The process of building an e-commerce platform can seem like new ground to many B2B CEOs. Understanding the array of software options on the market, learning new phrases like ‘headless commerce’, being able to distinguish between a CMS and a DXP. These surface-level barriers can scare some away, but by digging a little deeper, every company head will find themselves in familiar territory.

A successful B2B commerce platform is built on an in-depth understanding of the customer. Awareness of customer needs. Knowing what causes friction in the purchasing process and how to work around it. The leadership team are experts in their industry and know what makes their customer base tick. By stripping away the excessive acronyms and complicated definitions, B2B commerce comes down to knowing what customers need.

At its very core, digital transformation is about making your company’s assets go further. Can the innovative thinking of the leadership team be implemented quicker? Can insights gathered from customer data be applied to other areas of the business? Can consumers be given an easier path to purchase? Digital transformation magnifies strengths by focusing on scalable improvements.

Brenntag: building a digital chemical business

For Brenntag, a German chemical distributor operating in 76 countries, implementing a digital transformation began with an appreciation of their industry. Brenntag’s world, the chemical sector, is heavily physical. However, digital transformation touches on each aspect of the business. At every turn, innovative digital approaches could be used to optimise and improve the efficiency of internal processes and ease the experience of customers.

The process of digital transformation was split along internal and external improvements that could be made. Working with DEPT®, the company put together a system of Internal Tooling that set out to improve the efficiency of their every day, internal processes. This includes features like Brenntag Source, an application for reviewing supply chain data. 

Use existing supply chain data to help your clients

The Brenntag Source feature can be used to filter data on different suppliers, giving Brenntag the information they need to engage in informed face-to-face negotiations with suppliers.

For the customer, this information can be turned into tracking software, keeping the buyer updated about the delivery of their purchase, and also informed about the sourcing, materials and manufacturing of their order. Good customer experience is what drives repeat purchasing, particularly in the manufacturing sector where trust is a key business driver. This added value can be what sets the company apart from its competition, as it puts the customer at the centre of the process, answering every question they may have.

On the external side, Brenntag Connect was created, an e-commerce portal that provides customers with information on the chemicals and orders that Brenntag provides, as well as a platform to track their security data, invoices and orders.

Make repeat purchasing a top priority

When planning a B2B commerce platform, it is important to think of the sector-specific rules that affect how it can be used. Due to the regulated nature of the chemical industry, Brenntag Connect is only available for customers that have gone through an intensive onboarding process. This means that users of the platform are likely to be committed, long term customers, therefore making repeat purchasing easy was a top priority. To this end, Brenntag implemented an automated repeat business function.

One of the key challenges for any commerce platform project is to establish a long term strategy. To start putting a system like this in place, put together a list of needs that the platform must fulfil. From this information, build a digital roadmap that outlines the steps your business will take over the next three years, each time responding to a customer need.

Digital transformation is a step-by-step journey, not an overnight makeover. By beginning with priority areas based on customer needs, your company can start serving customers better and begin the process of learning and adapting your e-commerce approach. 

Like any map, the route is liable to change based on real-time information. Data capture is a core need for any project, informing and ensuring that the decisions and actions taken are correct. What we measure, we can affect. In terms of a digital roadmap, see the data as you would see live traffic updates. Be ready to get past roadblocks by adapting the route.

To keep their digital transformation on track and ensure, Brenntag built DigiB, a digital innovation hub that operates autonomously from Brenntag. The organisation aims to rapidly accelerate their technological innovation across the business, running small scale projects that have the potential to scale, and aiding the implementation as Brenntag finds new, more efficient ways of operating.

The guiding motto of DigiB is “create it, launch it, learn from it.” Rather than taking the time to perfect every single release, adding months to the lead time, DigiB focuses on putting new projects into the marketplace. Release a smaller scale project. If it works, scale it up, if it doesn’t, take a step back and learn from the problems that users experienced. This way, every project is a worthwhile endeavour, creating a ‘succeed or learn’ mentality that fosters a strong corporate mentality.

Being able to create a company-wide culture that believes in the digital transformation project matters, as each department is able to offer input on how the key business goals can be achieved. Sales teams will be speaking to current and potential customers day in, day out. Operational teams will be using the internal tools each day, able to give feedback on what works and what is still missing. 

Each business will have a different priority when it comes to building a B2B e-commerce platform. This depends on the customer needs in each sector and any pressures that are placed on the business by industry regulations. The list below looks at some of the most common priorities, though each business is different.

Making product discovery clear and simple

Companies with a wide array of available products or services will benefit from making sure that the site is built to provide easy-to-understand information on each product. On each product page, aim to answer any question the customer could have; keeping the customer on the product page means more proximity to the checkout.

Easy product discovery also means clear categorisation of products. Many B2B suppliers and distributors provide highly specialised products; it is the company’s responsibility to make finding the appropriate specialised product simple. The less friction in the buyer’s journey, the more likely they are to purchase.

Enabling site search

An undervalued benefit of building an e-commerce platform, site search is an obvious boost to user experience, but also an important data gathering tool. For many visitors, site search is how they engage with the site. It’s the bridge between each page, expediting the process of finding a product to buy. In terms of user experience, various features can be implemented to aid their search, such as autofill, search correction suggestions, and the ability to filter results. For visitors that are used to the features offered by Google, these additions to site search are less an added bonus and more of an expectation.

With site search implemented, make sure to review the analytics software to follow the journeys that users take around the site. Each business spends a good chunk of time trying to understand buyer journeys; this feature gives users the ability to track each journey to purchase.

By putting an advanced search tool in place, your business is able to see the key information that customers gravitate towards. It also Indicates missing content that the business should create – the questions customers are asking but not finding the answer to. The business can also see which additional purchases are considered, but not added to the basket, showing potential sales activations to use. Working with Omron, DEPT® used site search analytics and the onsite tracking software Hotjar to see how the architecture of the site was impeding users from checking out.

Putting all this together, the information can be used to provide a much more personalised experience for each visitor. Personalising the shopping experience boosts e-commerce sales, in DEPT®’s ‘What Do Consumers Really Think Of Personalisation?’ study, we found that 38% of consumers would spend more if a brand uses personalisation relevant to their needs. For Omron, this resulted in a tailored experience based on whether the visitor self-identified as a distributor, a system integrator, an employee, an end-user, or a member of the press. Giving the appropriate information led to a 20% fall in bounce rate and a doubling of the average number of pages visited per session.

Logistics, lead time and availability

For a B2B commerce platform, providing detailed information on the manufacturing, shipping and delivery time is a key addition. Availability too, as nothing is more frustrating than finding the right product only to see it’s unavailable. This information is vital to future planning. It helps the customer plan their purchases and ensures they fit the time scale of their project. In an increasingly eco-conscious economy, being able to review shipping options and sourcing of products also allows the company to make the right decision based on environmental impact.

As a B2B supplier, think of the common questions that customers would ask, and that your business would ask of a supplier. Aim not only to answer these queries but to make the answers highly visible and in close proximity to the purchase.

Product comparison

For suppliers that offer a wide range of similar products, particularly those that specialise in a particular niche, giving site visitors the ability to compare products is an important benefit. Not only can they compare in detail each product, but they are also more likely to make the right purchase, boosting their opinion of the brand and making the customer more likely to return.

Crawl, walk, run

Whether your business is highly fluent in digital projects or new to the space, the journey to running a market-leading e-commerce platform begins with the first step. Rather than aiming to release the perfect platform, begin with agile projects. Focus on making an impact sooner rather than later and seeing what can be proved and what can be learned. Steady rollout of further features will create a system of constant improvement, always aiming to iterate and optimise. Each success will be reflected by customer sales and preference for your business.

The global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus changed our world in so many ways, seemingly overnight. People around the world stayed home for months (and many continue to do so now). Workers in every industry have been forced to figure out working remotely. Processes that were dependent on in-person physical or offline activities came to a grinding halt. The ability to operate digitally became not just a driver for economic success, but for societal success and even survival.

The pandemic has shown more than ever the value of digital. It has become crystal clear – the more digital a business, organisation or government is, the more resilient it is and the faster it can adapt to new situations. Digital safeguards jobs, essential supply chains, speed of support measures and delivers essential data and service streams to battle the current health pandemic. 

This article will share our recommendations on how you can embrace the new digital reality. 

But first, let’s look at how we got here.

The growing disconnect between consumer expectations and brands

Over the last five to ten years, as consumers have grown more digitally savvy and have shifted much of their daily lives and transactions to their devices, their expectations of the types of experiences they want from brands have grown disconnected from what many businesses have actually been delivering. Consumers were looking for consistent, intelligent interactions with their favorite brands, who should know who they are and what they want. While brands in some industries were making a lot of progress, such as retailers or media and entertainment companies, many were still struggling to fully embrace digital across every touchpoint with their end customers.

COVID-19 has exacerbated this issue. Not only were consumers left with no choice but to move their lives 100% digital, but companies had no choice but to meet them there or risk going out of business.

This has changed the game for innovation in many industries. Speed is critical, and the ability to innovate is non-negotiable. Recent data from McKinsey shows that we have vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of eight weeks. According to a survey from Vodafone, 39% of businesses said they’ve accelerated their digitalisation plans in response to the pandemic, and 36% said the most common reason was because the pandemic highlighted weaknesses in their business model. 

Today this means that banks have moved to remote sales and services, and launched digital outreach to provide flexible payment plans for loans and mortgages. Grocery stores have moved to online ordering and delivery. Schools have gone 100% online. Doctors have embraced telemedicine as their primary way to meet with non-emergency patients. Even luxury retailers like Burberry have shifted more sales to e-commerce (showing growth of 22% year over year) and have had to reimagine their customer experiences not as single channels, but as blended physical/digital journeys. The same holds true across many more industries who have made great strides in meeting consumer needs over the last few months. 

Data also suggests that this shift will not slow down even once we are past this pandemic. 75% of people using digital channels for the first time indicate that they will continue to use them even when things return to “normal.” Forrester predicts that the banking industry, in particular, will continue to adjust to the new digital reality, as “becoming more digital is now seen as a way to boost safety rather than just boosting profitability. They are focused more on building resilience, automating more tasks and encouraging customers to maintain some of their new digital habits that require less face-to-face interactions. 

The rules around innovation and customer experiences have fundamentally changed. They will never be the same again. Returning back to the pre-pandemic world and way of doing things will likely never happen. Instead, companies need to capitalise on this moment in history and reinvent themselves to serve new customer expectations and find new growth opportunities. 

In order to thrive in this new reality, businesses must build out their digital strategy across four main areas:

Building better customer experiences (CX)

The most successful businesses put the customer at the centre of everything they do. That’s what makes the difference between a good digital experience and a great one. Embracing digital means experimenting and building digital capabilities with a continuous focus on customer value.

Being ‘digital’ means more than having a website. Consumers today have more choices than ever. If their expectations are not met instantly and fully, they’ll simply move on. Brands need to provide meaningful touchpoints along the whole digital customer journey. Seamlessly across all channels, with an unwavering focus on the customer. 

One good example is the company UPPAbaby, which makes innovative, high-quality strollers and car seats. The company is known for its exceptional customer service and wanted to extend that high-quality experience to its customers through a mobile app that could support the entire customer journey. The app and its high touch features, including live one-on-one video chat, captures the quality of care UPPAbaby customers can expect following their purchase.

Companies must look to digitise processes, products, services and transactions by designing customer experiences that are suited to the digital reality we are living in. That’s no easy feat, but there are ways to get there. 

Design sprints, as an example, help brands in all industries to accelerate innovations and launch new products and experiences that are validated with customer feedback before they are fully built out. Built upon the methodology first introduced by Google Ventures, a design sprint is a proven process to validate a product vision before committing development resources. These sprints allow brands to test out new ideas with real customers and get clear data and customer feedback from a realistic prototype built in just over a week. 

Additionally, brands must take a hard look at the way their products and customer experiences are designed. Digital must be at the centre of these designs. Complex experiences must be simplified. In the case of Etos, a popular drugstore chain in the Netherlands, the company had to supplement its offline success with an online platform that could match the same level of personal advice, inspiration and ease of use from their physical stores that customers were accustomed to. The new Etos.nl is proof that an attractive design and a fantastic user experience go hand in hand.

Your customer experience is also driven by your marketing strategy. To stay top of mind for increasingly digital consumers, your marketing must account for the full customer journey. Your marketing needs to be memorable, tailored, high-impact and real-time to give your customers what they want before they even know they want it. Leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as marketing automation solutions, can help bridge the gap between your creative marketing efforts and what your customers really want and need to hear from you. 

For SteelSeries, a manufacturer of gaming peripherals and accessories, including headsets, keyboards, mice, and mousepads, the company reached a point where further market share growth could no longer be achieved by investing in lower-funnel marketing activities. Instead, the company evolved its strategy to embrace the full customer journey utilising personalised creatives and machine learning and soon found a 127% increase in their return on advertising spend (ROAS). 

In the end, by learning more about your clients, their needs, their behaviours, and how they use your product or service, you’ll be able to create better-connected services and experiences to meet and exceed their expectations.

A digital team to deliver

The need to move quickly has never been greater. The current crisis has forced businesses to find faster ways to operate and faster ways to work with their customers, suppliers and fellow employees. For example, a global telco provider redeployed 1,000 store employees to inside sales and retrained them in three weeks. 

That wouldn’t be possible without digital. Digital will continue to drive speed and agility in businesses across every industry going forward.

Chemical distribution manufacturer Brenntag acknowledged this fact a few years ago and launched a startup offshoot of the company to act as a platform for working on new design innovations, as well as to allow Brenntag to be more efficient and prioritise their customers’ experiences. 

You can put your company and team in a better position to thrive in the new digital reality by adopting flatter, more agile organisational models and multidisciplinary teams. Teams with the right mindset for achieving fast results, and that test and learn quickly. Companies that have led the way in adopting these models have shown substantial improvements in both execution pace and productivity according to McKinsey, and this has only accelerated during the pandemic. Organisations in every industry are scaling up digitally by creating interdisciplinary teams that are directly aligned to the business’ digital priorities.

For example, the Dutch bank ABN AMRO, started up an initiative outside the structures of the bank to try to reimagine the process for entrepreneurs to apply for loans and seek financial assistance. The New10 initiative offers entrepreneurs the best of two worlds: the flexibility of a startup with the financial knowledge of a well-established bank. Now entrepreneurs can apply for loans, upload financial data, sign contracts, etc. all digitally through New10. 

By identifying business areas where digital execution velocity is needed, organisations can develop plans to staff and support them and make necessary changes to their operating model to ensure teams are built to succeed. 

Flexible technology platforms and architectures

Businesses need the tools and platforms in place to accelerate digital growth. Once your digital reality is live, these systems will support and enable your teams to continuously measure and evolve. Because the digital reality is here for the long-run.

One such example of a company embracing digital technology to accelerate growth is Indigo Ag, which is focused on increasing our planet’s capacity to produce food sustainably through microbiology, machine learning and digital technologies. In order to reinvent agriculture, the company created software to support farmers every step of the way, from planting to crop harvest, delivery and payment. 

For technology to be a real driver of innovation and growth, businesses need to strike a balance between modernising their existing investments while capitalising on new innovations. Scalable platforms, API’s and flexible solutions drive revenue, flexibility and speed. Technology should no longer be a burden but a competitive advantage to successfully build your digital business. By serving a top-of-the-line digital customer experience, you put your business at the forefront of technology and at the top of its game.

With speed and agility being more important than ever, the key to success is to digitise specific business processes rather than attempting a complete digital overhaul of your tech systems. One example would be to take a look at your web and app strategies, as these are areas that can enable fast and scalable development, helping to unlock greater control over your users’ digital experiences.

Businesses should also be reevaluating their technology roadmap and looking at planned upgrades and updates to their existing software to ensure it aligns to the digital strategy that has become abundantly necessary in the last few months. This requires a keen understanding of your business challenges and your requirements to create a robust and flexible architecture that will help you serve your customers. For Johnson Matthey (JM), a global leader in sustainable technologies, there was a recognised need for an updated, more powerful content management system (CMS) to help futurise the company’s digital presence. The company’s digital estate was decentralised and disparate. With a business focus on adopting a digital-first approach, a centralised CMS (in this case, Sitecore) for all products, services, markets and languages was needed. 

Selecting the right tech partner is one of the most important decisions a modern business can make. The CMS, CRM and e-commerce platform markets are broad, and navigating the various offerings can be a challenge. But it’s important to choose a solution that will marry the long term and short term goals of your company and give you the tools to succeed both in a consumer-facing capacity and at an operational level. 

The time is now to build and accelerate your digital business

The need to digitise processes and customer experiences has been apparent for years, but it took a global pandemic to really accelerate the digital transformation of every industry in every part of the world. The idea of returning to a pre-pandemic “normal” is becoming increasingly far fetched, but in some ways maybe that will end up being a positive thing. Maybe the strides made in digital innovation during this challenging time will improve our lives so much that we won’t want to go back to the way things were before. 

So, the time is now. To build for speed, flexibility and customer experience. Going forward, businesses need to be in a position to quickly react, respond and adapt, and those businesses with a strong digital foundation will find themselves in a much better position to do just that. 

If you want to learn more, please join us on September 10th for a virtual talk we are hosting with Forrester Research. Our founder and CTO, Bart Manuel, will be joined by Forrester VP and Principal Analyst, Ted Schadler, to discuss the secrets for building and accelerating your digital business. Based on Forrester’s recent report, “Digital Rewrites the Rules of Business,” the talk will show you how the most successful brands and companies are using creativity, data and technology to deliver effective customer experiences. 

Face-to-face meetings between buyers and suppliers have always been central to building an ongoing relationship in the B2B world. Both parties benefit from the personal touch, and the ease of airing out any queries and sorting potential issues. With the coronavirus pandemic cancelling every booked face-to-face for the foreseeable future, buyers are now looking for a digital solution to the challenge.

At the same time, disruption to factory production has broken links in the global supply chain, creating the added challenge of buyers potentially needing to source new suppliers who are able to deliver. If lockdown measures have limited production or forced the temporary closure of a factory, these potential buyers need to be able to quickly find the solution that your business is offering. 

Supply chain disruption, combined with the difficulty of running in-person meetings, means the manufacturing sector must consider alternative options. McKinsey’s recent ‘Global B2B decision maker response to COVID-19 crisis’ survey covered what B2B decision makers are looking for when researching suppliers, tracking the importance of different digital features in this new marketplace. The survey looked at the UK, France, Italy, Spain,Germany, China, India, South Korea, Brazil and the US, and found that across the board, there’s an increase in demand for digital self-serve options that empower buyers to find their solution.

Onsite search is a priority

Across all surveyed countries, when asked “what ways of interacting with a supplier would be most beneficial to you when researching/considering suppliers going forward?”, the most popular choice was onsite search. Can a buyer visit the company website, search for the product they are looking for, easily find more information, and process their order? 

It’s important to consider this in terms of the purchase journey. Onsite search often comes early on; a quick guarantee that this company can supply the product they need. After the first point of contact, whether it’s a call, email, piece of direct mail or a self-initiated Google search or referral, the company website becomes the most important reference point, always answering questions that a potential customer may have.

For this reason, every manufacturer and supplier needs to ensure there is a search option onsite and that existing product and information pages are up-to-date with relevant information. Your CMS or commerce platform may provide a simple search feature to add to the site, but optimising the content for search requires a little more work. 

From a UX perspective, a visible and well-defined search bar will make it quick and easy for anyone to find products and information. This will result in fewer clicks and less time spent on the homepage. A faceted search will enhance the general search, enabling users to narrow down their search to category, price, product options and custom fields. All of this will improve the customer experience and help customers find what they’re looking for, quickly and easily. 

Having a well optimised on-site search also has the added benefit of providing further insight into what buyers are looking for and what the roadblocks to purchase are. This information is gold dust; it either shows demand, or it shows opportunity. For example, a product selling at a fairly low rate could actually be getting high search volume, indicating a potential opportunity for the business to push this product to the fore.

These search stat insights can also inform your business of developing trends in terms of customer demand or common difficulties. While there is nothing better than speaking one-to-one with a client about the challenges they are facing in the coming weeks, months and years, having clients visit your site and type their challenges into the search bar is a close second. Use this to tool your sales team with information on what common challenges are driving discussion in the industry. It’s also useful in optimising the messaging of onsite copy and any marketing campaigns your business is running. Reviewing search logs can also guide your business on what is currently missing from your site.

The preference for onsite search shows two important points. The buying and research process is digital-first and driven by self-serve opportunities. This shows a drift towards on demand information, giving buyers the ability to research at their own pace. This is backed up by the second preference — live chat. Rather than scheduled phone calls or back and forth emails, buyers are opting for the on demand option, enabling them to engage with potential suppliers when it suits their schedule.

Improving the customer experience with live chat & chatbots

A strong live chat system combines automated and staffed solutions. Like a customer service line, live chat conversations typically begin with a light automated opening that directs the visitor to the appropriate colleague for this conversation. Parts of this can be decided in the background, such as knowing which page the visitor is on and using this information to inform which representative joins the live chat. 

The added bonus for companies implementing a live chat or chatbot feature on site comes through an extra customer services option; through a flow of automated responses, a chatbot can help current customers find a quick solution, taking the strain off of call lines.

When looking at the surveyed countries in Europe, there is a soft preference for sales rep led interactions, showing the importance of a personal touch, even in an increasingly digital market. Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK all name face-to-face meetings in their top three ways of interacting with suppliers; a major challenge during the lockdown period.

The clear lockdown replacement is video calling. What is often ignored is the idea of availability. It’s generally understood that if a buyer wants to call a supplier, they can pick up the phone and dial a number listed on the site. The culture does not yet exist around video calling, meaning companies need to make it clear that their sales reps are ready for video calls should a buyer want to talk face-to-face.

Update your site design with information about video calling as an option, and speak about it in your outreach and marketing. Proactive options include video consultancy sessions, organised on a one-to-one basis or a gated livestream, available to viewers that sign up. This broadcasts the point that your business offers video conferencing to current and potential clients that are still interested in face-to-face discussions. With sales reps working from home, keeping the CRM system up to date with information from these video calls is a top priority.

Looking across to the APAC region, Brazil and the US, digital self-serve options fill the priority touchpoints for buyers, from apps to websites to social media. Knowing that these regions prioritise digital and self-serve is useful for suppliers and manufacturers in Europe that sell internationally. 

Increasing agility with headless

If you operate internationally, the already complex task of managing localisation is currently heightened, given the varying level of Covid-19 restraints in your operating markets. To speed up the delivery of localised messaging, content and microsites, you can consider moving to a headless technical architecture for your content management. 

A regular CMS connects a single front end (the sales channel that a customer interacts with), to a single back end (the operational side that processes payment and data and keeps the channel running). In this setup, changes to the front end must be reflected in the back end. This creates a fair amount of work if a company is running multiple websites, an app, or mobile-specific sites, as any updates must be repeated across each sales channel. A headless CMS connects each front end into a single back end. This means edits can be made to the front end without requiring a constant update to the back end. Launching new sites or creating an app for these new markets is a much more agile process with a headless architecture. For more of a deep dive into the benefits of headless and when to consider it, check out our webinar, ‘Moving with speed and agility with headless systems.’

It’s important to remember that this shift has been accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis, rather than being caused by it. The drift towards digital and self-serve options in the B2B space is part of a industry-wide move to online and on-demand that’s been building momentum over the past couple of years. Reorienting your operations to be more digital ensures relevance during the pandemic, but also provides a platform for the company to stay at the forefront of how buyer and supplier relationships function.

Each adjustment the business makes now should factor in the multi-year strategy for the business, an initial change that leads to a much wider digital transformation. Now is the perfect time to review your digital roadmap and accelerate the digitalisation plans that will make the biggest impact as we enter a period of recovery. To get started, check out our article, ‘How to Create a Tactical, Strategic Response to Covid-19’