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Back in 2015, a Forrester article on ‘Winning In the Age of the Customer’ announced ‘the age of the customer is here.’ Now, almost a decade later, success in B2C (business to consumer) means giving customers a super-targeted and personal shopping experience.
These customer expectations are inevitably starting to inhabit the B2B space. Buyers are coming to demand the same high-quality experience from their B2B transactions as they get from their favorite B2C eCommerce sites.
Those responsible for choosing suppliers start to favor those that offer a B2C level of efficient, seamless, targeted customer experience.
Not only is this critical to winning new business, but existing customers with a better or easier experience are proven to buy more. Forbes reports that “Companies with a customer experience mindset drive revenue 4-8% higher than the rest of their industries.” We can expect this effect to be increasingly reflected in the B2B space, as digital commerce continues to grow.
How B2B Connected Commerce wins business
A recent Forbes article , ‘5 B2B eCommerce Trends to Watch’ includes ‘offering a consumer grade sales experience’, ‘elevating the customer experience’ and ‘automating key business processes’ as three of the key investment trends for B2B leaders.
In the ‘age of the customer,’ winning business is about finding new ways to enhance the experience that B2B suppliers give their buyers. B2B Connected Commerce, which bridges the gap between supplier eCommerce systems and buyer eProcurement/ERP solutions, is a key enabler for delivering the elevated, personalized experience customers expect.
B2B Connected Commerce solutions provide a competitive edge and often decide which supplier gains a larger share of a customer’s spend. It allows suppliers to give their customers a B2C-like experience by:
- Offering negotiated pricing
- Accessing real-time inventory levels
- Centralizing spend
Connecting eProcurement and eCommerce platforms in real time ensures the information the buyer is working with is always accurate, up-to-date, and tailored to their requirements. Every transaction in the purchase to pay (P2P) process flows transparently and reliably across platforms.
A connected B2B PunchOut catalog behaves exactly like any B2C eCommerce site, by seamlessly integrating the buyer and supplier components of ordering from the catalog.
Approvals are streamlined, and purchase orders and invoices are managed through an automated process that eliminates or minimizes the errors and delays that happen in a manual or semi-automated process.
B2B Connected Commerce with Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)
In the realm of B2B connected commerce, Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) plays a pivotal role in delivering top-notch capabilities for the ‘age of the customer.’
This approach to B2B connected commerce is characterized by a commitment to:
- Developing, optimizing, and supporting streamlined process flows
- Ensuring compliance and currency across evolving customer eCommerce and eProcurement platforms
Leading companies partner with specialized software firms such as TradeCentric to build, scale, and maintain these integrations for a more seamless experience.
What’s next?
To find out more about how TradeCentric can help you deliver a personalized B2B shopping experience that can win business for your organization, follow us on LinkedIn, or contact us.
