I’d like to issue a challenge to the entire world of B2B. I’d like us to stop being so defensive.

Okay, we’re not B2C. People don’t see our products in Walmart or see our ads on network television or in glossy glamour magazines.

But B2B is important because without B2B there wouldn’t be a B2C, for the most part.

In virtually any field you can name, dozens, if not hundreds, of B2B companies stand behind the one product or service marketed to consumers making the breakthroughs that give that product its unique functionality and performance.

Where would Apple be without the suppliers who make the chips that power the iPhone, the glass that enlivens the iPad’s touch screen, or the components that make all those Macs run? Where indeed?

Or imagine how many B2B companies had products on the Mars Rover that’s showing what’s happening on the planet next door?

And those are just a few of the more obvious examples of B2B companies helping to invent the future.

So, it’s in that vein that I call on our entire industry to join us at Godfrey in celebrating B2B companies for all they have accomplished in 2012.

We’d like to invite people to submit their list of B2B companies whose contributions changed the world in 2012.  Submit your nominations as comments to this blog and provide a brief explanation (less than 100 words).

Then keep coming back to this space to read what others have suggested and see who is shaping up as the 12 B2B companies who changed the world in 2012.