GTM Tech: Consolidated vs Integrated

The pros and cons of how you set up your GTM Tech Stack

Every GTM stack is different and you (and the operations team that supports you) will always use a combination of different tools to achieve your goals. But every once in a while, you will be required to choose between an all-in-one platform that aims to do all or most of what you need, versus a collection of tools integrated together to achieve the outcome, probably with a nuanced approach.

Let’s first take a look at the difference between consolidated vs integrated and then discuss certain pros and cons…

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☝ FYI - You can also read about how we arrived at the current “Decentralised GTM Tech Stack” by reading this great Growth Unhinged article by Adam Hay… ☝

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Definitions

Consolidated: A platform serving multiple uses cases for a specific persona, usually vertically integrated and/or complimentary with several core features which are best-in-class. The benefit to end-customers results from core features and the improved user experience given the seamless integration of functionality. Optimising employee efficiency by giving teams an all in one solution through which to conduct much of their primary work. While these platforms will have many integrations but the primary value add occurs within their own platform and data sets and access is gated by the need for a license.

Examples:

Integrated: A combination of tools chosen for their very specific functionalities designed to solve for one particular task or objective. The focus is on a few pieces of core functionality and a significant range of integrations that allow for sequential enrichment and data flows to assist users (of any/most of the tools) in completing their tasks using the combination of capabilities. The primary value here comes from the ability to adapt a combination of tools working in harmony to achieve a very specific outcome efficiently.

Examples:

Let’s look at the pros and cons of these two approaches:

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Conclusions

You cannot entirely opt for one approach versus the other.

The key is to decide for your business, where you need to optimise for user-experience and convenience and where you need the absolute best piece of technology available for that specific task. Your consolidated vendors will (usually) provide a lot of implementation and CS support which is important as you will likely be onboarding and training a lot of new users. While a combination of numerous integrated platforms, in a stack of best-in-class GTM Tech, will require deep internal expertise to integrate and maximise its value (which takes time).

A general rule of thumb is if the process is standardised across any business (e.g. sales methodology) and a vendor plays a key role in upholding that process (e.g. Gong) then a more consolidated play could be optimal as a customer requires less flexibility.

If the use-case is unique to your business, complex and less well understood or provides an opportunity to truly different your GTM Motion, then that might suggest you need those expertise to be held internally. This means GTM Ops (or similar) managing an integrated and decentralised stack tailored to your specific needs. Providing maximum flexibility, performance and room for experimentation.

Once you have decided where which approach is most appropriate, you can then leverage the integrated approach to ensure tools and teams work in harmony.

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