a comprehensive study of modern B2B buying behavior based on first-party research with 750 buyers across eight international markets. Seven reports, seven industries – delivering a clear view of what influences buying decisions and how brands can act.
The future B2B supplier must be a procurement-ready partner who combines AI discoverability with human trust.
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FAQs
Generative AI has overtaken traditional search engines as the primary starting point for enterprise supplier research, with 55% of global B2B buyers beginning supplier discovery on GenAI platforms (compared to 45% using Google or Bing).
According to VML’s Future Buyer study of 750 global buyers, 74% of buyers frequently or always use AI to research suppliers, and 74% state they are likely to act on AI-generated recommendations. Furthermore, 31% expect an AI agent to serve as the primary evaluation mechanism for their next major purchase.
Brand discovery is happening before human outreach occurs. Suppliers must practice Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) by structuring product specifications, ROI data, and API integration credentials so AI search crawlers can parse and recommend them.
Defensibility bias is the phenomenon where enterprise buyers prioritize personal career preservation over business value, leading 71% of B2B buyers to select a well-known, "safe" legacy supplier over a competitor offering superior value.
80% of buyers actively consider the impact on their professional reputation when making purchase decisions, and 73% agree that an underperforming purchase would meaningfully damage their career. Consequently, brand reputation ranks as a top selection factor (49%) and the #1 shortlist tiebreaker (30%).
Challenger brands cannot win on price or feature superiority alone. To overcome defensibility bias, non-incumbent suppliers must equip internal champions with board-level risk mitigations, third-party analyst recognition (deemed essential or important by 65% of buyers), and verified customer case studies.
Enterprise purchasing power has consolidated away from front-line business unit leaders toward centralized corporate gatekeepers: Finance (63%), the C-suite (57%), and IT (56%) hold the greatest influence over final supplier approvals.
Business unit leaders hold meaningful sway in only 40% of major purchase decisions, while front-line sales (20%) and marketing (18%) rank near the bottom. Significant enterprise purchases now involve an average of 6.8 stakeholders globally and require an additional 5.35 weeks of internal alignment after a preferred supplier has already been identified.
Pitching solely to the departmental end-user creates a false sense of security. Suppliers must build multi-threaded sales collateral tailored specifically to financial ROI, data privacy, and systems integration to survive the centralized committee review.
Across all industries, 38% of significant enterprise purchasing initiatives stall or collapse entirely without a decision, primarily driven by risk and compliance concerns (39%) and budget or ROI uncertainty (34%).
Process friction compounds the problem: 31% fail due to shifts in corporate strategy, 27% cite procurement complexity, and 26% cite internal misalignment among the 6.8-person buying group. Deal abandonment peaks in Telecommunications (44.1%) and Finance (40.8%).
In enterprise sales, the true competitor is often internal inertia rather than a rival supplier. Suppliers must proactively de-risk decisions early by providing transparent pricing models (the #1 factor that makes a supplier easy to buy from at 39%) and clear, measurable implementation roadmaps.
While 64% of total B2B transactions are conducted digitally, buyers strongly reject end-to-end automation, with only 3% wanting a purely digital experience. Human expertise is demanded for commercial negotiation (47%), post-purchase issue escalation (43%), and evaluating complex or customized solutions (42%).
Traditional relationship-led pitching has lost influence in early discovery (where 36% form supplier preferences independently before speaking to sales). However, when two suppliers are functionally comparable, responsiveness and ease of working with the team is the #1 decision tiebreaker (22%), outranking brand reputation (18%) and price (14%).
The role of the B2B salesperson has shifted from pitching to consultative problem-solving. Sales teams must serve as technical and commercial advisors who step in to guide buyers through risk reviews, integration scoping, and contract negotiation.
