Transforming Manufacturing Sales With Composable Commerce

An objective look at how manufacturing operations can be improved and prepped for scalable growth by introducing composable commerce architecture.

“Digitization is going to touch every aspect of our business. I can´t imagine ten years from now that whether it’s our businesses, our manufacturing, our financial systems, our human-resource systems — it will just be so imbued into every process, every function, every connection that we make.” ”  - Alex Gorsky, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey & Co, CEO dialogue: Perspectives on reimagining operations for growth 

Digital-first initiatives are sweeping through every industry and sector at breakneck speed. Building for the future, manufacturers are looking for ways to improve processes, meet the demands of new, digital-savvy buyers and increase profits. One way to do that is to restructure your technical architecture using composable commerce.

What is composable commerce, and why is it the way of the future?

What is composable commerce?

“Composable commerce is a development approach of selecting best-of-breed commerce components and combining or ‘composing’ them into a custom application built for specific business needs.” - Sitecore, What is composable commerce?

Composable commerce aims to provide flexibility, adaptability, and future-proofing through integrations and API technologies.

The architecture diagram on the right visually represents an optimized composable setup. All of the business systems are integrated, allowing for full digital transformation. This setup allows manufacturing organizations to make changes to a single system without having the change affect the other systems.

For example, if a manufacturer’s CPQ software needs an upgrade or replacement, a development team can work on that single system without taking down other connected systems.

Why composable is the future of architecture.

Composable is the way of the future for organizations that want to become more agile and increase speed-to-market with digital initiatives. Composable commerce allows manufacturers to leverage modern technologies and development approaches instead of forcing their business models to fit into standard, limiting SaaS platform capabilities. 

Manufacturing organizations can tailor and customize their digital infrastructure to fit their business needs by building a modular, best-of-breed commerce solution from smaller components. Each component is a self-contained system that can be deployed independently and is key to supporting agile delivery, faster time-to-market and improved customer experiences across all touchpoints. 

How can composable commerce benefit manufacturers?

With that little background on composable commerce, let’s dive into why manufacturers should move towards a composable commerce solution and enable digital sales. The benefits are substantial over the long run, including a shorter sales cycle, improved resiliency, and better workforce engagement.

Shortening the manufacturing sales cycle

Shortening the sales cycle is a great business outcome and a sure way to gain a competitive advantage, no matter the industry. Let’s look at this topic from two different perspectives: the new generation of buyers and what they want in a purchasing experience and how digital sales enablement improves the sales process, making it faster.

Digital-savvy manufacturing buyers are taking over.

Up-and-coming generations raised on digital-first processes are driving change in the manufacturing industry. These new B2B and manufacturing buyers independently research and learn about products and services. This new process bypasses the traditional outreach methods used in person-to-person sales. 

Instead of waiting for a sales rep to supply a product spec sheet, digital-savvy buyers expect to get all the specs they need from a manufacturer’s website. Up to 70% of buyers define what they want on their own before interacting with a salesperson, as per CSO Insights.
According to Gartner, manufacturing buyers today only spend 17% of their pre-purchase time meeting with sales reps. Instead, they spend 45% of their time doing independent research, most of it online. 

These stats illustrate that selling today is more reactive to buyers’ needs than trying to convince them to make a purchase. A salesperson needs to respond to buyers’ questions and provide them with what they need to make a decision. Salespeople still lend their expertise, but more as product experts than sales experts.

Enabling digital-first sales in manufacturing.

Traditionally, manufacturing buyers are identified and cultivated through a salesperson’s interaction. Leads from various sources, including previous customers. Then the salesperson calls on and creates a one-on-one relationship with the prospective customer. It was all phone calls, face-to-face meetings, and even business lunches and dinners. In other words, an old-school, hands-on, time and resource-consuming process.

Manufacturers can substantially shorten the sales cycle by moving to a digital sales model. Rather than spending weeks or even months nurturing an existing customer relationship in person, digitally-enabled sales teams can respond to customer inquiries and requests for quotes on the same day. 

Sales teams can establish digital relationships in days with well-crafted emails and face-to-face video calls for new prospects. There is no lag time; everything moves faster, so you can dramatically shorten the entire sales process.

It is pretty clear, especially since the start of the COVID pandemic, that digital communication is replacing in-person visits. Websites and email queries generate the bulk of new leads. Initial sales inquiries and quote requests come through email or Zoom video calls. There’s more work done on the computer and less in-person and over the phone.

Shortening the manufacturing sales cycle involves using technology to serve the customer better, putting more power in the hands of buyers, and eliminating inefficient and costly ways of doing business. When manufacturers shorten their sales cycle, the long-standing benefits are reduced and improved customer service. It’s a win-win for all concerned.

Improving resiliency

By 2024, 20% of Global 2000 CEOs will report an increased appetite for risk and improved resilience, both attributed to modular business redesign. - Gartner, Becoming Composable: A Gartner Trend Insight Report

Successful businesses understand the need for immediate change and agility. Composable business models based on independent modular components can be separately adjusted and changed, making companies ready for disruptive change. A composable business can immediately respond to a demand surge for existing products or test and offer new products and services with agility.

Incremental changes will make an organization more adaptable and resilient with composable commerce and an agile development approach. These improvements will also fuel the desire for digital transformation and lead organizations toward renewed growth.

Better engagement from the workforce

Buyers are not the only digital-savvy audience in a manufacturing organization. As more and more hires fall into the millennial and Gen Z demographic, employers will be better situated to attract talent if they have a digital-first policy. Successful manufacturers will keep the workforce at the core of the digital approach to keep them engaged and wanting to continue the digital transformation journey. 

Employee development strategies like continuous learning and career growth paths help ensure workers remain connected, integrated, and directly involved with technology transformations. It also sets employees up with the expertise needed to contribute to future innovation within the industry.

Composable means connected, agile and scalable.

Leading organizations connect and scale digital solutions along their entire value chain from production to support functions, including HR, finance, and IT. A composable commerce architecture design prepares your organization to be able to make business decisions that would have been too risky without the modularity it offers. Everything is modular and changeable; change is an essential tool, no longer a threat or burden. 

When applied to people, systems, processes and business architecture similarly, this new way of thinking forms a brand-new culture and fosters new behaviours that ultimately lead to progress and continued innovation throughout the organization.