But supply chain management is a wide area for lots of activity — including pilot initiatives and full-scale rollouts, says a new survey of 1,700 supply chain management executives from Epicor, a developer of enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.

Supply chain managers benefit from generative AI

The survey found that a higher percentage of businesses (63%) that identify as high-growth have already integrated generative AI into their respective supply chain operations to manage cost and operational challenges. It defines high-growth businesses as those with revenue growth of 20% or more over the past three years.

Supply chain managers are integrating generative AI into digital supply chain operations across various function. According to the survey, those include:

• Product descriptions
• Customer service chatbots
• Natural language querying
• Reporting
• In-application assistance

At this point, 72% of organizations are using generative AI in customer service chatbots, survey data shows.

“This widespread implementation is attributed to the technology’s ability to streamline customer interactions across various sectors,” Epicor says.

Meanwhile, 67% of organizations currently employ generative AI for crafting product descriptions, leveraging the technology’s capacity to analyze customer sentiment and forecast market demand.

“This enables a more informed approach to product design and feature development,” according to the survey.

Additionally, businesses are also implementing machine learning most frequently in inventory optimization (45%) and demand forecasting (40%).

A big priority for the impact of automation technologies lies in increased efficiency and productivity (32%). Priorities also lie in cost savings (26%) and improved supply chain automation (23%).

“This reflects a strong belief in the potential of these technologies to drive significant improvements in supply chain management,” Epicor says.

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Shawn Cope

In Part 2 of our Machine Customers series, we further expand on the emerging $30 trillion business-to-AI (B2A) marketplace. In Part 1, “The coming era of machine customers,” we introduce the concept of a custobot, a “non-human economic actor who obtains goods or services in exchange for payment” (Gartner.) We shared an example of how it could work in practice, and in this second part, we discuss  the technological underpinnings in greater detail.

Kathleen Lewarchick

Since the decision-making around integrated machines is usually complex, we start with a typical custobot journey map. By capturing its flow, people can gain more clarity around their own roles of ownership, responsibility, IP, and security. And the journey really begins in just the first few seconds — dare we say nanoseconds? — within a transactional ecommerce environment.

The First Seconds of Your Machine Bot’s Journey

The first action step in a custobot’s journey is to identify a product need. The machine might do this through a regulated chip or sensor that provides data: examples include usage level, power level, or variations in tolerances. A data point (or need) drives a purchase occasion. You can see how a car wash soap machine (out of suds,) or a battery-powered system (out of juice,) might know when it’s time to reorder. But conditions requiring tight tolerances might be harder to manage, especially in cases where holiday seasonality or weather conditions may come to bear. And yet, predictive “machine customer” buying behavior is much farther ahead than you might imagine. Some vending soft drink machines have built-in thermometers, for example, to assess heat conditions (and pricing).

Once the need is identified, the custobot can use machine-learning and artificial intelligence to conduct a smart search. If the Bill of Materials (BOM) is programmed into a smart machine, the custobot can search on any of the keywords or specifications. If an item was previously searched, reviewed, or considered (through authentication,) that history might also be added to the query.

Once matches are found, the custobot can use pre-determined filters (like budgets, specs, brands) to then evaluate the shortlist of options for consideration. A custobot might know, for example, that there are two acceptable lightbulbs for its smart lamp. Because of the variability of pricing, shipping terms, delivery windows, and taxes, the distributor who gets the buy box or order will likely have the best real-time information and the most positive credentials, such as ratings-and-reviews.

The operative word in all of this is “smart.” Now is a good time to take measure of your ecosystem to determine where you are already ahead, and what obstacles you might have to navigate, in your platforms (ERPs, PIMs, DAMs) and other systems.

What to Do Next – Engaging Your Technical Experts

Data Preparation

On most B2B sites the current level of data is often quite sparse. Custobots will make purchasing decisions based primarily on information systems rather than personal relationships and will place a heavy emphasis on comparing a product’s attributes. This means you must vastly expand on the amount of detail available for a product’s specifications and attributes.

It also means that a strong push should be made towards standardized product attributes — now, while there is still runway left. According to Wes Smith, the President/CEO of the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED), through the IDEA’s data synchronization services, “the electrical industry continues to advance its product standardization effort, focusing on a goal of harmonized industry data that is consistent, compatible, and complete.”  IDEA is the Industry Data Exchange Association and is jointly owned by NAED and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA).

Why standardize? Because it benefits every participant in the customer journey and will do so for machine customers one day.

Streamlined Products and Pricing with Optional Authentication

Common to B2B websites is the practice of locking catalogues behind an authentication wall. This could shut out guest purchases and present a roadblock to acquiring new customers. However, when a custobot encounters a digital store front as either a guest or authenticated user and it finds limited or no products, a website may rank lower in algorithms, resulting in lost opportunities.

Similarly, in B2B, pricing for a particular product is negotiated per customer or contract, and the price is hidden behind authentication. This pricing method simply won’t work for a custobot that wants to purchase and must at least have an opening price point for comparison. While there is merit in having a better price for volume customers, standard advertised prices are needed at the very least so you don’t risk losing easy sales and lowering your preference rankings in algorithms.

Influencing the Industry Standards

Start Search Engine Optimization (SEO) now to influence the artificial intelligence (AI) models that future machine customers will leverage. If models think specific attributes (e.g., “fit” or “material”) are the most important factors in a buying decision and your products score well there, you will likely win customers based on this foundational groundwork. Large language models are known to have some inherent bias and setting authority for search terms is an important first-mover advantage in the world of machine customers.

In Summary

The coming world of machine customers is already well underway. Setting a place at the table for your new customer requires smart planning and preparation. Since digital moves quickly, start by gathering a cross-departmental, cross-functional team and identifying what people know and don’t know about machine customers. This team can then identify gaps in a custobot customer journey, and then work with subject matter experts to assess the feasibility of solutions.

Pairing Product Management with IT resources will help uncover roadblocks to data flow and create the right single source of truth for product and pricing management. Pairing Marketing and IT resources will help uncover roadblocks to the golden order through API and SEO management. At the very least, by this time next year, everyone in your organization should know what machine customers are and why the company’s digital and IT investments will continue to grow.

Say hello to the new face of customers.

About the authors:

Shawn Cope is the Director of Front-End Engineering for Xngage LLC, a B2B digital commerce services company with more than 60 clients across the industrial trades. Throughout his career he has cultivated a passion for bleeding-edge technologies and crafting user experiences.
Kathleen Leigh Lewarchick is the VP of Marketing for Xngage. She is the former PURELL® Hand Sanitizer Brand Director, has co-created automated replenishment products with Amazon Business, and created telehealth solutions for a company that she later helped sell to CVS Health. 

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There are “islands of trapped data,” Salesforce president and chief marketing officer Ariel Kelman said at the main keynote on May 22. And when it comes to using data for AI processes, everything starts with getting it all in one place.

“All of us are struggling with islands of trapped data across the enterprise,” Kelman said. “A lot of us have our core customer data in Salesforce, but a lot of us also have tons of customer data in different places. … If we’re going to have the ability to ground the AI in trusted data, we need to be able to have access to all of it.”

Salesforce president and chief marketing officer Ariel Kelman breaks down the steps that come with using artificial intelligence at an enterprise level at Connections 2024 in Chicago. Image credit: Digital Commerce 360

Salesforce Connections 2024 focuses on data integration

Kelman said this is why Salesforce created Einstein 1. Einstein refers to Salesforce’s platform that allows users to connect their data, customer relationship management and more using artificial intelligence. It takes all of Salesforce’s applications and AI capabilities and brings them together with Data Cloud. It also reaches out to data outside of Salesforce, he said.

“If you’ve done the work to organize your data in a data warehouse like Snowflake or Redshift, great, we can reach out to that data, and it can reside in those systems, but you can use it in Salesforce just like it was a standard object,” Kelman said.

The new AI and Data Cloud features include:

• Einstein Copilot for Merchants
• Einstein Copilot for Marketers
• Einstein Personalization
• Data Cloud

Meanwhile, Commerce Cloud updates include new features for:

• Salesforce Checkout
• Headless commerce capabilities for B2B
• Composable commerce enhancements for B2C
• Digital Engagement enhancements

Salesforce said its shoppable copilot will be generally available to customers starting in June. It will make its marketing copilot generally available in July and its merchant copilot in October, it said.

In North America, 76 of the top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. In 2022, those 76 online retailers combined for more than $116.97 billion in web sales.

Einstein trust layer

The Einstein trust layer is “a single platform that sits underneath every copilot experience you’re going to have,” said Michael Affronti, senior vice president and general manager of Commerce Cloud, at the main keynote on May 22.

Its main goal is to protect customer data, he said. Once a user enters a prompt, he said, Salesforce data masking and security “ensure that none of your raw customer information is ever passed outside your organizational boundary.”

The trust layer also includes a zero-retention policy, Affronti said. That means that once Salesforce software generates a response using a third-party large language model (LLM) such as ChatGPT, “they discard everything that was sent to them. So they never retain or train their models on your obfuscated customer data.”

New Salesforce AI and Data Cloud features

Among the features is a conversational AI tool that Salesforce referred to as a personal shopping assistant.

Salesforce displayed an example of its personal shopping assistant at Connections 2024 as one of the new features in its generative AI suite. Image credit: Salesforce

The tool, which appears on the front end of an ecommerce site, is a chatbot that can take shoppers directly to product detail pages (PDPs) and help them check out.

Salesforce says its Einstein Copilot for Merchants features an AI assistant that helps:

• Optimizes sales
• Guide storefront setup
• Generate personalized promotions
• Build web pages by using natural language prompts

A technology demo Digital Commerce 360 attended showed that the copilot provides insights based on all the data Einstein gathers across Salesforce assets to show merchants which products are selling well, which aren’t, and what actions the merchants can take to address these differences in sales. Those actions include both front-end and back-end changes to merchants’ websites.

The Einstein Copilot for Marketers allows users to include brand guidelines and produce AI-generated content for campaigns. Also on the marketing spectrum, Einstein Personalization uses real-time customer profiles — tied to Data Cloud — to identify consumers’ preferences and recommend digital marketing experiences that drive conversion.

Digital marketing via WhatsApp

Among the digital marketing experiences Salesforce displayed at Connections 2024 is an abandoned cart alert via WhatsApp. A merchant can trigger notifications to consumers via WhatsApp, offering a product that a consumer has viewed on a Salesforce-powered ecommerce platform. The Salesforce marketing software will then send a product recommendation with accompanying text, asking if the consumer would like to buy the product.

An example Salesforce displayed at a May 22 keynote was of a Solo Stove bonfire product. In the example, Solo Stove sends an AI-generated message with a picture of an outdoor bonfire. The consumer can then interact with the generative AI chatbot on WhatsApp. She can send a picture of her patio and ask if the bonfire will fit. The generative AI chatbot can then send an augmented reality (AR) image back to the consumer that displays the bonfire on the patio. From there, the chatbot asks if the consumer would like to buy the product, and she can make a purchase directly from WhatsApp using store credit card information via Salesforce Checkout.

Commerce Cloud updates for B2B and B2C

Among Salesforce’s updates to its Commerce Cloud is an update to Salesforce Checkout. With it, consumers can check out in one click, as Salesforce connects customers’ data using its Einstein 1 Platform. It gives the example that a consumer can purchase an air conditioner from a company’s website. Then, while someone from the company is installing the air conditioner, the customer can pay for the installation using the same checkout experience, with a stored payment method.

Salesforce also announced updates to its composable commerce offering for business-to-consumer (B2C) users. Composable commerce is an approach to ecommerce that allows businesses to combine software from different vendors into a unified website.

“Developers can combine or create templated, composable, and customizable headless approaches to B2C ecommerce site development” using Salesforce APIs (application programming interfaces).

This includes implementing:

• Personalization features on product listing pages (PLPs)
• Sitemap generation
• Store locators
• Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS)

Developers can pick from these offerings, adding to their ecommerce websites as they see fit.

On the B2B side, developers can implement headless commerce using APIs in Commerce Cloud.

Headless commerce is a type of ecommerce website structure that effectually separates the front end of a website (the user experience) from the back end of a website (the content management system where administrators typically make changes). In doing so, it allows brands to work on the front ends of their websites without going through web developers and IT teams, which often requires filing a service ticket.

“B2B commerce companies can also integrate with hundreds of apps developed by the Salesforce partner ecosystem on AppExchange, to build and scale headless commerce projects in record time with less complexity,” Salesforce says.

Salesforce says it will make the new checkout, composable commerce and headless B2B commerce capabilities available this summer.

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Paul do Forno

The impending surge of 16,000 SAP S/4 upgrades spotlights the back office as a pivotal and well-understood element foundational to business operations. Yet, within this widespread acknowledgment, a strategic opportunity surfaces: the front office, though often overshadowed, emerges as the key to unlocking new revenue and seizing untapped opportunities.

While the back office provides core capabilities, the front office presents a new pathway for businesses to venture into innovative realms or channels, driving growth and capitalizing on newfound potential.

Navigating the SAP S/4 wave

The heartbeat of this transformation lies in the need to upgrade back-office systems, specifically SAP S/4HANA. These SAP updates are triggering a surge in upgrades, aligning with the broader trend of technological advancements. The focus is not solely on customer-facing roles but encompasses the entire operational spectrum. Many companies find themselves at a crucial juncture — a crossroads that demands a holistic approach to updating both the back and front office.

The role of the back office in supporting and facilitating seamless operations and financials is paramount. Upgrading and maintaining these systems is not just about internal efficiency; it is a critical move to ensure customer satisfaction and drive overall business success. The synergy between the back and front office becomes evident as companies explore streamlining their back-office processes. Synchronizing the upgrade of the front office can help to pay for the back-office updates, ensuring a cohesive ERP system.

The front office, encompassing marketing, sales, service, and commerce, is the face of the company. Recent technological strides enable the synchronization of front- and back-office functions. This synchronization eradicates manual data entry, minimizing errors, and ensuring real-time access to customer data for the front office. Such streamlined operations facilitate personalized service and swift responses to market changes.

B2B commerce stands as a linchpin in the front office, seamlessly connecting with the back office. Think of B2B commerce as the digitization of B2B sales. The omnichannel view of B2B commerce, spanning direct commerce, B2B marketplaces, procurement commerce, and sales-assisted channels, is critical. This importance is further emphasized by a Forrester Research study projecting a 50% increase, reaching $3 trillion in B2B ecommerce over the next four years.

B2B Commerce: The Catalyst for Front-Office Growth

Today, customers prioritize companies who offer digital tools — officially putting the paper catalogs on the back burner. And if companies want to remain competitive and grow, they will need to have robust self-service options that users can not only opt into, but a system that allows for a smooth and seamless experience. And a robust, well-oiled front office has the potential to unlock more revenue, covering the investment made in upgrading both back- and front-office systems.

When companies firm up their front office by tapping into the array of digital tools that help them sell across channels — Omni-Channel B2B Commerce — the potential is limitless. They can provide an end-to-end digital sales experience that empowers them to more efficiently and effectively serve their customers through:

• Direct commerce / Customer Portal / Dealer Portals – a website that supports marketing and catalog management online. This also includes mobile responsive design.
• B2B marketplaces – a company’s own and third-party marketplaces in which companies can sell both their own products and facilitate others to sell via online marketplaces.
• Procurement commerce – a platform that facilitates buyers to access a supplier’s storefront from within the buyer’s own procurement application.
• Sales Assisted – allows direct connection with customers through call centers and online chats to complete orders or resolve any issues in a timely manner.

As B2B commerce is expected to grow over the next four years, digital transformation should be seen as a growth channel for any B2B company.

Success has been proven through a manufacturer’s recent digital transformation. While the investment was 24% for the front office, it resulted in 57% of the overall business value case in both the front and back office.

By investing in their front office, companies can help pay for their back-office upgrades — continuing to fuel strong revenue growth, building strong relationships with their customers as well as creating new efficiencies across their business, ultimately leading to easier sales processes and increased return of investment (ROI).

About the author:

Paul do Forno is the managing director of Deloitte Digital’s Commerce Practice.

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Peter Drozda, business operations manager, American Orthodontics

“The efficiency factor was especially important to support our continued growth,” says Peter Drozda, business operations manager at American Orthodontics. “We are selling complex products to demanding customers, and we need to ensure that the right product is ordered for the right purpose, without having to review every order.”

AO Direct B2B launch

The company’s new AO Direct B2B ecommerce site, he adds, was designed to ensure accurate product configuration and pricing and ordering through multiple channels. The channels include self-service ecommerce, punchout applications that connect a customer’s procurement software with AO Direct, and electronic data interchange. In addition, AO Direct supports the manufacturer’s sales and customer service agents with tools to onboard new customers. It also assists them through the buying process.

“Our new site ensures these requirements are met whether the customer is served from the ecommerce solution, punch-out, or EDI,” Drozda says.

The new AO Direct ecommerce site runs on ecommerce and content management technology from Optimizely Inc. and integrates with the manufacturer’s Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. American Orthodontics retained digital agency Avensia to deploy the new ecommerce platform.

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Josh Fischer

In our rapidly changing digital economy, retailers and B2B ecommerce companies face many challenges, including maintaining inventory, intense online competition, and concerns with market uncertainty and rising inflation. Additionally, a leading challenge that is rarely discussed is employee recruitment, staffing, and retention.

Consider that 47 million people quit their jobs last year, resulting in a severe staffing shortage for businesses across industries. Nearly 60% of job openings in both the wholesale and retail sector and durable goods manufacturing were left unfilled, per data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The data showed the wholesale and retail industry also experienced a “quit rate” of 3.3% in 2022, while durable goods manufacturing saw 2.1%.

The labor market’s complexities have left business leaders seeking ways to maintain and improve their operations while dealing with reduced staff. After all, you can’t hire employees that don’t desire to fill open positions.

Fortunately for merchants, another option is available. Intelligent business management software and automated technologies are helping drive retail success, enabling more modern workflows and agile business operations.

How Automation Helps Merchants Navigate Labor Shortages

Businesses are leveraging automated technologies, such as cloud ERP solutions, helping them manage accounting, finances, and projects and navigate today’s market challenges. A survey commissioned by software company UiPath found that nearly 80% of responding companies affected by labor shortages will invest in automation to offset the lack of workers.

By automating processes, companies can do more with less. For instance, implementing automated processes can allow B2B manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers to streamline tasks such as product data entry, fulfilling customer orders, inventory synchronization, and returns management without making additional hires. Automating these workflows helps increase efficiency by eliminating error-prone manual methods.

In addition, business management software and cloud ERP solutions enhance collaboration across the organization. By implementing intelligent business management software, businesses can gather and sync data from every department into a centralized database that delivers real-time data. As a result, the business can streamline workflows, automate business processes, and integrate disparate systems. Ultimately, companies can enable their existing talent to boost efficiency.

While automation requires fewer associates, it empowers and fulfills the experience of existing employees by equipping them with better tools and information. In other words, it’s an investment in your existing talent. Providing them with better tools allows employees to have satisfying workplace and customer interactions, enhance their workplace experience, and boost morale.

However, to be effective, business management software must engage the frontline workers and be easy for employees to understand, especially given the current high pace of turnover. Simply put, you don’t want to spend too much time training employees to utilize a complex automated technology if the industry turnover rate indicates a limited span of engagement.

Adapt to the Changing Industry with a Business Management Platform

Not only are retail companies facing a complex labor market, but they’re also dealing with an ever-evolving industry.

We regularly hear the word “disruption” when discussing the many industries that have been impacted by new technology. But no industry has been impacted quite like retail and B2B commerce.

What used to be a brick-and-motor industry is now an online-first industry. Shoppers scour the internet for the best deals and prices. Buying online and picking up in-store has become so common it received its own acronym: BOPIS. This new norm has deviated far from the historic definition of “retail,” and it’s not unique to B2C retailers.

B2B companies are realizing their buyers want the same online experiences when buying business-oriented goods. They want online resources and product information, self-service purchasing tools, customer pricing, and personalized experiences. Not to mention the rapid adoption of B2B companies (especially manufacturers) selling direct-to-consumer (D2C).

Customers expect merchants to keep pace with these breakneck-speed changes. How is it possible for these merchants to grow when faced with so much chaos? The answer for merchants is multi-faceted, yet simple:

1. Create outstanding customer experiences throughout every form of engagement
2. Maximize the number of channels in which your products can be found
3. Build a community around your buyers and convert your customers into loyal fans
4. Optimize and automate your back-office tasks (e.g., customer engagement, order fulfillment, returns, inventory management, and timely replenishments)
5. Continue to recruit new buyers while you draw existing customers back for recurring purchases

Digital natives have led the charge in adopting and utilizing new tools such as Shopify and BigCommerce to elevate customer engagement and experiences. However, this new generation of commerce leaders don’t have experience in supply chain and inventory management. Rather, they are community builders who identify the products that their audience desires, then use modern tools to connect the two.

Often, smaller merchants begin by selling products out of their garage or spare bedroom; but as they build their customer base, they experience an increase in sales across a range of channels. As a result, merchants must determine how to organize their business in a way that enables them to scale and manage higher volumes of orders, transactions, and customers.

Enter a business management platform.

With a business management platform, merchants can organize, automate, and efficiently operate their back-office operations. More specifically, these systems balance back-office workflow management (e.g., inventory, accounting, order fulfillments, etc.) with front-office tasks like customer experience. Merchants gain a better understanding of the supply chain and distribution process through data and analytics, enabling them to reach more customers.

Retail and B2B commerce will continue to be redefined. In the coming years, we’ll see technology like VR and AR change digital and physical purchasing experiences. We’ll see AI guide buyers through their purchasing decisions for appliances and help them purchase replacement parts and supplies autonomously. We’ll see the metaverse change what we think of as “retail stores.” Due to the newfound commoditization of online shopping, in-person stores will likely transition into more experience-based locations and distribution centers littered with technology that knows who customers are and what they’re interested in purchasing.

Digital technologies and cloud-based business management solutions will help merchants evolve with the shifting landscape and empower employees with tools and information that enable efficiency. The forward-thinking merchants that dare to implement these technologies will drive commerce success now and in the future.

About the Author:

Josh Fischer is director of product management, retail-commerce, at Acumatica, a provider of cloud-based enterprise resource planning technology. Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Co-founders Wellson Tao and Joe Milot went on to invest in the newest glove manufacturing technology and expanded into additional personal protective equipment for industrial and residential use. By 2015, with Milot as the president and CEO,  steady growth — both organic and through acquisitions — took PIP past $200 million in annual sales of industrial and construction markets.

Today, with Milot still at the helm, the Latham, New York-based wholesale manufacturer — commonly known as PIP — is riding a new wave of growth sparked by digital commerce.

PIP’s new headquarters in Latham, New York.

From a new 60,000-square-foot headquarters launched in June at twice the size of the company’s former head office, PIP operates with more than 1,500 employees across 20 global locations. With about 1.5 million square feet of warehouse space, it supplies more than 5,000 products under such brands as Boss, G-Tek and Ironcat industrial work gloves and Bouton “stylish safety” eyeglasses to more than 4,000 customers ranging from Turner Construction to aerospace giant Boeing Co. PIP’s West Chester division sells PPE to retailers as well as garden gloves packaged and designed for pro-contractors and D-I-Y consumers.

As a portfolio company now of Odyssey Investment Partners, PIP doesn’t publicize its revenue but notes that its business has surged the past two years.

Engaging customers however they choose

Fortunately for PIP, the company had deployed new digital commerce technology in 2019 to help process customers’ orders, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic thrust its industry into overdrive as demand surged for safety products.

But the pandemic was not the sole impetus for the manufacturer’s growth and its improved connection with customers.

Sheila Schalk, vice president of industrial sales, PIP

In recent years PIP has blended ecommerce, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence, product information management, marketing automation and other technology applications to better understand customers and interact with them based on their needs. Many of PIP’s channel partners operate on common technology platforms that integrate with the manufacturer’s ERP, making it easier for customers to place electronic data interchange (EDI) orders and also access inventory information.

PIP’s growth strategy is built in large part on its ability to engage customers wherever and however they choose, the company says.

“A big pillar is to be easy to do business with,” says Sheila Schalk, vice president of industrial sales. The ability of customers to “purchase any time of day was critical to us,” she says.

A new B2B ecommerce portal

PIP’s digital properties are built around PIPGlobal.com, its umbrella site for information on the company and its products and services. PIPGlobal.com includes links to 11 websites in the local languages of markets in the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Australia. Its visitors can get information on products available in their markets.

Anthony Di Giovanni, chief marketing officer, PIP

PIP does not sell direct to B2B end customers. For the United States, MyPIPUSA.com provides a self-service ordering portal — MyPIP.com — for PIP’s distributors. The portal runs on the Epicor Eclipse ecommerce platform, which integrates with PIP’s Epicor ERP system. MyPIP lets distributors place orders to satisfy the demand from their end customers. They can also check order status, and view and pay invoices. They can also preview full costs including freight.

Once an order is placed, “it can take as little as 15 minutes for pick, pack and ship,” says Anthony Di Giovanni, PIP’s chief marketing officer.

Outside of the MyPIP portal, end customers on PIPUSA.com can search among products. To place an order, they can use a rep-finder tool to locate and contact via email or phone the nearest PIP distributor sales reps. Distributors can also use the tool to get contact information for a PIP sales manager. PIPUSA.com also provides live chat and email contact with PIP customer service.

‘We want to adapt to our customers’

By offering a mix of self-service ecommerce and the option to place orders directly with sales reps and managers, PIP adheres to its policy of accommodating customers according to how they want to do business, Di Giovanni says.

“The goal is always that we want to adapt to our customers,” Di Giovanni says.  “We don’t want our customers to have to adapt to feel comfortable in how we use commerce technology.”

But PIP’s full suite of business software also enables the company to better serve customers in their chosen purchasing channel. That helps PIP to anticipate and respond to customers’ needs, the company says.

PIP processes about 30% of its orders electronically.

PIP processes about 30% of its customer orders electronically, including through self-service ecommerce, optical character recognition, and EDI. That level of electronic commerce, for one thing, helps PIP to maintain a high level of accuracy in order processing. With nearly all electronic orders going straight to a PIP warehouse, a recent tally found only 2% that needed personal attention to fix an order error, arrange for a back-order, or address some other issue, Di Giovanni says.

A crucial part of the integrated technology applications is PIP’s product information management system, or PIM. It ensures that the manufacturer’s product information is updated and accurate across all selling channels.

“The advantage of PIM is that it removes the critical need for all PIP global entities to be on the same ERP,” Schalk says. “PIM is the great equalizer.”

A strategic partner for distributors

The company also deploys business intelligence software along with complementary applications designed to help it better understand and service customers. Using a Revenue Intelligence suite of integrated CRM and business intelligence software from White Cup, PIP compiles and analyzes information on supply and customer demand to be more helpful to customers while also setting effective pricing strategies.

Like many companies, PIP has deployed a CRM system to modernize its sales team. Its taking its team from using paper notebooks to online electronic databases to manage customer accounts.

“We’ve taken CRM beyond that,”  Di Giovanni says. “We use CRM now as a tool to help gain insights into our business, uncover opportunities faster.”

As part of the White Cup suite, PIP’s CRM application integrates with the MITS BI business intelligence tool. The MITS tool compiles and analyzes customer data so PIP can provide a more helpful customer experience for PIP’s distributors and, in turn, the end customers those distributors sell to.

“That MITS tool has given us insights into our business, which allows us to ask better questions, make better decisions, and work faster for our customers  — and in many cases, tell them things about their business they didn’t know,” Di Giovanni says. “That really helps us be a strategic partner with distributors.”

Faster conversions of customer activity

The mix of CRM and business intelligence software also helps PIP move ahead more quickly on business opportunities.

“The business intelligence tools have allowed us to be two times more effective in converting customer meetings into opportunities,”  Schalk says.

For example, when a distributor asks in a meeting about past sales performance for a particular product category, PIP sales reps can immediately access that information online.

“We’re closing on those opportunities 75% faster than we were prior to having these business intelligence tools in place,” she adds.

To keep new business flowing into PIP, the company uses HubSpot marketing automation software to keep in touch with distributors and end customers. It entices them with the latest products and features helpful to the people who rely on PIP’s work gloves and other safety products in industrial settings, construction sites, and home gardens.

PIP’s mix of digital technology applications, Di Giovanni says, helps the wholesale manufacturer operate as a valuable partner to its distributors and, in turn, end customers.

“For us, it’s being able to use data in a way that allows us to continue to bring more value to our customers,” Di Giovanni says.

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George Anderson

It’s no secret that COVID disrupted the world of B2B ecommerce. Market trends and evolving customer expectations have pushed B2B vendors to transform faster than ever before.

In the realm of B2B ecommerce technology, we’re seeing several shifts in the market. Here are the top three trends that are defining new B2B ecommerce implementations.

1.—“Bolt-on” ERP integration isn’t working for manufacturers

Third-party-dependent integrations have never been great for organizations whose business lives in the ERP. If the company doesn’t have enough IT resources to dedicate to integration, data problems can arise—and ultimately, those become customer experience problems.

This trend is only intensifying as market pressures push companies to launch B2B ecommerce faster—and with all the integrations that customers need to complete transactions.

Conventional thinking said that a standalone platform was adequate for all organizations and all B2B use cases. If you needed ERP integration, you could choose from a wide range of third-party “connectors” to keep your ERP and your B2B ecommerce store in sync.

ERP-dependent organizations are finding this architecture unmanageable. It creates three duplicate systems (ERP, B2B ecommerce, and an integration solution), each with its own copy of all ERP data and logic. If business rules change in the ERP, you have to change them accordingly in the other two systems or synchronization will create errors.

Having three systems means you’ll need three separate teams. Whether you outsource that requirement or staff it in-house, it’s not cheap—and the chance of coordination problems is high. This is why we see an increasing demand for B2B ecommerce solutions that include real-time ERP integration.

2.—Integration-first platforms are empowering B2Bs to launch ecommerce fast

In the latest Wave Report for B2B Commerce, Forrester called out how integration-first platforms are disrupting the market.

“As monolithic technology becomes outdated and less effective, the providers that lead the pack demonstrate deep, prebuilt integrations and strong business user tooling.”

Given the pressures of the post-COVID world, it makes sense that the market would turn to alternative architectures for B2B ecommerce and ERP integration. And with customer-centric focus groups influencing the final shape of B2B ecommerce solutions, organizations are finding that they need ERP integration from the very start of the project. Without it, they can’t get realistic feedback from customers.

3.—Cloud is the way forward in B2B ecommerce

In the SAP market, we’re seeing an uptick in customers moving off of ECC 6.0 and onto S/4HANA. As economies continue to settle after COVID disruption, it appears that enterprises are at last beginning to migrate their ERPs to the cloud.

We’re seeing the same preference for cloud when it comes to B2B ecommerce. With rapid digital transformation now the norm, agile organizations can’t justify the intensive investment that’s required with on-premises or self-hosted solutions. And with today’s commoditized B2B ecommerce technology, it is generally easier to meet your needs with a SaaS solution than with a more traditional hosting model.

The old model for B2B ecommerce required vendors to arrange their own hosting, whether with hardware owned and maintained in-house, or through a hosting provider. While this model gave companies greater control over their solutions, it also put more responsibility on their shoulders.

With today’s fast-paced world of digital evolution, many organizations are finding they can’t pivot quickly enough with on-premise solutions. It’s a heavy lift for IT departments that are already scrambling in the wake of COVID disruption.

Whether it’s SaaS (software as a service) or PaaS (platform as a service), one thing is clear. Manufacturers and distributors need agile, scalable solutions for B2B ecommerce. That’s why they’re leveraging the economies of scale that only a cloud-hosted model can provide.

George Anderson is a marketing manager at Corevist Inc., which provides manufacturers with software to launch B2B ecommerce portals integrated with SAP ERP software. Connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn. A portion of this article first appeared on the Corevist blog. A portion of this article first appeared on the Corevist blog.

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George Anderson

When we talk about B2B ecommerce trends, there’s a lot of ground to cover. Strategy, technology, market trends—all these influence the decisions that are happening today in B2B ecommerce.

But what trends are emerging in customer experience? What’s getting priority in terms of customer-facing functionality—and what’s getting pushed to the back burner?

Here are five trends we’re seeing in B2B ecommerce customer experience.

1—In complex B2B scenarios, chatbots aren’t delivering if they aren’t manned by humans

While chatbots are a huge trend in B2B ecommerce, organizations are reevaluating their effectiveness. AI-driven chatbots are a great addition to B2C ecommerce, where customer questions (and answers) are fairly simple. But in B2B scenarios governed by complex, customer-specific ERP data and logic, unmanned chatbots may not be able to give customers the intelligence they need.

The key here is to ensure a real person (or team) is watching chatbot inquiries. While robotic responses can be helpful, there’s no guarantee that the chatbot is actually pointing your customer in the right direction (or answering with enough customer-specific intelligence to drive revenue).

2—Manufacturers are demanding customer personalization driven by ERP logic

If you look up B2B ecommerce trends, you’ll find a lot about personalization. Yet most B2B ecommerce platforms can’t deliver the personalization that customers actually need (at least, not without a complex ERP integration). The market talks about basic personalization like product recommendations and context-specific messages. And while these things are important, they’re not make-or-break for B2B ecommerce customers.

What personalization is essential?

Here’s what manufacturers’ customers are requesting.

• Real-time, personalized inventory availability;
• Personalized pricing governed by customer-specific ERP logic;
• Real-time, customer-specific credit status from the ERP displayed in B2B ecommerce;
• Real-time order simulation against ERP business rules (with intelligent error messaging returned to the user, to prevent order errors);
• Real-time order history and status for all orders logged in the ERP (not just those from B2B eCommerce);

While you can theoretically offer these personalization features with a non-integrated B2B platform (through third-party integration software), this architecture introduces unpredictable risk and cost when it’s supporting an integration of this complexity and depth. If any information gets out of sync, it creates a bad customer experience and drives up the cost of running your B2B ecommerce channel.

This is why we’re seeing an increasing preference for solutions that include built-in ERP integration.

3—Increasing demand for real-time inventory availability

While this B2B ecommerce trend fits neatly within the previous one, it’s worth calling this out on its own.

If you’re going to provide no other real-time ERP data in B2B ecommerce, you need accurate inventory quantities. And for ERP-dependent organizations, that means you need some form of real-time integration.

Manufacturers, in particular, are prioritizing this feature. With their customers needing certainty that they’ve claimed available stock when placing an order, manufacturers are finding that customers won’t use B2B ecommerce without inventory information.

Simply put, it’s too difficult for customers to tell if they’ll get what they need on time.

Which leads us to the next B2B trend.

4—Increasing customer demand for transparency around RDD (requested delivery dates)

We’re seeing this more and more with B2B ecommerce users. It’s not enough to know whether a product is in stock. Customers also need to know when their order will arrive.

For manufacturers whose entire business lives in the ERP, shipping time isn’t the only factor that determines this. The entire supply chain impacts the date when the order will arrive. With COVID disruptions still settling, some manufacturers are finding this impact larger than ever.

Hence the RDD (requested delivery date) logic that many organizations build out in their ERP. This calculation accounts for all factors that influence order arrival date—not only whether the material is in stock, but how quickly the supply chain can respond to demand that’s above stock levels.

As you can see, it’s a powerful calculation—and providing it in B2B ecommerce creates a great customer experience.

Without visibility into RDD in B2B ecommerce, customers will end up calling customer service to get answers. At scale, this takes a hands-free interaction (seamless order placement through B2B ecommerce) and turns it back into an expensive interaction (phone call, conversation, ERP check, callback, and order placement via phone or email, which requires another human intervention to rekey the order into the ERP).

The trends we’re seeing here are:

1) A preference for ERP-integrated solutions that can display RDD automatically, for every SKU, and

2) A willingness to clean up those RDD rules in the ERP if necessary (so they play nice in the B2B ecommerce solution).

5—Using B2B ecommerce to empower sales teams to provide customer-specific upselling/cross-selling recommendations

Here’s a creative trend in B2B ecommerce: using the solution as a portal for sales reps to recommend products to customers (and maybe even place orders on behalf of customers).

The key is a B2B ecommerce platform that maps each sales rep user to the customer accounts assigned to them in the ERP. This allows the sales rep to select a customer account from a drop-down, then see whatever unique product catalog you’ve defined for that customer in the ERP—including any related product rules.

This is a great way to leverage your ERP-defined product relationships for sales. B2B ecommerce is easier to use than an SAP GUI, or graphical user interface, (if you’re on SAP ERP) so it’s a no-brainer to make the portal available for reps in addition to customers.

In fact, we’ve even seen companies start with sales reps when they launch B2B ecommerce. With reps included in the project from the very beginning, you ensure the solution has their concerns baked in. This empowers them to be motivated evangelists who take B2B ecommerce to customers. It’s a brilliant strategy, and it’s working for real manufacturers.

George Anderson is a marketing manager at Corevist Inc., which provides manufacturers with software to launch B2B ecommerce portals integrated with SAP ERP software. Connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn. A portion of this article first appeared on the Corevist blog.

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George Anderson

If the year of the pandemic taught us one thing, it’s this: Expect disruption.

That’s been true in all areas of life, and we’ve definitely seen it in the world of B2B ecommerce. The trends that have emerged in the wake of the pandemic look a little different than the predictions of analysts and vendors c. 2019.

So where are things headed in B2B ecommerce? What trends matter for your business?

Here are the top eight trends we’re seeing driven by the market at large:

1. Manufacturers are rolling out B2B ecommerce to existing customers first.

While marketing materials on B2B ecommerce platforms tend to focus on reaching new customers, we don’t see this preference among manufacturers.

In fact, we see the opposite. Organizations are choosing an incremental approach, launching B2B ecommerce for existing customers first. Onboarding this captive audience of dedicated buyers can create a quick win—and it demonstrates the viability of B2B ecommerce to internal stakeholders. Organizations that choose a scalable solution (one with built-in ERP integration) are primed to grow their market footprint after transitioning existing business to B2B ecommerce.

2. Pressure is building to make the organization more efficient through B2B ecommerce.

There are three common drivers that push an organization to adopt B2B ecommerce.

• The need to improve customer experience
• The need to grow revenue
• The need to cut costs and become more efficient

Usually, all three drivers coexist at any given organization. Yet we’re seeing an increase in organizations looking to become more efficient—particularly manufacturers that still rely on phone, fax and email for order placement and order inquiry. (Incidentally, replacing those processes with B2B ecommerce not only increases efficiency—it also improves customer experience. But we digress!)

While global economies have already begun to recover from the impact of COVID, life is still very different in the B2B world. Reduced workforce availability and unusual lead times for order fulfillment have put more pressure than ever on B2B organizations. Any saving of cost or time in the OTC (order-to-cash) cycle is a welcome benefit, and B2B ecommerce is the primary driver of increased efficiency here.

3. The death of the non-integrated B2B proof of concept.

This B2B trend is directly related to the first. If you’re going to take an incremental approach, starting with existing customers, you need a solution that can actually meet their needs for real-time ERP data and logic. Without features like personalized pricing or real-time inventory and credit status in B2B ecommerce, existing customers won’t be able to do business with you.

Right away, that rules out the disconnected B2B ecommerce proof of concept. If existing customers can’t use it, it doesn’t really prove anything to them (or the organization). This problem is pushing organizations to get serious about ERP integration from the very beginning.

4. Everyone wants “quick win” customer portals that scale up to B2B ecommerce.

We saw this trend before the pandemic, but COVID intensified it.

Many organizations, particularly manufacturers, get nervous when they look at giant B2B ecommerce platforms and rollouts that take a year or more. They may dream of having that flashy catalog and all those merchandising capabilities, but if they can’t get their product content together—or they can’t imagine how their complex business processes will translate to a B2B ecommerce experience—then they have a hard time committing.

This is why manufacturers are starting their digital journeys with customer self-service portals. With an ERP-integrated solution, manufacturers can launch a portal for routine post-order care. This empowers existing customers to track orders, invoices and payments on their own—without calling customer service.

A successful portal gives manufacturers the cost savings (and the internal political capital) to get more ambitious with B2B ecommerce. The key is to choose a portal solution that 1) includes ERP integration, and 2) expands to full B2B ecommerce functionality on the same ERP-integrated architecture.

5. Marketplaces are forcing manufacturers to define their B2B ecommerce strategy.

Are online marketplaces friends or foes of manufacturers?

Actually, they’re both.

Online marketplaces offer incredible opportunities in B2B ecommerce. Yet they have no incentive to protect a manufacturer’s interests. Fundamentally, the interests of online marketplaces are not aligned with those of any one merchant. Their algorithms will suggest a different product if that’s what it takes to get the sale.

So what does this mean for manufacturers?

It means these organizations must define their B2B ecommerce strategies. That could mean a marketplace presence, or it could mean a privately owned B2B ecommerce store—or both. The answer depends on factors like how commoditized your products are and how much B2B ecommerce data you want to gather. (You can gather far more data from a privately-owned B2B ecommerce solution.)

6. Millennials are pushing organizations to deliver great B2B ecommerce experiences.

Millennials’ first priority in choosing vendors is the ease of doing business. This stands in contrast to Gen X (who prefer quality of service and products) and Baby Boomers (who prioritize getting things fast), according to an IBM report on Millennials and B2B marketing.

“Ease of doing business” means different things at different organizations. However, for manufacturers whose entire business lives in the ERP, it means one thing for sure. B2B ecommerce should provide the same personalized, real-time ERP data that millennials could get over the phone—because they’re not going to pick up the phone if they can help it.

7. After COVID, digital self-service is the new normal in B2B sales.

COVID pushed B2B sales away from human interaction and toward self-service. At the height of the pandemic, analysts were predicting that this shift would last permanently. Many organizations weren’t ready—and many are still grappling with the repercussions of not having a self-service digital channel.

But is the shift still in effect?

Absolutely. Check out this amazing set of interactive graphs from McKinsey & Company. No matter how you slice it, digital self-service is dominating the B2B buyer journey. That trend is pushing B2B organizations toward ecommerce and customer portals.

8. Mobile is growing fast, but it’s still a small segment of total B2B ecommerce traffic.

At this point, there’s no question you need a mobile-optimized experience (and no question that you can deliver one with any major platform). Any B2B ecommerce platform worth its salt should work great on mobile.

But how dominant is mobile, really?

Here’s what the data says for Corevist clients, who are primarily manufacturers running on SAP ERP. This data compares the period Jan. 1, 2020 – Aug. 25, 2021 to the previous period (May 8, 2018 – Dec. 31, 2019) for all Corevist clients in aggregate:

Here are the takeaways:

• Yes, mobile is growing fast, climbing 56.13% over the last three years.
• But mobile still accounts for a small fraction (3-5%) of all sessions on all Corevist Commerce storefronts.
• Desktop is still the dominant device for manufacturers’ customers, delivering 93% of all sessions on all Corevist Commerce storefronts.

The Takeaway

While the digital landscape continues to shift rapidly, there’s no more exciting time for organizations to explore B2B ecommerce. With diligent market research and deep understanding of customer needs, B2B companies can find new opportunities to win with ecommerce and customer portals.

George Anderson is a marketing manager at Corevist Inc., which provides manufacturers with software to launch B2B ecommerce portals integrated with SAP ERP software. Connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn. A portion of this article first appeared on the Corevist blog.

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