Posted in Digital Transformation
April 20, 2022
B2B digital transformation – part one
Recently, our good pal Matt Gomez posted a video on this subject, and it inspired me to make a podcast on the same topic, which leads me to this article.
Check out the video and podcast for part one of B2B digital transformation
Listen to the podcast
Listen to this post using the player, or subscribe using Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts.
As Matt mentions in his video, and as you can probably tell by the title of this article, digital transformation for B2B companies happens in, you got it, two parts or phases.
Phase one centers around identifying the need within your organization for digital transformation. Phase two is all about finding the right partner agency. Experts to guide you through the changes you need, the development of your project, and essentially bring it all together.
Identifying the need for digital transformation in B2B
Quite a few triggers lead a B2B business to embark on digital transformation. Sometimes, it is due to company leaders that want to breed innovation and improvement. Sometimes, it is because there are outside pressures and competition that force an evolution.
Some of the most common reasons we see for a B2B company to start going down the digital transformation path include:
- A desire to digitize antiquated systems like inventory or fulfillment.
- A need to connect legacy systems such as CRM, ERP and PIM platforms to improve data flow.
- Pressure to build innovative digital assets to improve user experience, internally and externally.
- Competitive stress pushes them to improve online offerings to keep up with their business opponents.
- Realization of an opportunity to gain a competitive edge through digital transformation.
Why is digital commerce, or ecommerce, key for B2B?
Having a digital-first mentality is fast becoming one of the most effective ways for B2B organizations to reach their clients, with pandemic restrictions and changes in buying behaviour being the catalysts for this change of mind.
B2B customers expect to be able to have an ecommerce experience, but the B2B ecommerce experience is not the same as a B2C ecommerce experience.
B2B ecommerce can be as simple as an online catalogue, with an add-to-cart function and online credit card payment, but generally, it is much more complex.
Ecommerce platforms for B2B need to be able to connect with specific account information and pricelists, custom products, custom quotes, connect sales team, allow for purchase orders and payment terms, quick reordering functions, account history, suggested and related products, etc.
And this is only from the customer side. You need accounting integrations, inventory integration, and marketing integration from the business side. Much of this can be automated through an ecommerce architecture, increasing efficiency and improving profits.
Won’t having online sales eliminate our sales teams’ jobs?
As we outline in our article How B2B digital transformation impacts sales teams, digital commerce for B2B is meant to help sales teams, not replace them.
Build your B2B digital commerce assets with the purpose of augmenting your sales team's efforts, not reducing them or handcuffing them.
Digitally available product information, such as online catalogues, means easier access to the product specs and speeds up the customer education process for the sales cycle.
Ecommerce also gives sales teams better tools to be able to show off products while meeting face-to-face. Think product videos and interactive content.
B2B organizations can create tools that allow for on-the-fly quoting with digital commerce. Tools like this can shorten the sales cycle further and frees up time for sales teams to hunt new clients.
Having an online digital commerce system also allows businesses to reach locations they physically couldn’t before. Scaling and growing the business becomes faster with the right digital assets in place.
For all of these reasons, B2B organizations are prioritizing the move to digital commerce. Those companies that don’t will be left in the wake of online leaders.
That wraps up part one of digital transformation for B2B. Stay tuned to the AcroCast for part 2 in the coming weeks.